May 18, 2010

New Toys for Travelomo

Posted by travelomo under Gear, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

After five weeks in the United States of America, traveling from West Coast to Midwest to East Coast and back to California, enjoying the cold spring weather, I am finally back in sunny, sweltering, seething Manila. We did the whole John Candy – Steve Martin bit, riding Planes, Trains and Automobiles plus a few bus rides thrown in for effect. While I wasn’t able to find and purchase that Stereo Realist camera I’d been pining for (and still do), I was able to pick up three new toys for my camera bag.

Nishika N8000 and N9000

Both cameras are 4-lens lenticular 3D cameras from the Eighties. The N9000 is the newer model. It’s more compact and only has two aperture settings, cloudy and sunny. As far as I can tell it doesn’t really provide any metering and is more the toy of the two. The N8000 has a heftier bulkier build, comes with an additional flash aperture setting, and has a built-in albeit primitive exposure alert. Yes, this is my second N8000, but the first one I had I received in pretty bad shape. Time for that one to retire after a year of faithful service (having shot Lady Gaga, Charley Boorman, Marie Digby and a bunch of local celebs).

Kodak Playsport

The third toy I picked up is the recently-released Kodak Playsport, a compact HD video camera with 5MP still photo capability. It’s Kodak’s answer to the Flip MINO HD, but uses SD cards instead of built-in storage. It can shoot in WVGA, 720p (30/60fps) and 1080p. While the video won’t ever compare with even the lowest-end Sony HD Handycam, it’s still a very useful tool to have when you want to capture more than just still shots. What’s more, it’s waterproof up to 3 meters. I liked this so much I bought three more of these haha! One for my dad, and two bought for friends. At only USD150 (and cheaper if you buy through Amazon), these things are a steal. Just remember to buy extra batteries because the included batteries are shit.

It’ll be a while before I manage to sort out the 36 or 38 rolls of 110 and 135 film I shot during the trip and over 35GB worth of digital photos, so, in the meantime, here’s something I shot using the Playsport.

 

September 7, 2009

Creating 3D Animated GIFs

Posted by travelomo under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , |
[7] Comments 

Last week a reader dropped me an email asking how I create “wiggle 3D” animations from my lenticular camera photos. He’d recently bought a Nishika N8000 package complete with flash, case and Vincent Price video and was eager to try his hand at it. Here, then, for all you Nishika users out there, is my workflow.

Step One: Create Individual Frames

The Nishika N8000 produces four frames simultaneously, each one slightly different from the others due to how its four lenses are angled. I usually get my scans back from the developer like this:

After post-processing (which I won’t go into), select and copy each of the four frames and save them as separate images. Just save them as jpg as these will be for Web use. Organize them into proper folders so you don’t clutter up your directories.

Step Two: Stack Frames

From the FILE menu, select SCRIPTS, then LOAD FILES INTO STACK. This opens your four frames as layers in a single image file. Make sure not to select “Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images.” We’ll be doing that manually in the next step.


Step Three: Align Images

Once the image opens, make sure your stacked layers are in the proper order. Select an anchor point from which to align each layer. I usually choose the subject’s eye or face. Play with the Opacity of each layer to make sure your alignment is correct.


Step Four: Crop Your Image

During the alignment process, you will invariably create gaps at the edges of your image. Make sure to crop your image accordingly.


Step Five: Animate Your Layers

Once your layers are aligned, open up the animation panel from your WINDOW menu. Click on the small pull down menu on the upper right of the animation panel and select “Make Frames from Layers.” This will create a four-frame animation 1-2-3-4. For smoother looping, copy frames 2 and 3 and paste into your timeline in this order: 1-2-3-4-3-2.


Step Six: Save for Web

From the FILE menu, select “Save for Web & Devices,” which allows you to save your image as an animated GIF. You may adjust the size and quality of your image before saving if you wish.

Here’s the finished product.

Rally in 3D @ Nishika N8000

 

July 5, 2009

A 3D Photo for Vintage Pop

Posted by travelomo under Events, Gear | Tags: , , , , , |
[7] Comments 
L-R: Bong Salaveria, Mrs Travelomo and Mr Travelomo

L-R: Bong Salaveria, Mrs Travelomo and Mr Travelomo

After five great years of helping revive the art, music and culture scene in the urban enclave of Cubao, my favorite antique-retro-curio store Vintage Pop closed shop permanently last night. The owner, Bong Salaveria, is moving to Canada with his family in a few months and setting up shop there. Vintage Pop closed not with a whimper, as many shops do, but with a bang, going out in a party flowing with beer and nachos, full of friends and well-wishers. Most of the store’s stock of clocks, tin robots, old cameras and record players had been packed away, for shipping to Vancouver. Only their ghosts remained, on the walls outlined in colored chalk and permanent marker.

Still, there were a lot of odds and ends for sale piled up in bins and on the floor, and one of those odd bits was a Nishika N8000 lenticular camera. The latch to the door was broken and black electrical tape was used to keep the door shut, but otherwise it looked like it would work. A quick test revealed that the mechanicals still worked. Bong saw me fiddling with it and came over. “You know, Karlo, I have no more use for that. Keep it. It’s yours. “

I gladly accepted, promising Bong I’d send him a 3D photo if I got the camera to work. Which is a promise I intend to keep.

Here’s a few shots of this strange oversized camera. More info in the days to come.

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

Nishika N8000 Lenticular Camera

 

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