Topic: Photographic GIFs

[hookstrapped]

Other than porn on tumblr, I don't see a lot of photographic GIFs. There's this article here from a few years ago about a London gallery show and the second one here -- black and white, film, not perfectly steady -- is the kind of stuff I'm interested in.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/motion-photography-prize_n_5201131.html

I've always been interested in moving pictures, and optical effects from latent images. I've been messing around with extracting stills from movies (screenshots), trying to understand what makes them tick

Did this one of Satish taking a few shots from a camera on a tripod
 



Anyone else mess around with GIFs?

[GrainTrain]

I mess around with layering scans from the Nishika N8000 in photoshop. Can't figure out how to post animated gifs here, but it's nothing y'all haven't seen before.

[Late Developer]

I actually find some of them quite difficult to look at.  There was a really whizzy one posted on the weekend thread and, as clever as the technique of creating them may be, my eyes just can't keep up and I have to look away to avoid getting a headache.

The ones where the main item is static and, like the one in the website, a ball rolls past are interesting and I find okay to look at.

[hookstrapped]

Regarding posting, you have to upload the gif file to a hosting service like tinypic, then they give you an embed url, which uses the image html

I know what you mean about making one dizzy. I like them on the verge of nausea inducing. It's a fine line between "trippy cool" and "I'm gonna be sick" and I imagine the location of that line varies among different people.

[Late Developer]

I know what you mean about making one dizzy. I like them on the verge of nausea inducing. It's a fine line between "trippy cool" and "I'm gonna be sick" and I imagine the location of that line varies among different people.

I'm quite a simple soul in that regard.  I've never been remotely interested in creating movies (film or digital) and I wouldn't mind if my digicam didn't have a movie mode.  I like still images that I can contemplate and absorb - but can just about cope with the sub-trippy cool GIFs 

[02Pilot]

The fast ones always remind me of those Japanese cartoons from the 80s that were reputed to cause seizures.

To me the real question is what are you trying to achieve? Some of the ones in the link seem like pure novelty, but a few (the red wall of eyes and the empty playground spinny-thing) seem to offer substance that specifically benefits from animation. It would seem the subject needs to be carefully chosen and arranged, almost like a short film. Or are you more interested in the effects of the movement itself than the subject of the photos?

[jharr]

I'm with LD. I prefer them a bit more on the tame side. I also prefer gifs that are assembled from still photos like the first example. I don't prefer the looping clip of video like the example with the pigeon stretching unless it is just a dumb meme like Emma Stone saying "YUM!". Some of those are funny in their repetition. I did also get a little chuckle out of Satish madly blowing his horn in all directions. It would be even funnier to see him try to imitate the gif in real life. I also like the idea of making motion pictures from many still all shot simultaneously. Doing it with pinhole cameras is even cooler!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhHHxHK-Ym0

[hookstrapped]

The fast ones always remind me of those Japanese cartoons from the 80s that were reputed to cause seizures.

To me the real question is what are you trying to achieve? Some of the ones in the link seem like pure novelty, but a few (the red wall of eyes and the empty playground spinny-thing) seem to offer substance that specifically benefits from animation. It would seem the subject needs to be carefully chosen and arranged, almost like a short film. Or are you more interested in the effects of the movement itself than the subject of the photos?

Good question re what am I trying to achieve. Not sure. Mainly having fun.

I've been putting screen captures from movie clips into gifs and am basically trying to discover (it's hard to predict) what ends up having a cool effect, sometimes where the effect and the subject come together. The window cleaner in the link does that for me. A coming together of technique and subject that creates layers of meaning. The Satish one here was playing on the idea of funky music and rhythm.

I'm now trying to explore the technique (camera movement, sequencing the loop, playing with how much time to give each frame). Hopefully, different effects will lead me to find appropriate subjects

[Francois]

The only problem I find with GIFs is usually their file size.
Being an uncompressed format, they grow incredibly fast. I tried to make a few a few years ago and was always discouraged when I discover how huge they get.

But yeah, it is a hard format to work with. What I find is that it's something that's not quite photographic is a still photo sense, yet not quite cinematographic in a movie making sense. I find it more akin to a modern version of the Kinetoscope...

[hookstrapped]

File size can get large. The one of Satish, which has about 20 images in it, is 3.7 MB at vertical height of around 750 pixels @72 ppi. The one below is 5 images and a bit smaller and is 2 MB. Basically, you need to keep shrinking the image size until you get under the 5MB limit hosting services have. The most difficult thing about gifs for me is dealing with the tinypic.com site, which appears to not have been updated since gifs were invented.

A kinder, gentler gif

[Ed Wenn]

I like the idea of creating a short moving sequence from still images and I love the second one that you posted. I can't really deal with the first one though as it really does make me feel ill when I spend more than a couple of seconds looking at it. Sorry! This second one though, is absolutely gorgeous.

[Francois]

Same here.
Rotations need more images to be somewhat smooth and slower helps.
But for still images with little movement, things are easier.

[jojonas~]

Seeing as a friend of mine likes to finish his rolls in one outing, he often blasts away the last of it with his canon eos-1. I've done some faces to that so it's be interesting to see them in motion

maybe someone on here with a fujica drive or ricoh auto half could put together a mini movie too?

[Francois]

The best for animated gifs probably is the lomokino.

[02Pilot]

I've got a Yashica Samurai Z that will do something like 4.5 (half)frames per second. That's 16 seconds of activity per roll. While I have no intention of going through the laborious process to produce GIFs or other moving pictures (just scanning the damn half-frames is more than enough work), it would probably be a pretty useful tool for that sort of thing.

[hookstrapped]

The best for animated gifs probably is the lomokino.

I had never heard of it. Toy camera gifs! a dream come true!

Looking at the movies people make with them leaves me pretty unimpressed, but the potential for gifs is very intriguing. At $49, I'll be trying this soon!

[Francois]

I guess the unimpressiveness of the movies made with it relate more to the chosen subjects than the capabilities of the camera.

I've often been tempted to get one not for making full movies but more for making short sequences.

[hookstrapped]

I guess the unimpressiveness of the movies made with it relate more to the chosen subjects than the capabilities of the camera.

I've often been tempted to get one not for making full movies but more for making short sequences.

I like a lot of lo-fi work, but with movies, steadiness counts for a lot. None of the movies I watched used a tripod, and the slow frame rate exacerbates the jerkiness of handheld filming (with no stabilization system), especially with a camera that works off a hand crank.

[Francois]

I think that just a monopod would be enough to stabilize the camera enough to do a good job.
It's not like if it was super heavy.

Also, the resulting films would benefit from doing a pass using virtualdub and the anti shake plugin.

[hookstrapped]

Another, combing a Fuji positive with its positive-negative

[hookstrapped]

Oh, and gifyu.com is a million times better than tinypic.com for hosting -- good interface, no illegible codes to enter, and a high file size limit

[Francois]

That's good to know. Finding a place to host gifs is a bit of a pain.

[jojonas~]

Oh, and gifyu.com is a million times better than tinypic.com for hosting -- good interface, no illegible codes to enter, and a high file size limit

would be even better if the gif loaded too but maybe that's just me?

[hookstrapped]

Oh, and gifyu.com is a million times better than tinypic.com for hosting -- good interface, no illegible codes to enter, and a high file size limit

would be even better if the gif loaded too but maybe that's just me?

Fixed!  Thanks

[Francois]

Not fixed.... Boo way 

[hookstrapped]

I will never be a coder. I can't even get this straight...

How about this...?

http://www.hookstrapped.com/2d-gifs

[jojonas~]

I will never be a coder. I can't even get this straight...

How about this...?

http://www.hookstrapped.com/2d-gifs

alright, I can see them there!

[hookstrapped]

The deal with gifyu.com as a host, though in every way better than tinypic.com, is that it deletes earlier uploads of gif files when a new one is uploaded, unlike tinypic which seems to keep files for eternity. (I tweak the timing of them so upload new versions). It seems gifyu knows that it's the same gif even when I give it a new name. That's the reason for the broken embeds.  Anyway....

[Francois]

Just stick it between img tags

[hookstrapped]

[hookstrapped]

[hookstrapped]

[jojonas~]

way beyond the gifs...

https://vimeo.com/179161539

[hookstrapped]

way beyond the gifs...

https://vimeo.com/179161539

Yes, a movie made of many gifs