Timelapse Pan & Zoom

[tristanjud]

Hi Guys,

I'm playing around with timelapses in VS5 and am having some success. One thing I can't work out though is how I go about adding Pan &/or Zoom to a sequence. I can add it to individual images but i'm not sure how to add the effect over a series of say 300 images so that it's a smooth motion?

Any ideas?

[BrianCee]

I would think the only way your going to do that seamlessly is to render out your 300 images to a single file - say .avi or maybe .mpg - then put that back into the timeline and apply Pan and Zoom to that.

[tristanjud]

I've thought about that. It would work if it is possible (it might be) to render out the image into a single file at there actual dimensions. Not the 1920x1080. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything to pan.

[BrianCee]

After you click on 'Create Video File' choose the 'Custom' option at the bottom - then in the new dialogue window click on 'options' and it yet another dialogue box choose the 'general' tab and see if you can set the dimensions you require.

[tristanjud]

Changed the type to .avi when into General > User Defined the largest frame size is 2048 which doesn't give that much panning room for a 1920 wide 1080p video. Tried a QuickTime Movie Files as well and it's the same max width of 2048

[BrianCee]

are you not zooming in at all ?

if you are not zooming in why do you need to pan ?

[tristanjud]

Didn't realise I needed to zoom. Won't zooming degrade the quality?

[BrianCee]

sorry I'm missing something here - if your images already fit the screen why do you need to pan ?

I'll step back and let someone else help you.

[tristanjud]

If I import a series of time-lapse images VS5 already resizes them to fit the project, by the looks of it. Zooming starts at 100%.

I might have a play around with Zooming&Panning, cause it sounds like that might be what I'm looking for with out knowing it.

[321]

I think you might find the "video pan and zoom" FX filter will do a minimal pan on a pre-converted to video time lapse sequence without too obvious of a video resolution deterioration. With only 300 images (~10 seconds), a compromise between obtaining the effect and losing a bit of resolution should still yield reasonable quality. Panning slowly makes for a surprisingly smooth and captivating effect and it doesn't require a high zoom level (which is the resolution killer in VS). For a longer more dramatic pan via higher zooming, I am quite sure resolution loss will become a problem.

[tristanjud]

I've noticed a dramatic loss in resolution when using a higher zoom value. I was able to increase the quality slightly by outputting the timelapse images at Blu-Ray 1080P then using that movie file to add the pan & zoom.

[lata]

Hi

As you zoom into an Image or Video the quality will reduce, you are viewing less pixels yet showing them on the full screen.

To fit the screen the images have to use a ratio of 16:9, assuming your project is widescreen
The quality will be determined by the resolution of the frame, if the images are large then zooming in will retain enough pixels to retain the quality, hopefully..........
If small say 1024 x 576 then any zoom may reduce quality, Higher zooms will be noticeable, If you zoom to 200% on this image then the displayed pixels will be approx half at 512 x 288.

--------------------------------------
There were some quality issues related to Pan and Zoom into a Map Image.
It was found the by de-selecting the Apply Anti Flickering On Photos (F6 edit tab) that the quality improved.
We were quite critical in our tests viewing the text on the map, I guess "beauty is in the eye of the beholder...."
Older versions VS 10 for instance seemed to cope better with zooming in...........

By changing the project properties to use 1920 x 1080 will improve what you see in the preview screen.
The final render to a video file will depend on the template you use.

-------------------------------------
I may have missed this info, but what are you intending to make HD video will give the best quality.
You do not give any details of the image dimensions. How large are your images, (Pixel Dimensions)

[321]

Prior to reading this thread, I was thinking that the best way to shoot time-lapse would be to use minimal resolution as low as 1920px width to save space. But now I'm thinking that if you want to pan the shots, plan ahead with the framing of the shot and set the camera to full resolution such as 5184x3456. This would allow for the panning of a 5184x1080 cropped strip for 2.7 times the width of the HD video frame without losing any resolution. That would be almost as good as having the camera roll along a track. Of course, the problem is in getting the packet of pictures cropped before importing them into VS as a time lapse. It seems like a fairly straightforward operation so it's too bad there isn't a utility that can do it.

For PaintShop Pro users, I'm pretty sure multi-image mass pan and crop could be done with a custom made script in PaintShop Pro X4. I know for sure it can be done with a single image; it's just a question of whether a script can open multiple images or not. As a single image example, I made the following clip from a 5194x1080 photo strip, cropped into 900 images by a PSP script I wrote, then imported into VS as a time-lapse sequence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSLL5EKSqHg The beauty of it is it's 1920x1080 resolution throughout and I didn't have to invest a G note in software to make it.

[tristanjud]

321 That is what I was trying to achieve with a timelapse but I haven't been able to. Unfortunately when you load in the images into the VSx5 if you want to pan then you need to apply a pan to each image which can be problematic. The way around it of course was to import the images as a timelapse, export it as a 1080p HD video and then apply pan and zoom to that but the images have been scaled down to fit in the 1080P resolution.

Important that image at it's full size, and any ideas how to apply this to a timelapse?

lata I'm shooting the images at full size which is 5194x1080 or there abouts.

[lata]

Hi
Copy and Paste Attributes

After applying Pan and Zoom to the first image, you can Copy and Paste the Attributes to all images.
This will apply Pan & Zoom to all.

Right click first image, select Copy Attributes
Shift click last image will select all, right click and Paste Attributes.