Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Motion & Video => Topic started by: mcbroomf on November 10, 2018, 06:35:45 am

Title: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 10, 2018, 06:35:45 am
I'm a stills photographer, but I've started giving presentations on how I lightpaint and I'd like to add 1 or 2 short (~2 mins) videos taken while I lightpaint an image and I'm looking for suggestions on some reasonably priced software to do what I think are some basic edits.

Lightpainting an image might take me ~20 mins or so and a typical image could involve taking a dozen shots.  Exposures are ~5 seconds each, so the rest of the time I start by setting up, composing, checking focus etc, then checking exposure after I paint, repeating the painting if it's not right 1st time, and walking to the different positions and testing before the next exposure (I use a tablet with liveview to check my painting before triggering the shot).

What I'd like to show the audience in the final video is sped up sections while I'm composing and setting up, normal speed while painting, then sped up again while moving to the next position.  So the painting itself should consume about 1 min of the video and the rest will look like a timelapse.  I thought of filming the whole thing as a timelapse so that my editing would be minimal or none, but then the painting technique is lost.

I would guess that I need some software that I can accelerate or drop frames from some sections while keeping the rest normal speed (or even slow down the painting if I shoot at 60fps).

Any recommendations for some simple (I have no experience) moderately priced software to do this?  I know I have not mentioned any other video editing basics so I'm not sure what else I'll need.  I'm not expecting to produce a pro level piece, the filming will be done static on a 2nd camera/tripod, no audio.  I do plan to try some trial software once I have some suggestions.

Thanks

Mike
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a timelapse tutorial video
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on November 10, 2018, 08:55:37 am
What platform do you expect to edit on?
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 10, 2018, 08:58:59 am
Ahh yes, thanks Chris, very important and sorry I missed that.  I'm on Windows ...

EDIT : I edited the title.  It's lightpainting tutorial, not timelapse, and as I mentioned I can't use timelapse although the sped up sections might look as though they were.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on November 10, 2018, 09:21:34 am
Being Mac-centric, I cannot confidently give you recommendations.

However, should you be in the Adobe universe, you would do well to check out Premiere Elements. Of course, check the features you require carefully. There will be a reasonable learning curve but the User forums and Adobe's own videos should give you a decent start.

Chris
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: Peter McLennan on November 11, 2018, 11:55:08 am
Good advice from Chris.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: john beardsworth on November 11, 2018, 01:20:21 pm
Again, if using Adobe, maybe look at a very new app called Premiere Rush https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/premiere-rush.html.  "Editing is easy, with simple tools for color, audio, motion graphics, and more. Share right from the app to favorite social channels like YouTube, Facebook, and lnstagram." I had a quick play with it and thought it would be handy for cases like you describe.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 11, 2018, 02:57:04 pm
Chris, Peter, John,
Thanks for advice and suggestions.  I'll give them both a try.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 12, 2018, 07:38:03 am
Looking at the Elements and Rush websites it seems they can do what I need.  While searching around I also found Corel Video Studio that should do the trick and is cheaper than Elements.  Once I have some video to play with I'll download the trials.  As Rush is a CC product with a monthly fee I doubt I'll go that route though.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: Rhossydd on November 12, 2018, 09:07:11 am
It's not really 'simple', but Resolve is hugely powerful and free for the basic version. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/

Like any video editing package you'll need to learn the basic terms, but there are some good tutorials to help you on You Tube.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 12, 2018, 09:14:17 am
Thanks, I'll take a look at that too ...
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: john beardsworth on November 12, 2018, 12:24:54 pm
As Rush is a CC product with a monthly fee I doubt I'll go that route though.

There's a free version. 3 exports seems very limited though.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: bcooter on November 12, 2018, 08:13:51 pm
It's not really 'simple', but Resolve is hugely powerful and free for the basic version. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/

Like any video editing package you'll need to learn the basic terms, but there are some good tutorials to help you on You Tube.


Most photographers entering video are looking for a fast way to learn and edit.

Regardless of what nle software you chose the biggest investment you will make is not the computer, monitor, camera or drives.

The biggest investment is the time it takes to learn it, whether it’s Corel, premiere, Avid, FCPX, or Da Vinci Resolve.   All will probably do the job, all will take time to learn or in other words, motion editing is the black hole of time.   You can go into the suite (or today the laptop) on Monday and come out blurry eyes, stumbling around on Friday night.

Personally I would suggest investing my time into a suite that will work to industry standards and let you grow as you get better.   You might think all you want to do is what you explained, no sound, or vo, no music score, or color correction, but just to get to that point on simple software will take time to learn and  to work your way around it.

A more advanced EDL will probably take about the same time to get the basics down, though if your going to invest the time, IMO it’s better to invest  the time in a professional suite so your not limited as you grow.

It doesn’t matter what your editing, the idea is to get people to view it in it’s entirety.  If it is successful, you’ll want to expand and do more and probably more elaborate.

My suggestion would be to download the free version of DaVinci Resolve.   It gives you most of what the paid version offers, the editing is as easy as Corel or any NLE and it’s free.

Then if you want to go further, you always have the option to spend $300 U.S. and have a whole suite that allows you to do virtually anything as you move up stream.

The only downside of Resolve is it can take a powerful machine with a large graphics card, though once you learn the settings, you can set the viewing at a lower resolution, or offline with proxies and it will run fine on a lower spec machine, then for output put the output settings at whatever resolution you want.

The upside with resolve is in one suite you can color correct, track anything moving and learn with true professional terms and workflow.

I quickly looked at a few minutes of a tutorial of Corel and it seems pretty good, but probably takes just as much time to learn and refine as a professional suite.

You may never need all of what resolve offers, like color grading, but if you chose the proper codec,  https://blog.frame.io/2017/02/15/choose-the-right-codec/#codec-edit  from acquisition to intermediate codecs to output, the more you learn, the more you use.
_______________________

Comparison between resolve (free version) vs. studio (paid full version)  https://flavioggarcia.com/2018/04/24/davinci-resolve-free-version-limitations/

But like cameras, or computers, most NLE’s work fine as long as your learned on what Codecs to use, how you distribute and will it be a system that allows you to stay updated.   

I also like the fact that resolve allows you to buy it with no subscription model.   As I mentioned it’s $300 today for version 15.  I started on version 8 and think I paid a little under $1,000 which may seem high, but resolve use to not be on a standard computer, but required a whole room.  Actually, I’ve gone through about 4 updates and with the dongle that comes with the studio version, all updates are free.

IMO

BC

Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 13, 2018, 06:01:22 am
Thanks BC.  I understand 100% your post ...

I have wondered what video might lead to for me (outside a few short demo videos used in a class) and for the moment I don't have a use case.  Having said that I have a few visual ideas and do admire well taken and visualized timelapses and could see that I'd need software beyond basic editing for some of them (or at least it would probably be better, as yet I don't know what I don't know).

I've already downloaded DR, none of the others yet, but I have to get my video done 1st so that if I compare it to the other trial software(s) I have time after I've installed them. 

I now have to figure out what to take the video with and settings for recording.  I carry a pair of Sony A7R3's, so I can use one of them.  I could use an A6500 rather than an A7R3.  I also bought a Atmos Ninja Flame a while ago when I started thinking about this and could record off the A7R3 I'm using for the lightpainting, I'd lose the realtime lightpainting but could do a practice paint for the video before I trigger the shutter and do the real one.  Not sure what settings to use yet.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  I have a lot of reading to do ...

Thanks

PS.  I have a recent new built Win 10 desktop with an i7 7800/64GB and will store and keep working video on a Raid 0 SSD pair as I do still files.  I didn't think of video when I bought the system, the GPU is an NVidia Quadro P2000.  I don't recall how much RAM, 4GB I think.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: john beardsworth on November 14, 2018, 03:14:13 am
An odd idea occurred to me during a long drive yesterday - what about TechSmith Camtasia? It's really for recording tutorials but one often uses it to assemble videos mixing various movie files and stills with screen recordings. There's a certain amount of video editing with a timeline, layers. Apart from ease of use, its strengths are in tasks that you might want to do when getting a point over - such as zooming in on details, adding voice commentary, adding text. I wouldn't mention it except for your comment about use cases, but maybe Camtasia has other immediate uses that might make it worthwhile?

John
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 14, 2018, 12:13:28 pm
I took a look at the video on the TechSmith website.  Interesting software and I think could be very useful for a LR-PS tutorial, especially if I had to post it on the web.  When I gave a talk last week I did the LR-PS processing demo live which I think is better.  I had thought about recording the screen using the Atmos at one point.  That will probably be my 1st pass and I'll see what goes from there, but presently no plans to have a social media presence.

In the mean time I installed DaVinci Resolve and started fooling around with a video I took about a year ago.  I managed to figure out how to split a clip so that I could speed up one section and slow down the next.  I was hand holding the video so I also found out how to stabilize the footage although I won't need that for a lightpainting video.  Huge timesink as BC mentioned; frustrating, challenging and fun ... probably in that order.
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: bcooter on November 15, 2018, 07:19:23 pm
frustrating, challenging and fun ... probably in that order.


If your settings are correct, your computer is probably strong enough for resolve as long as you have fast ssds to hold all files from start to finish.  Run a seperate SSD as a scratch disk to hold the render files and keep your files in order a scene per folder (bin) and once started never change the names of the files.

With resolve and 4 gigs of ram, you'll probably have to set resolve's viewing at around 720p (on the short end) and that's enough resolution to edit and grade.    Remember this is just for viewing.   

Always test.
Try a few test clips, drop them in resolve, if you want 4k then set your timeline for a 4k edit.   You can always output in various sizes, from 1080p (HD), uhd, 16x9 crop (3840x2160) or 4k 4,096 by 2,160 which is usually considered real 4k.

If your footage is high bit depth, high bit/byte rate, then you might find that the easiest and fastest way to edit is to have less compression on the files you edit to.  In other words if the compression is less, the computer does less work in the background.   

These two software suites also can be used to take your finished video and conform it to many different codecs for projection, vimeo, editing, youtube etc.   I think wondershare works well and is fast and easy.

If your going to try resolve look at this quick review and though it may look very foreign to you, in reality it's not as difficult as you think if you do some study and learn he basics.   

This quickly explains what black magic is doing with resolve 15.2

https://www.provideocoalition.com/davinci-resolve-15-2-update-continues-blackmagics-march-toward-post-production-dominance/

This is also some good information regarding formats.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/174221-no-tv-makers-4k-and-uhd-are-not-the-same-thing

I wish you the best,

BC
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: mcbroomf on November 17, 2018, 05:10:11 pm
Thanks for the help and the links.  I almost know what you're talking about.  The codecs link was excellent.

I shot a drive by today that I've taken a few still of last week and again today.  I liked the way the lights from the rear and front building overlap/interact as I drove by so I came back and took this video.  I shot it in 4k with the A7R3 and a 50mm Voigtlander 50/1.5 Nokton and did a horrible jerky 2x zoom in Resolve at the start to crop into the lighted buildings.  Output was 1080 but for some reason Google is only letting me see 360 or 720 outputs even though the info says it's 1080.

So far this is more than enough info to get me going with my lightpainting video.  Thanks again ...

Boston Seaport Construction video
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NSpGL33bxR8k46ho7

Slightly better zoomed version and I think they are both now 1080
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4GSeT9baYyqU2x5j9
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: MichaelEzra on November 27, 2018, 08:56:48 am
BC, thanks for sharing the link to frame.io, it led me to discover their blog, very informative!
Title: Re: Simple editing software to produce a lightpainting tutorial video
Post by: Sebastrue on June 14, 2021, 02:42:11 pm
Sorry for the late reply and for bumping the thread, just wanted to suggest using Camtasia, because It is very easy to use for editing your videos, especially when you need high-quality footage (https://interesting.services/professional-video-editing/) of a light painting video. When you'll get used to using the Camtasia software, you can try publishing it online. If it is successful, you’ll want to expand and do more and probably more elaboration. I also like the fact that resolve allows you to buy it with no subscription model. I started on version 8 and think I paid a little under $1,000 which may seem high, but resolve use to not be on a standard computer, but required a whole room. Thank you for you sharing.