Boulders are being delivered on Monday so all this week I’ve been busy digging holes for them.
(They’ll look more natural if they’re slightly below ground). Here’s an image showing a hole
I’ve been picking at for 3 days! Can you spell Caliche? C – E – M – E – N – T 🙂
Of course I had to document my swinging a pick ax so I set my Canon SX10 on a little tripod
and turned it to movie mode. The following is a single frame extracted from that video.
I’m a Windows user and have always used Windows Movie Maker to quickly grab stills from movies.
(The program comes installed on PCs) Unfortunately, my two latest cameras generate a .mov format
which Movie Maker doesn’t recognize. So what Options do Windows users have?
One option is to get a file converter. I’ve tried a free program called WinnFF which works great.
It not only converts your .mov files to .avi which Movie Maker recognizes but also to numerous other
formats if you might need. It’s called WinnFF.
Another free (and easy) option requires QuickTime Player. You would just play the movie and stop it
when you see a frame you like. Then do a screen shot and paste it into your photo editor and crop.
The option I used this morning was Photoshop CS4 Extended. It has a script that will import movie
frames as layers (you must have QuickTime Player installed). This script is also fun for creating Time Lapse.
The next option is to buy video editing software. My first digicam (Minolta Dimage 7) had a movie function
so I’ve been playing with video since 2000. I’m by no means an expert but I’ve learned a bit over the years.
Because the Minolta captured in the .mov format, the first program I used was Quick Time Pro. It has limited
editing capabilities but you’ll at least you can play with your movies if they are .mov.
Take it from my experience; Quick Time Pro is NOT user friendly! But for the price, it’s a good way to get started.
You’ll need Quick Time Player 7 to upgrade to Pro.
Since then, I’ve tried a few video editing programs and have settled on Sony Vegas Studio.
Comparing it to the big guns (Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premier ), it had everything I needed and MORE.
The best part is that it’s affordable.
Today, you have access to tons of free online video tutorials for most video editors.
When I started, I had to resort to user manuals and trial and error. Talk about confusing!
UPDATE: I forgot to mention camera software for movie editing….such as ZoomBrowser.
