Multiplei Exposure

How would i create this style of multi exposure, is it more Paintshop than dslr or a combined effort?
A friend is taking part in a martial arts events and i thought this might be a nice effect to create for him

Yep, more photoshop than DSLR.
Mere multiple exposure will result in exposing the background in all areas, meaning your subject will look like semi-transparent ghosts - at best.

Not to mention that the camera's internal multi-exposure processing will not be able to keep up much of a frame rate and you'll miss most of the action between shots.

Its not only photoshop though!

You need a very fast shooting rate, and to fire as many shots as possible, with a tripod, and without moving.

Then it is only a matter of selecting the subject in each position and add it to the background of one of these in different layers. You will have to be careful in the small detail, but it should work.

Oh, and remember that if the subject moves towards you, you need to track focus it at very high speed as well!

Cheers,

Nathan

Hi Nathan,

when you say fast shooting rate , how many frames per second are you suggesting?

cheers.

3 frames per second should give your some acceptable results, but if the subject is moving with any real speed, at least 6 to 10 would be quite a bit more helpful. Although it really depends on how fast the subject is moving in the frame.

Don't know what sort of situation you plan to photograph your friend, I don't do the acrobatic end of martial arts at my age, but I can do quite a lot in 1/3 of a second.

You're quite likely to get the start of a jump and the landing at only three frames per second, for example. Last time I shot such events was with my istD at 2 frames per sec (not much difference). I ended up not using rapid fire shooting at all and concentrated on timing of individual shots.

But I'm old and slow on the camera too... It certainly could not hurt to try. If it is not for a surprise, ask if your friend can perform some of the moves or stunts you want to photograph and see if the camera will work for you. Although I'm betting you'll need to see about renting a camera with a faster frame rate for the day.

I used to shoot a lot of fencing competitons and quickly gave up on doing this sort of thing. The camera simply doesn't have the frame-rate to do it.

The super high speed mode on the K20D could give you the images, as long as you don't want to print above ~5x7, but other than that no current Pentax is going to cut it.

What about the multi exposure mode on the gx-20 k20d?
Roy

Duroo,

THey've said it all! It would be better to have something higher than 3 fps of the K10/K20. But, if you have a very fast shutter speed and manage to completely freeze the subject, (MOre than 1/320 IMO), I think you have a good chance of getting 2/3 images that you can later build in photoshop.

IN the examples above:
_ the first is quite a long time lapse, so I'm pretty sure you could get the same effect with a Pentax camera, perhaps with 1 motion less.
- The second is very very fast, and 3 fps will not do, but neither will 5. I reckon that shot of Lebron is shot with a Canon D Mk III or Nikon D3...
_ the last shot of Jeder, is actually much slower and you'd be able to have very similar results.

POsting here a work i've done last year. Its not the same type of shot, but it gives you the idea of the speed. Its a very fast action shot of Luca Toni, scoring for Fiorentina. Mind you, the shot was taken with a rather poor 75-300 and I think that with a faster and better lens, I would have had better results!
[IMG]http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/nathanever82/TOniGOl.jpg[/IMG]

Good Avice guys,

I was chatting to a new starter at work today she is a multi disciplined martial arts competitor shes very fit and i described what i was trying to do and she reckons she can pose for each and simulate the movement of a crescent kick by holding the pose and let me take each frame one at a time - sounds like it might work.

You could also try using a flash with a strobe feature (the 500 ?), which if used in a darkened room would yield several images on one frame.

Dan

Not sure that would make for the most exciting photo, but a single leg rotating like the hands on a clock could certainly be an interesting result.

If you have the luxury of staging the photo then the same principal could be used for most movements other than actual jumps/flips, where gravity has its own rules about how fast something must travel.

Of course, for that, just have the person perform the same stunt a few times and get the pieces you need to fill in the blanks. You're using Photoshop anyway, so exact positioning is not necessarily a critical issue.

Good luck. I'd be interested to find out how things turn out.


Daniel, Strobe flash is a brilliant idea. Not sure how that would work out, but I supposed if the area is small it should work well. Otherwise I believe the common case is to use multiple strobes on a synchronized timer. Still worth a try.

I got some great dancer shots using the 500 ftz on stroboscopic mode. set the ftz with a fairly slow hurtz rate and had my elinchrom studio strobes also set up (lowest power output settings) with optical slaves.
was able to get upto five or ten images on a frame that way... (anything faster and the studio strobes didn't keep up).

That's the AF500FTZ. A damned good flash and going cheaper than it deserves on fleabay. If it were P-TTL capable . . . it'd be the bees knees as it were.

Ssssh. Don't tell everybody.

G

I think i know where i can get a af500ftz used for £80 i dont have the budget for elinchrom strobes right now , if i was to have the room very dark and get the subject repeat her moves and slowed her down whilst the using the strobe would that work?