At Tom Hardwick's suggestion I've tried my VX2K's progressive mode as a source of stills going into a video slideshow. The results were excellent!

My subjects were 95 twelve and thriteen year olds in constant motion on two field trips. When you're shooting 900 stills per minute (NTSC) at fast shutter speed, even an amateur like me can capture some great images. Being able to stand back and use the 12X zoom yielded some great candid shots.

The real test was using the progressive mode to catch the kids on a zip wire (a cable suspended from a high platform to the ground, ridden on a pully and harness arrangement). The day was cloudy and the trees tall enough that I had to shoot down below the 1/350 range. The images were still great. I also shot some full motion stuff that I intended to add to the slide show.

The kids were so pumped, wanting to know if they would be in the video riding the wire that I included all the 15 fps footage as well. While you don't want to watch it on a large screen TV (no steady shot, hand-held, full zoom at some places) it has an agitated look that fits the excitement of the ride very well.

I added some heavy-metal music to the sound track to pump up the kids a little more and they loved the results. (as if 12 year olds need any extra stimulation) The full motion video is excellent, but looks a little tame compared to the stomach churning motion of the 15fps and my shakey 60 year old hands.

The whole slideshow includes over 750 stills. About 500 are from my VX2K, about 50 are scanned prints and the rest are from the schools Sony Mavica still camera. It's easy to tell the VX2K's as they are superior in every way.

Thanks again for putting me onto this great feature, Tom

RalphM

I entirely agree, Ralph. Tom's posts made me try the feature out and I've had the same happy results, both pulling stills and adding slow motion to 15 fps shooting. I filmed myself dealing a crib hand over a weekend fishing trip, planning to slow it down in editing. I had high expectations for the result and they were met.

David Hurdon

Adding slow motion to 15 fps shooting David? You mean pulling the prog.scan footage to the timeline and changing the speed setting? Does this work? Surely the final results are a lot better if you lengthen a normal 30fps original?

And just to recap for newbies. Keep the NDs off, soak the light with high shutter speeds, set the VX to prog.scan and go forth taking 900 pictures per minute. As Ralph says, if none of these are masterpieces, you should turn to knitting.

tom.

Yes, Tom, that's what I meant. I can't find it but around the time you posted last (late May) about stills at 15 fps on the Yahoo Groups VX2000 forum, someone in the thread described shooting progressive scan from a ski lift or similar conveyance heading downhill, then slowing the footage down in editing. They liked the feel of the jerky result. That's why I tried it in this case and you can judge the result at:

http://www.legacymedia.ca/deal.mpg

This is a ten second export which will be easier to watch if you set your Media Player to "repeat". I'd have shown more but I'm low on server space.

David Hurdon