Life Through Video Stills

Digital photography is such a great tool. We can take photos of our experiences and easily edit, delete or keep them. No one should be without a digital camera, a computer and photo software. But what I have found to very interesting is making photos from video frames (video stills). I've taken my homemade VHS and analog camcorder videos (8mm tapes) and transferred them to my computer. Pinnacle Studio is the best at it; producing video stills as you can edit the size of the picture and it clears them up pretty good. What's best is that you can take any frame such when your child engaging in sports activity and get the "perfect" shot.

I've learned to edit video stills well over time with trial and error. I can always notice a video frame on the Internet as the apect ratio is incorrect and there's that ugly black bar on the right and left side along with video frame bar below. The correct aspect ratio from analog sources is 720 x 540 and not 720 x 480 or 640 x 480. I double that to 1440 x 1080 as I like the larger size although it's not as clear. I also crop out the black bars and lower ugly looking video frame. The result is a nice picture that is very interesting to look at although it's not as clear as a digital photo.

I also produce video stills from my Kodak 1015 IS digital camera and Apple iPhone 4 cellphone. Both are capable of producing hi-def mov file videos and I am able to get 1280 x 720 size video stills from each. Most of the time the video stills I get from them are very good.

Another source is DVDs. I place them in my computer and produce great looking video stills using Cyperlink PowerDVD 6. I usually produce 1280 x 720 size but I somethings double that. Most look real good.

I will start to post some of my video stills as time goes by. I hope you will find them interesting to view. Below are some examples of my lovely wife, Orfy, taken, as you can see, from 1999.