All of the images in this file except the ones in the file "In The Beginning..." were collected with a camcorder originally as video images, and in most cases as video stills.
The camera used was a Panasonic PV-S660 Omnimovie Super-VHS camcorder. (All proper nouns and adjectives in the previous sentence are registered trade-marks). This camera has, among other features, a capability to record video stills. My first thought was -- why take video stills? If you want a still, you can capture a frame from a full-motion sequence, right? Well, right, but ... for a variety of reasons, one can get better still images by taking video stills than by capturing full-motion video, if still images are what you want. And many scenics (including those of bridges) are naturally still images.
Even if you can get your hands on a PV-S660 with documentation, it still may not be clear how to take stills -- the documentation is minimal and the camera very complex. Here is how to do it. On the left side of the camera, low on the case near the handle, are a series of small round buttons labeled "mirror," "still," and "strobe." Set your machine as a video camera and turn off "image stabilization," "digital zoom," and other digital effects. Compose your image in the viewfinder and then press the middle button. The image will then be held in the viewfinder. Press the "record" trigger, and the same image will be recorded on tape until you press it a second time. (Other camcorders may work differently. I hope these instructions help). I usually let the still run for ten seconds and begin and end each still with a mosaic fade as a "cue" that the image really is still, not just unchanging.
Super-VHS images may be directly captured by an AV Macintosh computer, and that is my method. Set the Super-VHS camcorder to function as a VCR and connect it directly to the SVHS in port on the Mac. Open the "Video Monitor" frame capture software. For full-screen images, do not choose that option from the menu, but instead drag the image area out to the full screen. Then turn on the camcorder, push "play," and monitor the image on screen. To capture an image, pull down the "copy" menu command from the "Edit" menu. There will be a slight delay -- so that, with full-motion video, you won't know quite what you are getting -- and a shutter sound indicates that the image has been captured. When you quit "Video Monitor," you will find the captured image as a PICT file on the desktop.
Next, open the captured image with GIF Converter software. Select the image and select "Change Color Palette" from the "image" menu. Select "standard 256 colors" from the dialog box. When PICT files are saved as GIFs without this step, I have found that the colors sometimes come up quite false, but this adjustment always seems to enhance the effect on captured super VHS images taken with default settings on "Video Monitor." Experiment a bit with the "Enhance" menu item -- I always boost the brightness by +10. Alternatively, use GraphicConverter for a somewhat richer palette. Then scale the image if you wish and save it as a GIF file.
