I can imagine circumstances where it might be nice to be able to approximate the original perspective, zoom, framing and such of a snapshot quality picture.

For example, you might want to show the progress of a home remodel or construction project or take a picture of your child next to the same statue in the park each year/month/week to ultimately create a time lapse series of pictures.

To that end, I propose what I believe would be a relatively inexpensive, fun little feature for a run-of-the-mill digital camera:

* A mode would be added to allow a picture to be taken while another picture is being previewed on the camera's display.

* The standard live scene preview would be shown simultaneously with and superimposed on a stored, previously taken picture on the camera's electronic (typically LCD) display.

*Either in the camera's software/firmware or less likely in hardware, a slider control would be implemented.

* The slider control would be used to alter the opacity of the "top layer" picture of the simultaneously viewed images to permit fading between the two images thus facilitating a visual comparison between the current shot setup and a previously stored picture.
-- half, May 23 2005

Eugene's bigger idea Bequeath_20us_20thi...d_20of_20Continuity
[half, May 23 2005]

Sounds baked, but until proven guilty... [+]
-- daseva, May 23 2005


Oh yeah, I want one. With digital GPS and altimeter, compass.
-- normzone, May 23 2005


I can see the benefit for some.

Also useful for landscapes, and (?)portraits(?), with some clever thinking. +
-- Ling, May 24 2005


One step closer to a tool for finding that darn remote control.
-- reensure, May 24 2005


I have two digital cameras that do much of what's proposed here but only under one circumstance: when taking a multi-image pan shot.
-- bristolz, May 24 2005


Nice! A new wrinkle for time-lapse photography.
-- csea, May 24 2005


[UnaBubba], that possible translation never occured to me.

[daseva], do you know of a camera with such a feature or are you saying that it's just such a wonderful idea that it must already exist?

[bristolz], how does that display work? Are the preview images overlaid or stitched at the edge somehow or ? I assume the purpose is to help you frame the next shot, but can't quite visualize how it works from a UI perspective. How does it facilitate the setup of the next frame of the panoramic shot? Is the display > one frame wide? Just curious.
-- half, May 26 2005


Latter suggestion.
-- daseva, May 26 2005


Time lapse good. Me like. Me give bun.
-- justaguy, May 26 2005


[half] I have a small, sub 2M pixel Canon IXUS II (Elph in the US?) - it aids stitching by displaying the previous frame half height on the LCD, whilst the other half is a live update, though I agree a live "mix" could be more effective. I t even has left and right pan options.
-- TolpuddleSartre, May 26 2005


The camera could search the zoom levels for best fit while you line up the scene.
-- daseva, May 26 2005


The HP R707 actually keys the antecedent image atop the current view. It can be hard to discern. The Canon G is much as [TolpuddleSartre] describes except it moves the antecedent image to the left in the viewscreen, allowing about 70% of the screen to be the current view.
-- bristolz, May 26 2005


Hmm, I didn't think you could mean that the images were layered 1:1 like that. That doesn't seem helpful to me for the pan scenario, but tells me that it's certainly possible to do what I was proposing. In fact it's almost done. Difficulty discerning which elements lie in which of the two pictures is what I expected and is what prompted me to come up with the variable opacity approach. A thumbwheel adjustment seems like it would be the ideal way to go, but such hardware would be a costly addition to a camera.

This idea could probably be implemented with a little software tweak on the HP unit that [bristolz] mentioned. I expect that they will be contacting me any day now to negotiate licensing fees for this new feature.
-- half, May 26 2005


This was on my wish list 10 years ago, but since it didn’t exist I went with 35mm prints, scanned and edited to give the same time lapse effect (of kids growing up). Still doesn’t exist?.. +
-- Shz, May 26 2005


It does in traditional cinema where they have optical viewfinders and use a frame from the "to match" scene as a guide to grind a viewfinder reticle for matching the scene. Very manual process, obviously.

Today, most film/cinema cameras use video assist systems and the "to match," or antecedent image is popped into a frame store and fed to a small switcher while the live video assist signal is mixed, keyed or rapidly switched so that a match can be made.
-- bristolz, May 26 2005


You could add a little software routine that could jimmy the picture around to match the overlaid image more precisely using some sort of shape/color recognition.
-- waugsqueke, May 26 2005


Yeah. Maybe by leveraging some functionality of a camera's digital image stabilization feature to correct the framing?

Blatantly obvious as it is, it just occured to me that one could also use my new feature to take pictures of different people in the same location. Family and friends share their photos and reframe the shot at a later date with different people in it. Uniformity amongst vacation photos, as if they weren't boring enough already. I knew there had to be at least one possible evil use for this.
-- half, May 27 2005


To be sure, this would be approximate, but probably a mark on the ground wouldn't be there when I come back next year. Of course, I also have to remember to load the old images back in to the camera, and the chances of that are pretty slim.
-- half, May 27 2005


If you want them all in the same spot, shoot the background plate without anyone in it and, later on, shoot the various people on blue or green screen and composite them onto that background.

Important safety tip, always shoot an empty background plate if you can.
-- bristolz, May 27 2005



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