Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
A place to discuss, share, and create stop motion films.
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Does anyone film without a capture program? If so, how does it turn out? Because I can't afford any programs at the moment.
I use a DSLR and other free capture software doesn't work with DSLR's
I've shot films without capture software, I find it is very possible to do, but takes a lot of work not being able to compare shots because the viewfinder is very small, something you can do is get an AV cord and hook your camera up to a fair sized TV and play back the images on it while you work to make sure the lighting stays the same and the animation is fairly smooth (just by pressing > and checking how much you move a part in each frame) but it will take a ton of work.
Filming without a capture program is fast and it helps to have good x-sheets and keep a tally of what frame you are on, it's also easier if you have a low number of minifig on screen at on time. This is what my x-sheets looked like when I shot blind.
I use a DSLR...
Ok, let's be vague. Is it a Nikon or a Canon? Pentax? Off-brand from Dollar General?
...and other free capture software doesn't work with DSLR's
"other free capture software" = MonkeyJam and HeliumFrog, doesn't it? Of course those won't work, because they are made for Webcams. There are programs that capture images from your camera. Tethering, my friend, tethering. No, it may not have live view, and no it may not play your frames in a sequence, but it does indeed capture the image, which is what you want, isn't it?
If you have a Nikon, I recommend DigiCamControl. I use it. It doesn't have live view (because of limitations in my certain camera type, not the software), it doesn't really play images in a sequence (there is a function that does that, but it doesn't work well), it doesn't have onion-skinning, but it does capture photos. It is kind of like a remote control for your camera, but on the computer, and it will display your image when you take the frame. Plus, it's no doubt that your monitor is much larger than your camera's LED screen, so you can see your image larger and compare it to the last frame more easily.
For Canon, have you tried the EoS Utility? It comes on a CD with your camera, and from what I hear, it's pretty good. I think it has live view, depending on what your camera model is.
Of course, the two I mentioned above are free programs. If you had a budget, there is StopMotionPro, iStopMotion (for Mac), AnimatorHD, Honestech Stopmotion Studio 4.0, and many more programs that are actually made for stop-motion.
However, if you still want to use the camera without capture software, be my guest. But it will require lots of work. (It's not that I'm against going "old-school", it just takes a lot more patience and practice, and maybe a few bucks to buy a remote). If you don't have a remote, you'll need to turn on self timer, and every time you press the shutter release button, it will wait two seconds before capturing the image. Though, like I said, remotes and capture software helps a lot, because there is absolutely no need to touch your camera except for focus, zoom, an camera movements. This reduces set bumps, and makes film quality better.
Thanks guys but please don't be offended, I just wanted to know if anyone films without a capture program and to find out how it turns out. I already know about EOS Ulitity
If you have a webcam you can just use that for the animation window and then just take every frame on your DSLR two.
I've always filmed without a capture or stop-mo program, never loaded images into a computer until everything was shot. The first time I used a stop-mo app was on my iPhone and iPad for testing purposes and a contest I ran. The films I made without capture assistance went well, vehicle animation turned out better than character but that is probably because I've done a lot more with vehicles.
It takes attention to what you are doing and total control of the lighting situation if you plan to do without computer aid at all. You'll probably never be able to match shots exactly in post if you aren't in total control of the whole thing (ie, no windows and finish all shots before wandering away from the set).
Recently I'm looking into different stop-mo software options to possibly speed up workflow, but that's really irrelevant to this discussion. 
So it can be done, it can be done well, it takes a bit more (IMO) attention to what is going on with your animation and patience to get it all done at once.
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