Hi guys,

I'm trying to build a couple of models of as aircraft as they appeared in a film. I've got the film on DVD and used the pause function to find good stills of the ones in question. I thought of tried to use my digital camera to get pics from the screen so I could print them out as reference for painting.

The trouble is out of 20 pics I took only one was useable, the rest all had very dark and light bands across the screen horizontally or vertically, which distorted the camo on the aircraft.

Is there a way that I can get useable pics? My camera is a basic one with few functions but the fact I got one decent one means I did something right, trouble is I don't know what.

Any ideas?

You'd be better off if you have a DVD player in your computer. Pause, then hit the "Print Screen" button in the upper lright corner of your keyboard. Then paste the image into your photo editor.

I believe that it will be nearly impossible to use a camera. If I understand CRT TVs, all the pixels don't refresh at the same time. Only every other pixel refreshes. At high speeds it can fool your eye into thinking the whole picture is there when in reality only half the picture is being displayed at any given moment. You will probably be best trying to get some sort of screen grabbing videocard and run the DVD through your PC. Because the storage or the data is digital your video grabbing card can accurately reassemble the full image.

Thanks for the info guys. I guess I will have to get my PC upgraded.

I tried it once. Pictures came out very grainy and blurry. Your best bet is to do what Al suggested.

If you've got or get a CD/DVD drive on your computer, sometimes the software you use with it has its own save frame option and you can save photo perfect pictures fro any film.

Power dvd is the program I use with mine.

Vic

P.S. What film are the pictures you are after from

Aeroplanes? Hmmmm.. I think we should be told which movie this is.. It is not an import DVD is it? Dutch postmark?? :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

LOL :-) NO! It's the film Battle of Britain and I've been trying again to get some stills. I've actually managed to get one or two decent pics, enough for me to copy the camo and weathering.

To get the best image you really need to capture it off the computer...

But you can use your camera by taking a photo of the screen. To do this you need a tripod. You need to use a long shutter speed, so that the whole TV picture refreshes during the exposure. Start out trying 20th of a second, and drop it progressively down as slow as you can go, or until you get the picture you are happy with. Youll need to use manual or shutter priority mode.