{{Short description|Photography Technique}} right|upright=1.5|thumb|alt=Synthetic photograph with several appearances of a guy riding a bicycle on a bicycle ground|ActionShot photograph of a bicycle rider. right|upright=1.5|thumb|alt=Synthetic photograph with several appearances of snowboarder gliding over a snow-covered valley|ActionShot photograph of a snowboarder.

'''ActionShot''' is a method of capturing an object in action and displaying it in a single image with multiple sequential appearances of the object.

Additional names: action synopsis, motion synopsis, panoramic video synopsis, dynamic still, synopsis mosaic, stromotion.

== Background ==

There are many methods for capturing panoramic images, some being fully manual or semi-automatic, and others completely automatic. However, the majority of these methods are for creating panoramic photos of a static landscape. In contrast, the capture of a dynamic scene — i.e. recording the motion of a moving object — is typically done by video recording.

ActionShot is a method that combines elements of both panoramic and video photography to create panoramic photos of ''dynamic'' scenes that take place over a wide-angle area. This involves capturing a moving object (e.g. a person running, riding a bicycle or skiing) and depicting multiple instances of this object over a single panoramic background.

== Methods == === Hardware ===

Stroboscopes have been used to create static images of an action. The moving object is illuminated by the periodic light flashes generated by the stroboscope and is shot by a stills camera using a long exposure. This results in a photograph that displays multiple images of the object along its path.

ActionShot photography is now available as part of camera application on Samsung Android Galaxy Premium Devices (Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy S2) or by downloading the Nokia Smartcam app on the Microsoft Lumia Phones

=== Manual image editing ===

To create a dynamic panoramic image manually, a photographer needs to take several shots or still frames from a high-resolution video of a moving object and then combine them together using manual image registration, followed by manual image stitching. Image editing programs can assist in this process.<ref>Kaan Kiran, Composing an Action Sequence Shot. DIYPhotography.net Photography and Studio Lighting. [http://www.diyphotography.net/composing-an-action-sequence-shot]</ref>

=== Automatic image processing ===

Early digital image processing methods created a "synopsis mosaic" by building a panoramic image a video sequence where higher weights were assigned to the moving objects.<ref>M. Irani, P. Anandan, J. Bergen, R. Kumar, and S. Hsu, Efficient Representations of Video Sequences and Their Applications . Signal Processing: Image Communication, special issue on Image and Video Semantics: Processing, Analysis, and Application, Vol. 8, No. 4, May 1996. [http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~irani/PAPERS/mosaics.pdf]</ref> However, good image registration and stitching alone were not sufficient for creating a realistic image, because if the moving object overlaps itself, the combined result seems highly unnatural.<ref>[http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~caspi/Projects/ve_files/Page541.html Dynamic still examples]</ref> This in order to create eye-catching synopsis still images, and even videos, the moving objects are required not to overlap in the composed result.<ref>Y.Pritch, A.Rav-Acha, S.Peleg. [http://www.vision.huji.ac.il/video-synopsis/ Video Synopsis and Indexing].</ref>

== Related methods == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20090520161628/http://www.tau.ac.il/~jackassa/graphics/actionSynopsis.html Action synopsis for computer animation]

==See also== *Panoramic photography *Image stitching *Video synopsis

== References == {{reflist}}

== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20121106172846/http://picasaweb.google.com/ActionShotOmnia2/ActionShot?feat=directlink ActionShot photos created by Samsung Omnia2 cellphone.] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20090421144651/http://www.dartfish.com/en/media-gallery/images/index.htm ActionShot examples created by the Dartfish commercial software.]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Actionshot}} Category:Image processing Category:Panorama photography Category:Photography by genre