Best Way To Take Screenshots of PS2 games?

[StanJr]

Outside of PS2 emulators, which I will not be delving in to, what is the best way to get screenshots of PS2 games? I'm talking taking pictures with a digital camera of a television playing a PS2 game. Flash, no flash? Lights on, lights off? How close?

 

Anybody got any tips for undertaking this task and making it look nice and not like something you took back in 1982 when you got that huge score on Plaque Attack?

[kevincal]

Video capture card. But if you are going to take a pic of the tv, dark room with no flash.

[Reaperman]

I'm guessing you don't want to go fully manual, so you'll probably want to fiddle with the metering too so it doesn't slow the exposure time when it senses that the room is much darker than the bright screen. If the camera's got a spot meter, make sure you're using it--if not try manually overriding the exposure settings. Don't be afraid to up the iso a little too, as long as it doesn't get too grainy for you. Probably also want to open the lens up as wide as it can go (zoom 'out' all the way if you have a zoom lens, and that will generally give another stop on cheap lenses). square yourself up with the TV so the reduced depth of field doesn't matter, and the pictures will also be easier to crop in on.

 

If the exposure time is too long (over 1/60th or so) you're going to get lots of movement unless you can pause the action. Also handy because that's what ntsc screens refresh at. The good news is that if you're pretty steady, you can avoid needing a tripod at 1/60 and that just saves a ton of misery.

Edited August 8, 2009 by Reaperman

[StanJr]

wow. Thanks a ton, dude. My wife takes most of the screenshots, so I'll pass all of this along to her. I really appreciate the in depth explanation.

 

Stan

[Video]

I useually just try to fill most the screen of a camera up with the image of the TV, and turn the flash off, otherwise you'll just get a pic of a mostly faded screen with a huge white spot in it. I can useually pull osme pretty good shots this way.

 

Idealy though, a Video card with Video IN would be the best option, you could even capture Video at the best quality, and get the pic witout the cropping and such.

 

I tried a USB card on my computer, but they suck, and I can't findanybody that can tell me about them beyond the typical "your an idiot cause you can't get it to work right" crap. My olc computer did it great though, but it was one I built myself back in 00 (or 99) and I got a PCI internal video card, pretty good for the time, but the sound and pic is out of sync for video, it's perfect for screens though, it's a 9200radion ATI card.