I don't have any examples handy but I did make some tests. I have a Pentax *istDS Digital SLR. You can control the camera remotely from a software and it works very well.

Is there something in particular you want to know ?

Stan,

I've done a few "tests" with a digital camera, should work fine with a DSLR, too. I set Vegas to treat single file jpgs as two frames and the camera automatically names them sequentially 001, 002, 003, etc, so it's really simple. The other awesome thing is that with digital camera you can shoot huge frames then crop and animate in post. If you shoot on a green screen you can fake all sorts of tedious stuff using key frames. I'd suspect any serious compositing work will require a stop to After Effects, but most stuff Vegas will work fine with.

I've had a stop-motion project in mind for 2 years that I want to shoot with a DSLR, but now Tim Burton beat me to it!

Also, from what I've heard, the new Panasonic HD camcorder, the HVX200, *might* shoot single frames to the P2 card. It also does multiple frame rates for motion effects like over/under cranking, making it perfect shooting miniatures and the like.

Jeff

The Corpse Bride was actually shot on digital SLR's.

That's true, but it was not an "off the shelf" digital camera!

Recently, I read at cinematography.com that using digital still cameras for animation was not really a good idea. The reason being that the exposure and white balance was not consistent from frame to frame at the level required for "motion pictures," each frame's difference caused a flickering.

I don't know if this is true or not as I've never tried it.

If you shoot RAW you can set white balance manually and it is very accurate, same for exposure...

There's a big difference between a point and shoot camera and an SLR camera, RAW mode makes all the difference, it's the same as if you were shooting uncompressed on a video camera...

But wouldn't shooting in the RAW mode require going in a "processing" each frame or could they be batch processed?

Photoshop can batch process if needed.
I'm working on a small test I can publish in a few minutes. I shot in JPEG with white balance set to tungsten, so far all the frames are the same regarding color/exposure.

A friend of mine just got one of these:

http://www.bmumford.com/photo/camctlr.html

Check out some of the videos, very cool stuff. I think they are made to order, somewhere near santa barbara

Better cameras can be taken out of Auto mode. At that point, couldn't you get the same exposure/ballence on every shot - since you set it once?
Also, a friend is just setting up a handycam-style camera and letting his capture program just grab a frame every X seconds. I'd guess that would have the same problems if in auto mode... I haven't seen any results yet.

Here's the test :

Shot with a Pentax *istDS camera in JPEG mode.
White balance : Tungsten preset.
Shutter : 1/8s
Aperture : F3.5
No post processing at all, pictures straight from camera to Vegas timeline.
12 FPS

WMV HD (need fast computer but worth it)
WMV SD (for slow computers)

What do you think ? Looks pretty neat and consistent to me...

Also, check these sites:

nignfilms.com
patrykrebisz.com/stills/FINAL_AE_760k.mov

ahhh but Nat you forgot one very important thing...
THE BEER

hehe did you just shoot that ?

Perfect! Right down the middle.

Yup and just drank it too!!!!

Canon 350d...... the DSLR ,not the Beer! : )

hmm, makes me thirsty !!

"Also, a friend is just setting up a handycam-style camera and letting his capture program just grab a frame every X seconds."

...can Vegas do this ??

Looked fine to me. But I wouldn't want to make a very long animation using a still camera!

Couple of thoughts:

1. Some SLRs won't let you lock up the mirror. If you are going to do thousands of pics, you will get both faster response, and also inflict far less wear and tear by getting a camera that lets you lock up the mirror. Specifically, my Nikon D70 does NOT let you lock up the mirror.

2. Scenalyzer lets you capture both stop motion and time lapse directly from video cameras. I'm not sure whether it works with HD cameras, but if it does, that would sure be the way to go.

Another thing to keep in mind on a similar note:

As far as I know, Digital SLRs do not offer video preview out before the button is pressed like regular digital cameras do. It makes framing a little harder and one must be careful not to bump the camera if doing stop motion.

Take a look at this thread
Creating animated movie from digital stills

Tor

Hmm I don't agree that framing is harder. In my opinion it's more easy, SLRs feature an optical viewfinder, what you see is what's coming into the lense.

Regarding mirror lockup, from what I understand, the mirror lockup function is ususally activated with the 2 second timer. So basically the mirror will still lift when you press the shutter button, I don't really see how it could cause less wear, i'd be curious to know though.

Nat, you're right. I'd rather look through the glass any day as well, but sometimes (when shooting minatures) it's tough to get my fat head angled correctly to see the viewfinder :-)

Jeff