Thread: Experiments in Timelapse

I put together my first timelapse reel. I'm learning how to do this, so I'm soliciting criticism. Please be honest, even if it means being harsh. I'm here to learn.




For starters I know:
-there's bad flicker in a few shots, this is from me not shooting wide open or not rotating my lenses off the contacts. Will do this next time.
-Some shots need work in terms of framing - horizons too close to middle, too much empty space, not enough moving elements, etc. I plan on focusing on this next time. I'm learning (slowly) that shooting for motion requires a totally different approach to previsualize the finished product.

There are plenty of experts in here whether they admit it or not so I expect some mud to be slung. If your curious about the settings for an individual shot fire away. One of the things I need to wrap my head around is a heightened understanding of how intervals and exposure times translate into finished motion.

Thanks for having a look.

Grant,

Those are all really cool, and I have no idea how long it took you to put those together, but my guess is a long time. Impressive. My critique is general rather than specific, but the best scenes were the ones where the changing light reveled something new to the eye, weather it be stars, or the landscape or whatever. The shots where the camera moved were also nice. I'd also like to see what you'd get with a longer lens, but I imagine that might be difficult to pull off.

Originally Posted by Lonnie

Grant,

Those are all really cool, and I have no idea how long it took you to put those together, but my guess is a long time. Impressive. My critique is general rather than specific, but the best scenes were the ones where the changing light reveled something new to the eye, weather it be stars, or the landscape or whatever. The shots where the camera moved were also nice. I'd also like to see what you'd get with a longer lens, but I imagine that might be difficult to pull off.

Thanks Lonnie. Yeah, hours and hours and hours of standing around int he dark and cold listening to the shutter click. Your suggestion about longer lenses That was also one crit I got from some more experienced folks I showed this to - a longer lens (which I have but am trained as a landscape shooter to not reach for as much as the wide-angle) compresses the scene and things move through it relatively faster (stars, clouds, fog, etc). So I'm definitely going to utilize my 200mm more from here on out.

i don't know much about about time lapse, but i will say this, its pretty rare for me to stay mesmerized by a video for nearly 5 minutes.

Great job!

Very good stuff there.

That song is dope. I want whatever else is on that press.

First clip is really nice. And you definitely scored on that morning over donner lake.....especially with the short intervals. That slow undulation is friggin rad. That literally inspired me to try to get something similar.

Something's up with your processing on that DV clip at 2:37. It looks like you've got a mismatch between an interpreted frame rate and an output frame rate. Those clouds shouldn't look like that but it also looks like a very specific cause.

What's up with the flicker on the second clip? That looks like what happens when you use full auto settings. Is that just a closed down iris inconsistency? If so I definitely see what you mean. I've never run into that.

I also hate to say it but I think that rc plane on the GG bridge is kind of cool.


But for the love of god, don't stretch clips. Doubled frames are like skinning puppies. Cute puppies. Do you want me to publicly embarrass you by specifically listing which clips I can tell you did it on?


Really good stuff man. That clip is better than what a lot of people put out that have considered this their hobby for years. Seriously.

Also......donner fog.........SICK!!!!!!

That was awesome man, nice job. You have a real appreciation of natural beauty. Diggin the music too, who is it?

WOW! That's some cool footage. Bravo for the first one, can't wait to see more.

Still loving the panning and tilting rig ... adds a great dynamic to the foreground element. Judging by how you like to compose, I think that's an area you can really develop quickly as you continue to dial in your exposure intervals etc.

fkna man, that was awesome. I usually skip through a few minutes of videos but this had me going the whole time. No crit here. The black and white shot on the dolly was one of my favorites. Keep up the killer work.

Wow! Awesome.

Love:
- Changing colors against clouds
- Stars (will be great in the southern summer sky with the Milky Way in motion)
- Moving camera/foreground

Some other thoughts:
- Daylight/cloudy shots with static lighting were kinda boring
- Some segments with the sun setting had me waiting for the stars to rise but ended too early

Curious as to how much delay you have between shots -- most of them look pretty smooth with very little gap. Are you shooting RAW or JPEG?

Originally Posted by Fuzz

- Some segments with the sun setting had me waiting for the stars to rise but ended too early

That's a tough one fuzz. Guys have spent a years coming up with setups to achieve it. Everything from custom built intervalometers to tracking down old manual iris primes and building belt drives for them. But I agree. Lane is a hack until he gets that one.


Here's one of the custom intervalometer deals someone has built. It's a bulb setting ramper that lengthens exposures for you. Seems pretty cool.

http://www.photosbykev.com/wordpress...ittle-bramper/

Well done sir! So what did you build the dolly with? Been thinking about that myself, some for sale but in the thousands. Would like to try Ace hardware and see what I can come up with....

*stands up and claps*

That was sick. The time/effort you put into that...good stuff man.

Originally Posted by Lonnie

revealed something new to the eye

This seems to be a really important element and I wanted to echo Lonnie's thoughts. The combined dynamics of subject motion and panning are really pleasing when something new about the subject(s) is also revealed.

Hey Grant, I saw this vid and instantly thought of your TL work.....

Enjoy,
L

Haha.......you just guarenteed GK an additional 300 hours in his cold garage this winter.

Originally Posted by kidwoo

Haha.......you just guarenteed GK an additional 300 hours in his cold garage this winter.

Glad to be of service....