Time Lapse Photography- clouds (added one more)

[Dbl]

I like to monthly when I get the chance expand on something new to me in photography. I finally had a few minutes today to experiment with time lapse photography. This is a quick 15 second clip that was a proof of concept. My wife had no idea what I was up to and decided to put up our umbrella on the patio in the middle of this. I am shooting right now with the evening light so I will put that up later. Let me know if you can see the video. This is fairly low resolution but it was more a proof of concept.

[Dbl]

#2 is ready.

[mmeyer]

Both are very cool Dan! Care to elaborate on the process a little?

[dockothebay]

Neat stuff! I think I prefer the 2nd - not because of the umbrella, but because the trees moving in the wind on the right side of the frame feel shakey and a little disconcerting to me - the 2nd seems more peaceful. Interesting clips!!

[Dbl]

Thanks Mike and Jackie. I am working on the sunset and the impending storm so I hope to have some really cool stuff tomorrow.

Mike, I first used a simple formula based on how many FPS you want over what length of time. These were proof of concept so I only used 15 FPS which is the minimum for decent viewing. I will be working up to 30 FPS which is low end movie speed. Then you divide the length of time in seconds by the frames to find out your interval between shots.

So to make it easy using the above videos I used 15 fps for 15 seconds of clip = 225 frames.

I wanted to shoot for 30 minutes which is 1800 seconds divided by the 225 frames = 8 second intervals! Whew, easy enough.

Mike I believe Nikon has a built in interval feature in the camera. Us poor Canon guys have to use other means. I used a Pocket Wizard Multimax with allows you to set intervals right on it for timed shooting of the flash or camera. So I set 8 seconds for 225 shots in the PW.

The camera because it was partly cloudy I used ISO 100 in the first, and ISO 400 in the second and AV mode with -1/3 EC for the clouds. Aperture of around 5.6, DOF doesn't really matter here and used JPEG small with a white balance of 4800K (consistent colors and darker blue sky). Hook up the camera with a pre-release trigger from the PW to the camera and hit the test button on the PW to start the sequence. Walked away and came back 30 minutes latter to retrieve my card.

Nothing to it.

[finnbay]

really some neat stuff!

[MN Shutterbug]

That is really cool, especially the 2nd. It really appears as if something sinister is moving in. Do that with menacing storm clouds and it will be bordering on frightening.

[Steve Foss]

Steve Foss likes this!

[Dbl]

Night version, note the Big Dipper. Storm is coming later tonight but I don't know if I will stay up that late. This one is at 30 FPS, much smoother video but 300 shots for 20 seconds.

[mmeyer]

Thanks for the explanation Dan! Nikon does have that feature, but unfortunately, it's on the next model up from mine!

[polarsusd81]

That is really awesome stuff Dan. Can always count on you to step it up a notch and show us FMers something new.

Thanks.

[Birdsong]

Nice! Love the big dipper peeking through and the changing color in the clouds.

[Catmendo]

Excellent material Dan!

[Dbl]

From this evening, two seperate videos put together.

[Birdsong]

This last one is very cool! Very moody and so much variation. What fun to do.

[eyeguy 54]

Sweet! All are awesome. I'd love to see a sunset done this way.

[mmeyer]

Very cool Dan!!

[crawdad]

This is neat stuff! My D50 probably isn't capable, and I wonder how many shutter actions I'd use getting hooked into this....

It'd be a nice feature in my Sony P&S. Definite item to have for the next one though.

Did you have to adjust exposures at any time during (or after) the sequences? i.e breaks in the clouds?

[Nymph]

Very neat!

[MuleShack]

That is really cool.

You dont get to see the clouds got thru those changes with just watching.

Very interesting

[micpic]

Very,very nice, Dan. Keep em coming!

Mike

[Dbl]

This is neat stuff! My D50 probably isn't capable, and I wonder how many shutter actions I'd use getting hooked into this....

It'd be a nice feature in my Sony P&S. Definite item to have for the next one though.

Did you have to adjust exposures at any time during (or after) the sequences? i.e breaks in the clouds?

These I shot in Av mode with some exposure compensation to take care of the exposure problems with changing light. Seemed to work fairly well this way. I made sure I set a high enough ISO to compensate for the light later in the evening. The bigger factor is to make sure the color balance doesn't change to much so I used a constant K temp. I think setting your White Balance to cloudy or sunny, whatever your condition at the time of the shooting would work better than Auto White Balance. I ran a 1,000 or so shots through my camera that day but that's why we have them!