Recently in Time Lapse Category

On occasion you see something so breath-taking you don't have adequate words to describe it.  It's jaw dropping.  Stunning.  I had that experience when I first saw the HD series, Earth, on Blu-ray. The photography was beyond anything I had imagined before.

Well, I suspect that Tom Lowe's (@timescapes) time lapse project, which he has been working on for some time, is going to be another of those stunning visual experiences.  Below is a teaser he posted on Vimeo.  There's time lapse, there's astro time lapse, and there's Tom Lowe's time lapse.  I can't wait to see this finished work.

Also of note, Tyler Ginter (@TylerGinter) who spent some time with Tom helping with a shoot in the fall and learning more about time lapse, has posted a really excellent piece about the art and science of time lapse.  He includes a growing checklist, links to Tom Guilmette's (@TomGuilmette) tutorial on setting up the Kessler Cineslider, Philip Bloom's (@PhilipBloom) tutorial on post, and a behind the scene shot of setting up Tom's Natural Bridge time lapse sequence.  It's really a great post.  The checklist is awesome.

When you watch the time lapse below, which is a teaser for his upcoming film, be sure to go into full screen mode.

I love time lapse photography!  This time lapse by twin brothers Dan and David Newcomb has some spectacular shots in it featuring HDR as well as some awesome dolly and pan shots!  (They design and build their own rigs.) The undulating fog is spectacular! When you watch it, be sure to click on the full screen mode in the player window.

YouTube link (time lapse above where you can select full 1080i HD) Dan and David's YouTube Channel Their website link YouTube link (time lapse below where you can select full 1080i HD)

This time lapse below, of the frenetic energy of the Vancouver Olympics, is also stunning and uses crane and dolly shots.  When viewed at 1080i in full screen, will tax the dickens out of your internet service or Google's servers, or both.  (The size included below should play fine.)

Link to other posts @ tt.us featuring and about time lapse photography.

Mike Davidson (of Mike Industries) created a blog documenting his "first-hand chronology of the design, planning, and construction of a modern home in Seattle."  He leaves no stone unturned as he presents the cost of every aspect of the project, frequent posts throughout the project from planning to tear down to completion, complete with a time lapse of the entire event.

This isn't just a blog.  It's a journey! It's massive — lots of great pictures (fixtures, wiring...), lots of granular detail.

I've followed his journey on and off over the course of the year.  Now he has a gorgeous home in Seattle, with stunning views, and he let the world follow along.  Thinking about building?  You'll want to explore his blog, "A House by the Park."

Awesome!

This time lapse of Baja, California, by Mike Flores is pretty cool work. I especially appreciate the attention to the music cue and the sunrise about two-thrids of the way through.

On his Vimeo site, Mike says:

This is a little compilation of timelapses I've shot down in Baja California this year. There's a mix of DSLRs and lenses used to shoot this; 5D, 5D2, 7D - 14mm, 16-35mm, 24mm mostly. Motion control via Mumford tables, or my 'servo city' dolly.

Music is by (stolen from) Clint Mansell, "Welcome to Lunar Industries" from the soundtrack to Moon. If you haven't seen Moon, you need to - it's a fantastic film.

This time lapse of San Francisco, by Simon Christen, was shot over a one year period and is quite beautiful.

Related articles:

• San Francisco Bay: The Unseen Sea (current.com)

About a month ago they measured. This week they installed.

The shutters completely change the feeling of the living room.  Tim likes.

Here you have about 4 hours of worked distilled into 1 minute and 20 seconds. Enjoy.

So nicely done. Be sure to check out Phil's post on the setup for this time lapse. He includes a 12 minute audio podcast about it as well at: Phil's Blog Post.  Oh, and watch this in full screen mode!

This is as much to help me remember this as it is to share the info with all humanoids on in interwebs...

This is the post production process I used when creating the Malaga Cove time lapse shorts.  After importing the footage from the camera into the computer:

1. QuickTime Pro 7 ›› File ›› Open Image Sequence...
2. Make sure images are in their chronological shot order
3. Select the first image and click "Open"
4. Select 24 frames per second and click "OK"
5. After the huge file is created, make sure you are displaying it at 100%
6. File ›› Export ›› Export: Movie to QuickTime movie [bottom left drop down]
7. Select "Options..."
   1. In the Movie Setting Dialogue, ›› Settings...
      1. Compression Type: Apple ProRes 422 (LT)
      2. Frame Rate: 24 fps
      3. OK
   2. Back in the Movie Setting Dialogue, ›› Size...
      1. Dimensions: Current [Make certain it is the full frame size of the original photos if you wish to pan and crop in Final Cut Pro.]
      2. OK
   3. Select "OK"
   4. Name the file and save it.
8. Create a sequence in Final Cut Pro with these settings:
   1. Frame Size: 1440 x 1080 [HD (1440 x 1080) (16:9)
   2. Pixel Aspect Ration: HD (1440 x 1080)
   3. Editing Timebase: 24 fps
9. Import your media and design your project — the fun part!
10. Once the project is completed in Final Cut Pro ›› Export ›› Using QuickTime Conversion...
    1. Format: MPEG-4
    2. Options
       1. Video Format: H.264
       2. Data Rate: I usually use over 4,000kbits/sec [The higher the number the larger the file size but the better the visual quality.]
       3. Image Size: I usually export three different sizes (three different exports): 1920 x 1080 HD, 1280 x 720 HD, and 640 x 360
       4. Frame Rate: 24fps

Related articles:

• Malaga Cove Sunrise (Time Lapse) (timtyson.us)
• Malaga Cover Time Lapse (Noon) (timtyson.us)

This is the second time lapse I shot at Malaga Cover yesterday.  This one was shot at ISO 100 with a 5 second interval and includes a bit of panning.  As you can see from the comment at the other Malaga Cove time lapse, I met lots of interesting people yesterday morning.

So, here is the noon time lapse of Malaga Cove. Don't forget, you can click the full screen button when it starts playing.  You can see the little tiny surfers and the water currents moving about.  The one below is HD: 1280 x 720, so be sure you have your window as large as you can get it before clicking the play button. (If your monitor is too small to play the HD version, you can view the smaller version directly underneath the HD version.)

I'm not exactly sure why, but the HD version plays rather poorly over the internet using MediaBoxAdv; so, I just have it pop up in a separate window for excellent playback.

Related articles:

• First CineSlider Time Lapse (timtyson.us)
• Malaga Cove Sunrise (Time Lapse) (timtyson.us)
• All of the time lapses posted at timtyson.us (timtyson.us)

I mentioned in my post yesterday about this time lapse, that I wasn't able to get a transition from complete darkness to light because I shot this time lapse so close to today -- the longest day of the year, and you can't park your car until 5:00am. At any rate, here is the first time lapse from yesterday.

My face got totally fried!  The breeze was delightfully cool (a bit cold actually before the sun came up), probably in the low to mid 60's.  So I had no idea I was cooking myself!

The cloud action, while not as dramatic as the fog coming in to engulf the cove and then moving out again, was still awesome!  (The camera frame is actually considerably larger than the 16:9 video frame; so, you don't get to see the full effect in this video.  Though what is here is great.)

Technical: Balancing three variables: the exposure time (very dark and then very light conditions in the same time lapse) with an aperture that will provide the best depth of field and sharpness with the shortest possible shot interval so the continuous motion of the waves in the finished time lapse appears as smooth as possible.

I placed my ISO at 400 since I would be shooting in very decreased light in the early morning hours but also in very bright light by noon. The exposure time (at f5.6) is pretty significant when its darker outside but then ran up to 1600 (at ISO 400) when it was noon). So I set my shot interval to be 20 seconds. (My experience has been that in near dark conditions, at ISO 400, the exposure time can be over 20 seconds.  In yesterdays darkest time the exposure was only 2 seconds, but I just now noticed this!  Rats!  I could have done a 5 second shot interval.) Regrettably, once the sun comes up, a 20 second exposure time creates jerky wave motion. But the cloud action is pretty cool.

Therefore, halfway through the time lapse, I stopped and adjusted the ISO to 100 and the shot interval to 5 seconds. So, in the second time lapse I will post from my day at Malaga Cove, the wave action is considerably smoother. Stay tuned for the second time lapse to be posted later.

But, in the mean time, here is the early morning time lapse of Malaga Cove. Don't forget, you can click the full screen button when it starts playing.  You can see the little tiny surfers and the water currents moving about.  The one below is HD: 1280 x 720, so be sure you have your window as large as you can get it before clicking the play button. (If your monitor is too small to play the HD version, you can view the smaller version directly underneath the HD version.)

I'm not exactly sure why, but the HD version plays rather poorly over the internet using MediaBoxAdv; so, I just have it pop up in a separate window for excellent playback.

Related articles:

• First CineSlider Time Lapse (timtyson.us)

This morning I got up really early (3:45AM) to shoot a time lapse of the Galaga Cove along the Palos Verdes Shoreline Preserve. Unfortunately, the area is not open for parking until 5AM; so, as tomorrow is the longest day of the year, I missed the transition from complete darkness to sunrise. It was already fairly light out when I arrived at  5AM. Probably just as well: the cliffs are a sheer, straight drop off, and I didn't want to plunge to my certain death by mis-stepping in the darkness. I placed the tripod just inches away from the edge!

The time lapse was with one shot ever 20 seconds for 7 hours (from 5am until 12pm) as the slider travelled 29 inches. (About half way through I switched to one shot every 5 seconds which is yielding a much smoother time lapse.) Regrettably I could put nothing in the foreground here for a parallax effect. The surf was very active for the summer time, and numerous suffers were enjoying the unusual wave action. Regrettably, the weather didn't do anything too dramatic during the time I was shooting, though the sunlight was varied and some heavy clouds considered coming in but didn't.

I shot this picture of this area several months ago when a thick fog enveloped the cove. I was hoping for something even more dramatic with the fog moving in or out but had no luck this morning.

But this is what the same area looked like today:

At any rate, I had some interesting conversations with a couple of surfers--guys about my age. I learned from one of them that, about 20 years ago, the city purchased the houses on the western side of the road along the Pacific Ocean. They allow the original owners to live in the houses until they die. Apparently the entire hillside is slowly sliding off into the Pacific Ocean. The land, otherwise, would easily be worth tens of millions.

One of the surfers was very into photography. He spoke of the many pictures he has taken over the years at this spot. He said it was very much like the south of France, another place he loves to shoot and surf.

One of the surfer dudes I talked with said the brown in the water indicates rip tides:  where the current is pulling the seashore sand back into the ocean.  I've always heard of these as a child growing up on the Gulf Coast (may it rest in peace) but had never been able to see them as you can in this picture.

As you will be able to see when I post the time lapse, soon, I promise, the weather was glorious beyond description. As a result, I got a sunburn on my face without ever realizing it. I don't think that paradise could be as perfect as this day.

And I mean out of the city. Tom Lowe shares some astounding time lapse work from out in the desert. He also has a couple of breath-taking HD versions available for download at his site, Timescapes. Just awesome! You have to watch these full screen!

Predicting where to setup to catching the galaxy stars as they come by, the sunrise and set, the moon's motion and how it will change the lighting of the scene...  He's quite the artist!

Related articles:

• I Love Ross' Creativity Here (timtyson.us)

Everyone knows of my growing interest in time lapse.  Here's a new twist from Ross Ching:  shoot time lapses of LA's highways and take out all of the cars!  The amount of time Ross had to spend in post masking out the cars using Photoshop and FCP is probably less than I imagine but at the same time more than I can imagine!  He talks about it at his blog, here.

It looks like he also did some lovely work with color grading, and I suspect, but don't know for a fact, that the panning through some of the sequences was done in post and not with a slider or dolly at the shoot.  A a couple of weeks ago a photographer friend of  mine asked me if that would be possible.  From a practicality standpoint, I wasn't so sure just because of the amount of time involved with computer crunching.

Very, very creative work that ads a whole new dimension to the LA reality that is never without a hideous amount of traffic. Good music.  Clever and creative.  Tim likes!

I hadn't come across Sean Stiegemeier's work until I saw this astounding time lapse of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupting. Not only do you see stunning imagery from nature, but his use of the motorized dolly really brings this to life. And the still life of the old bullet riddled plane... Way awesome. Amazing work! No doubt this guy will have work start pouring in.

I hope he had one whale of a zoom! (He used a wide angle though. Brave man!)

For the best viewing experience, watch this with HD on!

Related articles:

• Time-Lapse Video of The Eyjafjallajökull Volcano (laughingsquid.com)
• A Haunting Time-Lapse Video of Eyjafjallajökull [Iceland] (gizmodo.com)
• The Incredible Eyjafjallajökull (joshspear.com)
• Stunning stop-motion video of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, in action (boingboing.net)
• The volcano.The video. (vostok.es)

Comprised of over 6,000 still images, each shot every 20 seconds from the hotel room window overlooking the river below, this time lapse represents almost 2 days of the heat and hazy humidity of Bangkok.  I used my old Canon 30D.  The original project is 1080HD and is filled with interesting detail; but, to be useful for web deployment, this much smaller version is shared.

I shot this time lapse from my hotel room. This is just a night time short from a full 24 hour time lapse that will be created in a couple of weeks. My laptop is just too taxed producing these to make the longer ones on the road.

This time lapse, from yesterday, is better than my first because I used manual focus! :)

It's also more interesting because you can see the stars moving through the sky as well as the fog come rolling in off of the ocean during the night. You can even see the moving fog outside during the day! (Look closely. You can see it.) Because this is a time lapse, the fog appears to be moving very rapidly. The truth is, it was going down the street faster than you could comfortably walk!

The downside of the fog: during the day this caused variance in the brightness of the individual shots in the time lapse. I experimented with removing that with a filter that averaged exposure values over time. It worked amazingly well but dulled the fog's motion outside the window. So, I decided to leave it as shot.

You can view full screen by clicking on the full screen icon in the timeline. (It only appears, in the bottom right, when you mouse over the movie.)

Notes to myself on workflow:

• To resize the finished video file, export from FCP with QuickTime conversion out of FCP at the desired size using H.264
• THEN export that file out of MPEG Streamclip at 100% as an mp4 file for the web.
• Otherwise MPEG Streamclip takes insanely f-o-r-e-v-e-r!

OK. So my first time lapse movie, a collection of about 3,500 stills shot in the font living room over almost 24 hours, turned out better than I thought it would. I only had one major issue, catastrophic actually: I forgot to take the camera out of auto focus until the last several hours of the time lapse!!

This cause a number of issues:

• As the sun lights the outdoors and the wind blows the plants, the camera couldn't decide on what to focus: inside or outside. Tragic!
• The focus fluctuation then caused some variance of brightness values (flickering) from image to image.
• The focus fluctuations exposure issues on small thin things link the wood between the window panes.

To reduce how obvious the focus issues are, I am posting a small version of the original 1920 x 1080 time lapse. While this hides the focus anomalies somewhat, it also takes the drama out of the starts moving through the sky as it begins to fill with light. When I turned the auto focus off, the remainder of the time lapse is solidly focused.

The only other thing I really am not happy with (that I should be able to control): such marked changes in brightness from the inside/outside and from day/night cause overexposures and underexposures over time. I'm not really sure how to best compensate for that. When cars drove by outside, they sometimes reflected flashes of light into the room. But, I couldn't block off the street.

ISO: 100
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: variable
Lens: 14mm
Editor: FCP
FPS: 24 with each still shot as 1 frame
Total images: 3,445
Shot interval: 20 seconds (though when totally dark, the shutter time was at 30 seconds)

For a first try, I'm surprised at how straight forward the process seemed to be! Next time: no auto focus!