Archive for May 23rd, 2010

time lapse obsession

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

I have been intrigued by time lapse videos for quite a while now.

The original TLW video is made up of 1.400 pictures, and there were other instances during the walk where I tried to record time lapse videos by speeding up standard video:

…or by stitching together hundreds of individual pictures taken with the DLSRs:

Now I’ve taken up this obsession again, and – once more – feel myself going through the process of learning things.

Here’s a video I made a few weeks ago in the Karwendel on the border of Germany and Austria:

It’s made up of 117 individual shots (tripod, remote, manual settings: 1/200sec. f8.0 ISO50 35mm 10sec-intervall)

The problem: I didn’t use an automatic timer, meaning I had to press the button on the remote every 10 seconds. So I got tired of it after a while, and I didn’t take enough pictures. Another problem is I didn’t crop the pictures to a snug 16:9 ratio, hence the vertical black bars. Also, I think using a wider angle would have yielded a more interesting result.

A few days later I made a new video, this time on the Isar riverside in Munich:

222 shots (tripod, timed remote, AV settings: 1/200sec-1/80sec f6.3 ISO50 16mm 5sec-intervall)

This time, I used a timed remote, but I forgot to use manual settings. This means that the camera would adjust to changing light conditions, hence yielding a slightly flickering picture. I was very upset about this obviously.

Take 3 was on the Isar riverside as well:

617 shots (tripod, timed remote, manual settings: 1/125sec. f8.0 ISO50 16mm 10sec-intervall)

This one was fun: I used the towers of Saint Maximilian as stabilizing elements in front of the moving clouds. I took a sufficient amount of pictures. There were no major hick-ups during this take. There are still some flaws in it though: the treetops are moving irritatingly fast in the wind, there is a dust spot on the left of the church tower. Anyways, I was pretty satisfied with this one, so I went looking for royalty free classical music on the net, and found my favorite J. S. Bach – a perfect soundtrack for the clip!

Soundtrack: Johann Sebastian Bach (Gould) – Aria

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