Back Up At The Top Of The World

This was not a perfect photo day. Lots of Haze. No Santa Catalina. My still shots are a little washed out.

On the other hand, the sunset timelapse is pretty good. The GoPro was on a rock shooting a single frame every two seconds.

IMG_0795_9967My last trip to Top of the World was so frustrating I needed to get back. Tonight. Sunset. Better results.

This was not a perfect photo day. Lots of Haze. No Santa Catalina. My still shots are a little washed out.

On the other hand, the sunset timelapse is pretty good. The GoPro was on a rock shooting a single frame every two seconds.

While there I saw three kids trying to take a photo while jumping. It just can’t be done with an iPhone. It can’t!

I gave them my card. Whether they retrieve the shot is another story.

A Couple Of Afternoon Timelapses

You see physics in action as you look at the clouds interacting with the rest of the atmosphere at this much faster pace. Everything that happens is dictated by the laws of physics. Nothing is random.

So many things look different when seen at an alternate time scale. Nature is pretty damn cool.

0880I’ve taken a few time lapse videos today. The camera is mounted with a suction cup to the outside of my office window.

It’s a GoPro, one of the biggest breakthroughs in video technology, ever. It’s a cheap, tiny, waterproof, indestructible, high definition video camera that also shoots stills.

Every two seconds it snaps another frame. One hour of real time equals one minute of video. In editing it can be sped up even more.

The GoPro’s secret is its super wide lens–the opposite of a telephoto. Being wide reduces shake and makes aiming shots much less critical. It’s great for things very close or very large–like the sky.

The whole stills-to-video process is a pain. Nothing difficult. Just lots of steps.

You see physics in action as you look at the clouds interacting with the rest of the atmosphere at this much faster pace. Everything that happens is dictated by the laws of physics. Nothing is random.

So many things look different when seen at an alternate time scale. Nature is pretty damn cool.

A Video About The Video We’re Making

UC Irvine shoot

My GoPro joined me on the UC Irvine campus today, shooting exterior stand-ups for a video I’m making for the university’s Distance Learning Center.

The campus was busy, especially as students changed classes. February 12th and many were wearing shorts! We ‘stole’ the crowd for our background as I walked toward camera.

It reminded me of what I used to do in Buffalo for PM Magazine. We called them ‘ins-and-outs.’ They were also done in the field.

Of course there are some small climatic differences between Buffalo and Irvine, especially on February 12th!