A Different Kind Of Time Lapse

“Don’t you get bored,” Stef asked after seeing my latest time lapse. In a way she’s right. Just clouds passing by.

On the other hand you can actually watch and see physics in action! Everything happening is happening for a well defined reason.

Tonight is the full moon and we’re close to perigee. That makes the Moon big and bright and very visible as it moves past the window.

I like this one especially. I like the night.

full moon time lapse

Another Beautiful SoCal Sunset (With Time Lapse)

As I was passing by, Helaine asked if I’d seen the evening colors? “It would probably make a good time lapse,” she said.

Too late. The camera was already suctioned on the guest bedroom window, pointing at the setting Sun.

If I could only rip down the houses west of us for a better view.

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Cool Hartford Time Lapse Video

This afternoon I asked our FoxCT editor Tom Carl if he’d run a time lapse on our Hartford Citycam. No problem. Here is the product of his efforts.

There are definite advantages to working at a TV station. For instance, this afternoon I asked our FoxCT editor Tom Carl if he’d run a time lapse video on our Hartford Citycam. No problem. Here is the product of his efforts.

We ran this on the FoxCT 4:00 PM news. Though there’s no excuse for you missing it, just in case here’s another chance.

Astrophotography: Anyone Can Do It

Meanwhile the Earth is spinning on its axis. Like the rotating restaurant on the top of a cheesy hotel we are constantly pointing in a different direction. That creates a photographic problem and opens a photographic opportunity!

A few nights ago I pulled “Clicky” out and shot the night sky. My intention was to produce a time lapse as the stars rotated by (at the bottom of this entry).

As I showed the video one thing became obvious. Many of those who saw it didn’t realize they’d see that effect from a camera in a fixed position. We’ve become out-of-touch with the nighttime sky which no longer is as visible nor has the importance it did to our great grandparents.

Stars are very, very far from us. The closest star (other than our own Sun) is Proxima Centauri which is about 25,260,733,353,600 miles away (that’s 25+ trillion miles)! Others in the visible sky are thousands or even millions of times more distant. That keeps our view of stars reasonably constant.

Meanwhile the Earth is spinning on its axis. Like the rotating restaurant on the top of a cheesy hotel we are constantly pointing in a different direction. That creates a photographic problem and opens a photographic opportunity!

The opportunity is time lapse. What my little movie shows isn’t stars moving, but the effect of the Earth rotating&#185. Aiming at any single point in the sky reveals stars passing by. They’ll return to about the same point 24 hours later.

The photographic problem is the same one faced any time you try to photograph something in motion: blur!

Because stars are dim the only way to photograph them is to keep the shutter open a long time and allow more photons to hit the camera’s sensor. The longer the shutter is open the farther those stars move. The result is streaks across the sky, not points of starry light.

Sophisticated astronomers (aka – not me) solve this problem with clock drives. Their telescopes and cameras move in exactly the opposite direction as the Earth. The effect is to hold the stars still.

There are simple mechanical devices that do exactly the same thing. I’ve got a little wooden wedge with a hand turned screw which allows my camera to take long star exposures with impunity.

Nowadays the easiest way to eliminate the blur is with a software assist.

When I shot my time lapse I took over 400 images one-after-the-other. Each was a single second’s look at the sky. Using a program called DeepSkyStacker I combined those images and restacked them eliminating the effect of Earth’s rotation.

As a bonus DeepSkyStacker looks at specially shot blank frames to understand my specific camera’s weaknesses and counteract them!

The resulting photo is the equivalent of an eight minute plus exposure–though digitally made superior.

I’ve taken a small piece of it an placed it at full resolution at the top of this entry. Just below it is the full frame (though not at full resolution). These shots, compilations of over 400 separate photos, show stars I couldn’t see with my naked eye.

It’s all very heady stuff and amazing to me. It’s not just that these techniques are available, it’s that they’re available to anyone for free and easily used with cameras a lot less sophisticated than mine.

&#185 – Here’s re-tweaked version of my time lapse nighttime sky movie from a few night ago.

Late Afternoon Cloud Time Lapse

I parked myself across from my neighbor Joe’s house, pointed the camera skyward and sat down right in the middle of the road! We don’t get much traffic.

Talk about your wasted days! Sunday was totally devoid of anything meaningful.

Around 7:30 PM I decided to go out and do something… anything worthwhile. I carried my camera, a wide angle lens, tripod and intervalometer.

I haven’t shot any time lapse in a while. Shooting one today provided at least some intellectual exercise.

It didn’t take long to realize there aren’t many places on my street with a wide enough view to make this work. Watching Ross Ching’s work has made me more-and-more aware of the importance of shooting wide.

I parked myself across from my neighbor Joe’s house, pointed the camera skyward and sat down right in the middle of the road! We don’t get much traffic.

For the geeky: Canon 450d and Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm focal length, f/9, iso 100, manual focus, 5 seconds between each shot. Shooting was in aperture priority so the shutter length varied as the light diminished without affecting the depth-of-field. I assembled the whole thing in Vegas 9.

Ross Ching

Ross and I have known each other via the Internet for a few years. Until this evening we’d never met.

While Stef and Helaine were bowling tonight (Ray Romano. Next lane. “Oddly attractive in designer jeans,” reports Stef) I was driving to Westwood to meet Ross Ching. I am a fan.

Ross and I have known each other via the Internet for a few years. Until this evening we’d never met.

I marvel at his meticulous work in time lapse. His videos have been seen millions of times online. He is the master of this genre and smart enough to see he has to keep ahead of the pack.

Smart is the part of Ross that’s most impressive. He has a better ‘big picture’ view of life than I had… than I think most 24 year olds have.

He started as a teenager making skateboarding videos with his friends. They were slick for high school level production. People were impressed. He kept moving.

Ross began shooting time lapse using a DSLR, a still camera, with an intervalometer to control the shutter. He shot the low hanging fruit–clouds, stars, the graceful motion of water. With his series of Eclectic videos and the help of Twitter and Digg he became well known. Again he kept moving.

A film school graduate from San Diego State and Ross works for a production house here in Los Angeles. He shoots music videos and commercials. He keeps adding to his technique.

While we sat drinking coffee I watched his video for Kina Grannis’ “Valentine.” Then I watched again. The second time through was spent hitting pause and quizzing him on the shoot and how he achieved what was on the screen. Though post-production is sometimes looked upon as a magic bullet this shoot’s success was cemented in pre-production and detailed planning.

I suspect Ross is organized in ‘real life,’ maybe obsessively so. He’s definitely organized as a director. I wonder if he understands how valuable that is?

I gave him some advice: Don’t worry about money. If you’re good the money will find you. Enjoy what you’re doing. That’s much more important. Successful people are nearly always doing what they enjoy.

The King Of time Lapse

Not to be too gushy, but it’s like discovering Spielberg before he did episodic TV. This guy will be that big.

I have been following Ross Ching’s work for a few years. He’s a West Coast guy not long out of college. He is the king of time lapse photography!

Though his first movies were abstract, a technician honing the mechanics, he’s now branched into more mainstream projects including commercials and music videos. Not to be too gushy, but it’s like discovering Spielberg before he did episodic TV. This guy will be that big.

Ross just posted a new time lapse movie “Running On Empty.” It asks and answers the question, “What if tomorrow everyone’s car disappeared.”