C&C Time Lapse Video Please

[DerekMellott]

Any input is always welcome, thank you for looking. Please watch it in HD.

 

[reznap]

Pretty sweet. I can't really c&c cause I've never done time lapse. A few choppy parts might benefit from some interpolation, something like twixtor could do that I think.

 

[oldmacman]

That's really cool. You got all the lightning in time lapse? I love the section near the end with the blue clouds and lightning illuminating them from behind.

 

[DerekMellott]

Pretty sweet. I can't really c&c cause I've never done time lapse. A few choppy parts might benefit from some interpolation, something like twixtor could do that I think.

In my master file there is no chop, i wonder if what you saw was a playback issue or compression issue. Thanks for the suggestion, I appreciate the thought.

That's really cool. You got all the lightning in time lapse? I love the section near the end with the blue clouds and lightning illuminating them from behind.

The lightning was a crazy night took 400 pics and 75% had lightning in them.

Those clouds were awesome, they were illuminated by a full moon on one side and lightning from the inside, that was the only angle I could get that didn't have houses in it.

 

[timlair]

Simply amazing. Gave me the shivers. I cant wait to try to do this. If you dont mind me asking...what settings did you use for 2 things: 1. The settings you used to get the night time shots. I know your ISO had to be pretty high right? 2. How many pics did you take a minute.

 

[DerekMellott]

Simply amazing. Gave me the shivers. I cant wait to try to do this. If you dont mind me asking...what settings did you use for 2 things: 1. The settings you used to get the night time shots. I know your ISO had to be pretty high right? 2. How many pics did you take a minute.

The ones with the house and the lightning in the clouds were iso 800 but it was a full moon both nights. I do not remember how often I shot the clouds but the little white house I took a 20 sec exp every 33 secs

 

[timlair]

intervalometer I suppose? I need to buy one...

 

[DerekMellott]

intervalometer I suppose? I need to buy one...

I use a calculator

 

[timlair]

Ahhh, the T series Im guessing?

 

[DerekMellott]

Ahhh, the T series Im guessing?

yup

 

[GeneralBenson]

Pretty cool overall. Obviously it's a little boring, just because it's a unending stream of time-lapses, but in general I think you're clips are a little too long. Also, for the most part, the clips are pretty choppy, and I think you could benefit from shorter intervals, or using ND filters to draw out your exposures and smooth things out; or both.

Great song, is that Sigur Ros?

Edit: because I then saw he music credit at the end. And also, Lighting time lapses are super hard because the lighting screws with you exposure like crazy and makes it super jumpy. But I thought the one at the end that was more blueish, and had the rolling cloud moving to the right, and all the lightning mostly happening inside the cloud was super awesome.

 

[DerekMellott]

Pretty cool overall. Obviously it's a little boring, just because it's a unending stream of time-lapses, but in general I think you're clips are a little too long. Also, for the most part, the clips are pretty choppy, and I think you could benefit from shorter intervals, or using ND filters to draw out your exposures and smooth things out; or both.

Great song, is that Sigur Ros?

Edit: because I then saw he music credit at the end. And also, Lighting time lapses are super hard because the lighting screws with you exposure like crazy and makes it super jumpy. But I thought the one at the end that was more blueish, and had the rolling cloud moving to the right, and all the lightning mostly happening inside the cloud was super awesome.

Thank you for your input. I just wanted to say something about the chop, there isn't any. I'm sure you see it but that's the crappy thing about on-line video it's so unreliable, especially you tube. I have this video on vimeo but it won't give me a HD version for some reason.

The lightning sequence during the music swell surfers quite a bit.

Maybe I should play around with the encoding, I have no idea what works best on-line

 

[IceEateer]

WoW! I'm very impressed. These time lapse videos are always so sad -- I'm not sure if that's the right word. It's very...reflective. Good job dude.

 

[*RiverRat*]

I love love love time lapses... Really great job. I especially enjoyed the stars and the sunset parts. Can you tell me what settings you used for the stars? I've done several time lapses that I am really pleased with, but have been dying to get one with stars in it-- just waiting for a time when the moon isn't bright.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Pretty cool overall. Obviously it's a little boring, just because it's a unending stream of time-lapses, but in general I think you're clips are a little too long. Also, for the most part, the clips are pretty choppy, and I think you could benefit from shorter intervals, or using ND filters to draw out your exposures and smooth things out; or both.

Great song, is that Sigur Ros?

Edit: because I then saw he music credit at the end. And also, Lighting time lapses are super hard because the lighting screws with you exposure like crazy and makes it super jumpy. But I thought the one at the end that was more blueish, and had the rolling cloud moving to the right, and all the lightning mostly happening inside the cloud was super awesome.

Thank you for your input. I just wanted to say something about the chop, there isn't any. I'm sure you see it but that's the crappy thing about on-line video it's so unreliable, especially you tube. I have this video on vimeo but it won't give me a HD version for some reason.

The lightning sequence during the music swell surfers quite a bit.

Maybe I should play around with the encoding, I have no idea what works best on-line

Maybe choppy wasn't the right word. I'm not talking about the streaming of the video or the overall flow. I'm talking about how elements withing some of the clips are very jittery or jumpy. Like blowing leaves in the opening scene or blowing grass, that just jitter back in forth with no fluidity. Or thing that have there own wavelength like the windmill or oil rig thing, that are out of sync with the frame rate and just jitter about. Or the trucks and cars ina few clips that just pop in and out of the scene without moving into the scene or moving back out. They just appear and disappear as static objects.

A lot of this could have been solved by shooting with slower shutter speeds, which would cause more blur in each shot, and smooth out the frame to frame movement. In film making, they follow what is called the 180 Degree Shutter rule. You can google it you want a detailed explanation, but what it means in essence is that your shutter speed should always be double what your recording frame rate is. So if you're recording at 24 fps, like traditional films, then your shutter speed would be 1/48th. That ensure a really smooth playback with a slight bit of movement within each fram, helping it to blend with the next frame. Some things are intentionally shot with faster shutter speeds to make the film look choppy, jumpy or agitated, to intentionally create a feeling (think the battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan). This style of shooting leaves the viewer feeling uneasy, which is good for stuff like that. But for regular viewing, the viewer wants things to feel smooth and not the noticed jagged transitions from frame to frame.

You generally want to follow this rule for making time lapses, or at least be in the right ball park. As photographers, we're use to shooting in bright day light and not thinking anything of 1/1000th shutter speed; or even intentionally using high shutter speeds because we want the freeze the motion. But video, and subsequently time lapse are about smoothness. So when making time lapses, try to remember the shutter speed rule. If your time lapse interval is 1 second, than the ideal shutter speed for smooth movement would be 1/2 second. If your interval is 30 seconds, then your ideal shutter speed would be 15 seconds. And so on.