How is it August?! When did that happen? Well I guess it happened right after June and July flew by. This summer has gone extraordinarily quickly. And I have a theory as to why it has gone so quickly. I think it has something to do with my new found love. Time lapse photography.
I own a Canon Powershot SX40HS. And it is fantastic. I bought it last summer from a friend and it has been the perfect tool for learning photography. It is a "bridge" camera so it has all the automatic features of a point & shoot but lots of manual features of an DSLR. Through experimentation, online guides (Digital Photography School) and a little help from a lady on YouTube (FatDragon100_SX40 tutorials) I have learnt my way around the camera and have shared (I think) increasingly better photographs with you guys over this last year.
One of the best tips I learnt from FatDragon100 was about CHDK. This is a nifty bit of software called the Canon Developer Hack Kit, which you can load onto your camera and it allows you to override a lot of the settings of your Canon camera to give you more control and more DSLR like settings. I haven't had chance to thoroughly explore all the new possibilities that CHDK has given me, but I have paid particular attention to one of the features. The intervalometer script.
The intervalometer script basically tells your camera to take a photo every x number of seconds. So you find something moving slowly across your frame. Set down your camera in a stable place. Press shoot. Wait for a long period of time. Then you can compile them into a timelapse video. Simple right?! Not necessarily no. As I have found out. Choosing your subject, your shooting interval, dealing with changes in lighting conditions all play an unsurprisingly important role in making a good timelapse.
And then there is the actual compilation of the photos. I started off using Windows Movie Maker (groan...), which is possibly the most irritating bit of software I've ever used. Turns out it can't really cope with a sequence of 300 photos, appearing at <0.5 seconds a frame. Nor does it really like a simple video made somewhere else with a title and credits added to it. Gahh! My newest method of photo compilation involves a freeware called Panolapse (http://www.panolapse360.com/). Not only will this software put together photos for a timelapse video, it will also help with deflickering (smoothing out any abrupt changes in exposure) and you can add motion to the video, panning and zooming to really make your video come alive with movement.
And in order to make a top notch video, there should always be music. This is something I've only really fully appreciated recently. No one wants to watch a silent series of photos. Not wanting to breach copyright laws I usually find music from Free Music Archive (http://freemusicarchive.org/), which has all sorts of weird and wonderful beats of all shapes and sizes. Put it together in Movie Maker (when it wants to work) and voilà, you have successfully condensed minutes worth of real life action into a few mere seconds. This is why I think my summer has gone quickly.
Much like how I only seem to use Twitter to give my opinions on sports, YouTube has become my medium for showing the world my timelapse projects. So here is my timeline of timelapses!
I own a Canon Powershot SX40HS. And it is fantastic. I bought it last summer from a friend and it has been the perfect tool for learning photography. It is a "bridge" camera so it has all the automatic features of a point & shoot but lots of manual features of an DSLR. Through experimentation, online guides (Digital Photography School) and a little help from a lady on YouTube (FatDragon100_SX40 tutorials) I have learnt my way around the camera and have shared (I think) increasingly better photographs with you guys over this last year.
One of the best tips I learnt from FatDragon100 was about CHDK. This is a nifty bit of software called the Canon Developer Hack Kit, which you can load onto your camera and it allows you to override a lot of the settings of your Canon camera to give you more control and more DSLR like settings. I haven't had chance to thoroughly explore all the new possibilities that CHDK has given me, but I have paid particular attention to one of the features. The intervalometer script.
The intervalometer script basically tells your camera to take a photo every x number of seconds. So you find something moving slowly across your frame. Set down your camera in a stable place. Press shoot. Wait for a long period of time. Then you can compile them into a timelapse video. Simple right?! Not necessarily no. As I have found out. Choosing your subject, your shooting interval, dealing with changes in lighting conditions all play an unsurprisingly important role in making a good timelapse.
And then there is the actual compilation of the photos. I started off using Windows Movie Maker (groan...), which is possibly the most irritating bit of software I've ever used. Turns out it can't really cope with a sequence of 300 photos, appearing at <0.5 seconds a frame. Nor does it really like a simple video made somewhere else with a title and credits added to it. Gahh! My newest method of photo compilation involves a freeware called Panolapse (http://www.panolapse360.com/). Not only will this software put together photos for a timelapse video, it will also help with deflickering (smoothing out any abrupt changes in exposure) and you can add motion to the video, panning and zooming to really make your video come alive with movement.
And in order to make a top notch video, there should always be music. This is something I've only really fully appreciated recently. No one wants to watch a silent series of photos. Not wanting to breach copyright laws I usually find music from Free Music Archive (http://freemusicarchive.org/), which has all sorts of weird and wonderful beats of all shapes and sizes. Put it together in Movie Maker (when it wants to work) and voilà, you have successfully condensed minutes worth of real life action into a few mere seconds. This is why I think my summer has gone quickly.
Much like how I only seem to use Twitter to give my opinions on sports, YouTube has become my medium for showing the world my timelapse projects. So here is my timeline of timelapses!
A little movie from a fieldtrip to Central Newfoundland.
My first timelapses start at 5:30.
Sunrise timelapse on Canada Day. Changing light conditions at
sunrise and sunset can be combatted by shooting in Av mode.
Utilising that Av mode during a lovely sunset.
I've discovered that skies are much more interesting with a couple of
clouds that will spread out the colours across the sky and add texture.
Capturing said moving clouds whilst
kicking back in the park and reading a book.
Planning is key. This impromptu bonfire meant I missed most of the
epic sunset that night whilst we drove out to the beach.
Fun night all the same though!
I dropped a tonne of frames on this one as I
had to pause and delete files off my memory card...
Also, I need to get a tripod. YouTube managed to remove
most of the shakiness, but the original showed that
my rock wasn't actually that stable.
The changing weather is the most obvious thing to do a timelapse of,
but I could hardly resist the opportunity to capture the incoming thunderstorm.
I think this is my best one to date :)
