Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Projection Tools and Techniques => Topic started by: MartinSpence on October 18, 2013, 05:12:25 pm
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Hi guys
I tried my first time lapse recently using the X-E1.
http://www.martinspencephotography.co.uk/timelapse-at-rihanna-tree/
Plesae have a look and share any ways on improving.
Thanks
M
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Well, looks pretty good! Nice post work on that.
Like all forms of landscape photography timelapse is at the mercy of the elements, and most particularly the wind which can add a twitchy feel to timelapse scenes. I know one timelapser who uses ND filters to lengthen his exposures to almost 100% of the interval, which trades off blurriness for twitchiness on moving foliage. A slightly more relaxed look but still one that imposes itself on the feel of the image. Another anti-wind technique is to simply not have any wind-affected foliage nearby. Or don't shoot on windy days...except those are often the days with the best clouds. BTW, the weather service is the friend of the timelapser, keep an eye on those predictions and satellite images to know when it's worth going out and setting up. Even a single timelapse shot requires a large time and logistics investment from the shooter, anything you can do to avoid wasted attempts is worthwhile.
Push will come to shove when it's time to tie a bunch of scenes together. Important, or at least helpful, to keep things like cross-screen rate of motion pretty much the same from scene to scene. For instance, for the same amount of cloud motion you need to use shorter intervals with longer lenses. At the same location under the same weather conditions, a 2 second interval with a 24mm lens would give the same apparent screen motion as a 1 second interval with a 50mm lens. It's very helpful if from the very start of the project you have some basic idea of an overall "motion rate" and "activity rate" that want to use, and a sense of how you might want to gradually ramp that up or down during the course of the film. IMHO the best timelapse pieces have a strong sense of rhythm, and the drumbeat of that rhythm is determined by the syncopation between your selected intervals and the natural rhythms and motions of the subject. You need to shoot lots of test, and keep notes.
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Bill - thanks for these tips..