Frosty vs Fire

Settings
This timelapse was taken with a f5.6 aperture / 400 iso / 1/80 exposure / 4" interval / Processed in Lightroom / RAW format / Nikkor 18-55mm lens set to 42mm

Technique
I've been frustrated lately- either it is too cold to keep my camera outside, there are zero clouds or it is completely overcast.  This past Christmas Eve I was free most of the day and knew I wanted to take a timelapse but was experiencing the same problems as always.  My mom originally came up with the idea of filming a snowman melting by the fire pit and at first I wasn't overly excited but I had nothing else.  I was fortunate enough to have my sister there who knows a thing or two about photography, and since timelapses are hundreds of pictures it only made sense to learn something.  She brought up a great idea to get a very close shot and I'm glad we did, I noticed the closer we were the easier it was to see change.  This is something I need to think about with timelapses going further.

Normally this section is talking about techniques however the experience of this timelapse was so fun I have to focus on it.  At first I set the interval between pictures to only 2 seconds, after all the fire was very hot and it was a small snowman.  One would expect Frosty to melt very quickly, but he wasn't going down without a fight!  30 minutes in and Frosty had barely melted so before I took 2000 pictures I bumped the interval up to 4 seconds.  When I sat Frosty next to that fiery hell I would have put a lot of money down that his head was going to fall off fairly quickly.  As time ticked by everyone was in awe to see that head and body still going strong.  With the wood nearly gone I had to turn to the lumber in the garage, and to speed things up moved the fire right on him.  Surely he would die in minutes.  45 minutes later his head, midsection and bottom were still appropriately aligned but he was as thin as a wafer!  Also that carrot had no logical explanation for how it stayed in his head for so long, this timelapse was very entertaining live and just hope that in 18 seconds it can live up to half of it's excitement.

Thoughts and What's Next?
One big takeaway from this timelapse is to keep a close frame of reference.  It adds depth to the picture and can give the viewer a much better sense for what they are watching.  I have been doing quite a bit of experimenting and research on LRTimelapse.  LRTimelapse is a program to reduce flicker, something I've talked about in previous posts.  I plan to take some timelapses in aperture priority mode and process them in the program to reduce the flicker, this process should significantly improve timelapses with light changes.

This brings me to what's next...which I will keep a secret.  Let's just say, when I'm done I will have ALOT of timelapses to analyze, so many I may need to skip next week's post, but it will be worth it...


Still balding but not bald,
-Kyle

Westside Wonderland

Settings
This timelapse was taken with a f8 aperture / 200 iso / 1.3" exposure / 4" interval / custom WB in Lightroom / ProMaster Polarizer (1.5 stops) / RAW format / Nikkor 18-55mm lens set to 51mm

Technique
I wanted to capture the buzz of Christmas shopping.  Initially I went to the West Towne mall, there were a few prospective vantage points but after a few test photos I wasn't happy.  If the goal is to show a parking lot changing overtime the key is going to be height.  The timelapse needs to be high enough so you can see the depth of the cars and movement in the back.  This took me to our outdoor Greenway mall on the westside.  Immediately when I came in I saw the large employee parking ramp for the insurance company nearby.  4 stories up and it is much easier to see the depth of the parking lot.  During the beginning of this shoot it was about 3pm and still bright out so I used my polarizing filter to bring out the blues in the sky.  I also lucked out because there was a very large and visible day moon rising over the mall.  My first 2 attempts were not turning out quite right because I was trying to rush as the feeling in my hands was quickly going away.  The weather channel app was telling me it was 4 degrees out so my hands were numb to say the least.  After the 2 failed timelapses I landed this and was very happy with the outcome!

Thoughts and What's Next?
As I was uploading the pictures for editing I knew it was going to turn out great.  I actually edited the first 2 "failed" timelapes to see how they turned out.  The first failed attempt had some pretty cool shadows that were changing as the sun set, the second had all of the lights slowly turning on which would have been a good addition to this but the settings and framing were way off and I couldn't use it.  A huge problem in going from day to night is obviously the changing lights.  If I set my camera up to capture a timelapse during the day my settings will be far different than they would be if I'm in a dark environment.  This means when it starts during the day and turns to night my night will be much too dark to view.

After I edited this I researched how to correct for this which led me to learn about aperture priority mode.  This will let the camera choose the correct ISO and shutter speed for the light.  So why wouldn't I use this all the time?  First if the camera is choosing the shutter speed I cannot "drag" the shutter or keep it open to get a motion blur like you see the cars doing in this video.  Secondly every time it takes a picture it will change the settings slightly to properly expose the picture.  This means if a cloud casts a shadow over the camera the lighting it captures will be vastly different.  The negative side effect of that is called a flicker, and there are many programs to correct flicker in timelapses. Before I begin to use aperture priority mode I'll need to study up on these deflickering programs.

Overall I'm very happy with how it turned out, the sky is very clear with a good clean moon.  The lights of the outdoor mall are not over exposed and the motion of the cars was captured correctly. The 2 failed timelapses in the beginning left me with little juice in my camera so it was not quite as long as I was hoping but after the problems last week I'm much happier with this result.  I honestly am not sure what type of timelapse I would like to try to shoot yet so we will have to see what comes up.  Or......if anyone has an idea you can post it in the comments.  I'd love to hear what everyone enjoys seeing or would like to see!

Still balding but not bald,
-Kyle

Snowy Waubesa

Settings
This snowy timelapse was taken with a f8 aperture / 200 iso / 1/4" exposure / 12" interval / custom WB in Lightroom / Hoya ND 64x (6 stops) / RAW format / Sigma 10-20mm lens set to 16mm

Technique
Sunday was on my radar all week when I saw we were expecting 4-6 inches.  On top of that my friend offered his backyard which includes the beautiful now frozen Lake Waubesa, thanks Teezus.  Any snow we had received prior to Sunday had melted so I wanted to capture the snow covering the green grass.  As I was setting everything up it became very obvious I was going to have a much harder time than I expected.  When most gets covered in snow everything becomes white and without much contrast it is hard to see anything actually happen such as snow piling up.  In addition I didnt bring the bag I wanted to use to cover my camera from the elements so I needed to shoot from inside the house to keep my camera from getting soaked with snow.  By restricting myself to the indoors I was eliminating the possibility of getting the camera close to the ground or a railing which would have made the accumulation effect much easier to see.  After playing with the ISO settings, various ND filters and shutter speeds I was beginning to feel defeated and essentially picked what I felt was "best" and just let it run.

Have you ever found yourself at a football game, in a bar, or at a friends house when someone says something witty to you?  If you're like me at all I generally reply back with something lame then minutes later the best comeback line pops in my head but I've already missed my opportunity.  That is what this timelapse felt like.  Since I wasn't able to get setup as soon as I had wanted to I missed starting with bare ground.  If I had used my head at all I would have thought to shoveled part of the deck so the timelapse would have had a good starting spot.  Many of these ideas popped into my head after it was too late.  Good thing it is winter and Wisconsin's weather will hopefully provide me with another opportunity to redeem myself.

Thoughts and What's Next?
I'm very disappointed with this timelapse and unfortunately feel that it is my worst thus far.  I far underestimated how little excitement an all white snowy scene would be and feel embarrassed to post it, but it's all part of the journey!  If it weren't for the stray ice fishermen everyone would be mistaking this for a still picture.  Looking at some cinematic timelapses online of snow accumulations I realized my biggest flaw was the focal point of my camera.  When I'm trying to see something as little as 4-6 inches of snow accumulating the further away I get the harder it is to see the growth.  A way to fix this is to get close to a railing or right on the ground where 4-6 inches may take up a larger portion of the screen.

I blame the lack of preparation, rookie mistakes, and bad decisions on Ric Flair, the newly married Hautala's, and the suit pants that I split at the wedding Woooo!  I know, excuses, excuses, excuses.  The truth is I've begun to learn that the issue isn't what I know, it is my inability to assess the scene fast enough before it changes.  I can only hope this will get better with time as I become confident with my decisions and refrain from all of the second guessing.

While I was ringing bells Monday night for the Salvation Army I was inspired to try to capture a timelapse with a Christmas theme!  Capturing the buzz of the mall or Santa with an endless line of kids should provide a much more interesting timelapse.  I'm sorry this week was so boring, and I promise to bring something with energy next Tuesday.  Thanks for reading, I greatly value your loyalty!

Still balding but not bald,
-Kyle

UPDATE: Street Lights

In the previous week I posted a street light timelapse, somewhere in the post I said I would show a before and after of a still.  Sorry it took a while, however as I wait for my newest timelapse to load I figured I'd post it quickly.  This was my first time working with a picture taken in RAW setting and correcting in Lightroom.

Before:

After:

Street Lights

Settings
This street corner timelapse was taken with a f4 aperture / 1250 iso / 1" exposure / 4" interval / custom WB in Lightroom / no filter / RAW format / Sigma 10-20mm lens set to 15mm

Technique
Here is another go at a night time timelapse, this was taken at roughly 5:30pm so it was very dark outside besides the street and car lights. This was my first attempt shooting in RAW format. There is a large difference by shooting in RAW vs JPEG. Essentially with a JPEG, your camera processes the picture in the camera. It analyzes the picture immediately after you take it, makes the necessary changes and "locks" the picture down to compress its size. When shooting RAW the camera doesn't process the picture, it saves every ounce of the information it captures. This means the picture must be processed on a computer and the user makes the decisions about white balance, highlights, shadows, exposure, noise ect. Think of it as making changes to a JPEG on your computer applies changes to the "entire" picture, whereas making changes to RAW allows you to change individual colors and aspects of the picture without changing everything else. This is very valuable because even with the aperture as far open as possible and a 1 second exposure the lens wasn't able to bring in enough light. For example the grass in the bottom of the timelapse was nearly completely black. Shooting in RAW allowed me to use what the camera stored about the picture to bring out the detail in the grass and sky. I'll update this post later to show the before and after using Lightroom. With this corner being a "T" intersection I wanted to capture as much of the streets as possible in all directions so I used my Sigma ultra wide angle lens. I was roughly 25 feet up a small bank just off the sidewalk.

Thoughts and What's Next?
This is the first time I've processed pictures in RAW so there was a steep learning curve. I was very happy with the end result however I didn't feel efficient. Too much had to be done after the fact to bring out spots in the timelapse I wanted. Had I changed some settings on the camera I may have been closer during the initial shoot with less corrections being made after the fact. Over exposed lights were slightly more of an issue this time vs the moonlapse partly due to the intensity of the light and possibly due to some other settings I do not have correct yet. Unfortunately I've been unable to find out how to solve this but it is still early and I have a lot to learn! It was also significantly overcast last night when I took this timelapse. If the weather was clear or partly cloudy this timelapse may have turned out significantly better. I'll keep my camera in my car in case the perfect night comes around.

The forecast today and tomorrow call for overcast skies and rain, and later in the week will be brutally cold with teens for the highs. I'll likely stay away from the outdoors so this may be a great opportunity to make a timelapse of my commute to or from work?

Don't forget to check out the vimeo channel in the links section.  While I was stuck on the plane coming back from LA I took a pretty cool timelapse with my GoPro of the sunrise from inside the plane! I had nothing to keep the camera still so I tried wedging it between the seat and window and it worked okay. There was still some shakiness which I was expecting. If anyone has suggestions on how to reduce the glare or intensity of the lights while properly exposing the picture at night I'd LOVE to hear and please post in the comments. Otherwise feel free to comment on your thoughts, what you enjoy, dislike, or other ideas. See you next week!

Still balding but not bald,
-Kyle

Moonlapse

Settings
The moonlapse was taken with a f4.5 aperture / 1200 iso / 25" exposure / 60" interval / fluorescent WB / variable ND Filter @ 1.25 stops / JPEG format / Nikon 18-55mm lens set to 18mm

Technique
This was my first go at a moon and star timelapse.  When I saw the full moon, bright stars and clear skies I got excited to shoot my first one, and quickly learned many valuable lessons.  First the moon and stars are tough to capture.  For example if you walked outside and took a picture using automatic settings you will get the moon and a black sky.  This happens because the stars' light is very faint and the camera needs more time for that light to "burn" into the picture.  One way to combat this problem is to keep the open shutter for an extended length of time.  Since the moon was so bright I needed to soften its bright light so I applied a neutral density filter.  A neutral density filter is basically a dark piece of glass that tricks the camera into thinking it is darker that it really is.  As the moon's intense light enters into the camera it passes through the ND filter making the moon appear darker.  This is where some of my troubles and inexperience begin to show.  A problem in this shoot is that the moon is significantly over exposed or blown out.  Like stated before it is because the shutter is open for so long, but unfortunately I cannot capture the stars without the longer shutter.  If done properly and in a dark enough environment you can capture very faint light such as the milky way that may not be able to be seen by the naked eye.

Now for the rookie mistakes...interval between shots was WAY too short.  When a camera takes a photo it sends that information to the memory card to save the picture.  If taking normal pictures this happens very quickly.  However, when you take a long exposure (normally over 8 seconds) the camera applies a noise reduction process to the picture.  This adds anywhere from 5-10 seconds to the amount of time it takes the camera to send the picture to the memory card.  Unfortunately the camera is as bad at multitasking as I am and it cannot process a picture and take a new one at the same time.  Essentially the picture was not processed in the 5 seconds between pictures that I had set, which means the camera skips that picture and waits until the next one...30 seconds later.  When I went to get my camera a few hours later only 80ish pictures had been taken instead of the 200ish I was expecting.  Fewer pictures means shorter clips and choppier timelapses.

Thoughts and What's Next?
For my first moonlapse I was pleasantly surprised.  The moon's speed really caught me off guard, in just under 2 hours it moved nearly out of frame and the glow of Madison is more intense than I anticipated.  I have taken some notes and will need to find a darker place to try my next one hopefully when it isn't as cold!  I'm really focusing on longer shutter speeds right now.  I like how it blurs motion and really makes the timelapses feel less choppy.  The week coming up will be busy so planning what to shoot will be tough, Thanksgiving with the family and LA for USC vs UCLA.  Fortunately my sister is a photographer so we may be able to come up with something creative while I'm home, or even a timelapse of the game?!?

Hope you enjoyed the first post, don't forget to check out the vimeo channel in the links section.  I have a pretty cool timelapse of a candle melting I took this weekend there!  As always if you have any suggestions, ideas, thoughts or just want to say hi post in the comments below.  See you next week!

Still balding but not bald,
-Kyle

Welcome to #TimelapseTuesday!

Why #TimelapseTuesday?
I have always considered videography and video editing fun hobbies and want to continually progress.  Unfortunately I tend to spend more time researching rather than actually doing.  After getting my first DSLR I decided to set a goal for myself, to create at least one timelapse a week for a year and every Tuesday I'll post the video and blog about how I created it.  I'll discuss the settings, techniques, successes, and problems I faced during the shoot.  The goal is not to show the same sunset, sunrise, clouds moving over my front porch over and over but to push my creativity to find new and fresh things to shoot.  Again I'm an amateur so hang with me, they will hopefully get better as we go and if you have any suggestions or even ideas for timelapses I'm very happy to hear them!

What is a timelapse?
A timelapse is created by taking multiple pictures and playing all of the pictures one after another very quickly together.  The first timelapse I remember was drawing a stickman in a notebook over and over for 20+ pages.  If the pages were flipped quickly he would seem like he was running.

Format
Each week I'll embed the #TimelapseTuesday first, I won't torture those that just want to see a timelapse.  Just below the video I'll inform you of all the settings and techniques used to create it.  Lastly will be my overall thoughts, things I liked, disliked, and a little inside into what I'll be working on in the following weeks.

Vimeo
Follow my channel on Vimeo, here I'll post many timelapses as I complete them, and just choose one to highlight each week here.

About me
As I was growing up I remember looking to my mom (an accountant) and saying "I will do anything to make sure that I will not have to sit at a desk staring at excel all day!". After graduating from UWW with a Finance degree here I sit. In a cubicle. Staring at excel. All. Day. Surprisingly I don't have a problem with it. Sure the beautiful late summer early fall days are tough to stay inside but knowing that my skill set allows me to add value to a company gives me a sense of accomplishment, at least for now.

Enough about the boring stuff. Outside of my cube I am humbled everyday by how incredibly lucky I am. I have a beautiful wife, a ball obsessed dog, and have been fortunate enough to try numerous new hobbies, foods, and explore new cultures. As each experience and life event gets further away from the present I quickly realized that one of my biggest flaws is my memory or lack there of. Not only do I easily forget details about experiences quickly I find myself in trouble with my wife when I seem to forget any task she tells me. I swear it isn't selective hearing!

My memory issues steered me to a passion that compliments my life perfectly, video editing. It all started on our honeymoon where I would get to fulfill a lifelong dream of going to Whistler for a skiing honeymoon. The last thing I wanted to do was forget about our Whistlermoon so I purchased a GoPro to help document. Being able to create a video of our experience has been one of the best things for me. I can relive everything in 2-5 minutes, and I feel that same high I felt when I was in the moment.

Needless to say I'm a GoPro junkie now, and recently got a DSLR to add to my memory saver collection.  I hope you are inspired by this blog to get out and be the best at the things you love most!

Still balding but not bald,
-Kyle