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
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