Life in optical

A rainy sunday in 3 chapters from carolune on Vimeo.

Kept me busy while I was dozing with the flu…
Nikon D300
lenses: 20mm & 105mm macro
Music:
1. Background 3, David Schomberg
2. Emptiness, Alexander Blu
3. Cradlesong, Zero Project
4. Come back home, Galdson
5. Moon Waltz, Zero Project
All Creative Commons, downloaded from Jamendo.com

Life in Leiden from carolune on Vimeo.

Taken between March 25 and April 11. I love the airplanes in the evening and the way the chimney lights up bright red at sunset :)

This is just a test but I am thrilled at what this promises… :)

While I’m busy playing with video editing, here’s a real video – of taking pictures …. and the associated risks :)

Making of the waves timelapse :) from carolune on Vimeo.

There was also a video camera when I shot all those wave photos (see the other two timelapses) – it was a little hectic at time, even cold and wet :)

Those of you who know me – or have seen me use my beloved camera – know that I shoot it like a machine gun. Given that it peaks at something like 6 images per second, it makes for a funny timelapse kind of thing when looking back.

Usually I select the best shot of the series to make my one photo of the moment or subject. That makes for a lot of wasted memory space, which doesn’t matter at all in this wonderful world of digital photography :)

Sometimes however, it’s hard to chose the best one – and when it’s something very dynamic I’m shooting, I just wish I could make a timelapse of it all. I am a huge fan of timelapse photography but I have never put together a video of timelapse myself. I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t know if there’s a specific piece of software that’s required.

Anyway. Tonight I tried, and…. success! I’ve made a cool timelapse photography movie of some awesome waves on the Atlantic coast of South Africa. I didn’t take the photos with a timelapse in mind so apologies if it’s not at all stable or anything. I guess it could be seen as a very old movie or something?

This place is one of my favourite spots, It’s not easy to reach, you have to climb through a few rocks but it’s always worth it. It is spectacular to witness the waves break on those rocks. At sunset it’s a delight. You’ll see during the film that my lens got happily sprayed. Oops. Fellow photographers agree or not – but my gear has to survive my lifestyle and when I get the waves, the waves get me and my camera too…

I hope you enjoy the video. It’s a first and I’m hugely excited about it – now that I have unlocked timelapse photography, I’m going to have so much fun!

Waves from carolune on Vimeo.

Waves at sunset in Llandudno, South Africa. Timelapse photography. Music: Valse nonchalante, Camille Saint-Saëns played by Chris Bremer, pianosociety.com.

For the sake of other timelapse wannatries out there, here is how I made it :)

1: import the timelapse photos into iPhoto
2: create a new project in iMove
3: import the previously imported photos as media for the movie
4: select all frames (the default is that each second is displayed for 4 seconds with a Ken Burns effect, this is not what we want)
5: click on the settings of the media in the iMovie project.
6: set the duration of each photo to 0.01 seconds (that’s the shortest iMovie will allow)
7: remove the Ken Burns effect!
8: find some cool music to put on top of your timelapse series. To not be in trouble about copyrights and other legal issues, I usually use classiccat.com or pianosociety.com, both are treasure-troves of recorded classical music
9: add text, title, scomments, effect, whatever you like to do in iMove
9: export the whole thing into a nice format
10: upload to your youtube, dailymotion, vimeo, etc. account and share! :)

Please leave me a comment if you have a suggestion on how to improve on this. Thanks :)