Motorised timelapse dolly ...

[goggs1987]

Hi there

Thought I would share a motorised timelapsing dolly that myself and my friend constructed ... took it out for it's maiden voyage the other day at Tongue/Melness, very happy with first efforts!

For those who do not know what timelapsing is, it is where you take still pictures with your camera (at whatever interval you decide, ie. one picture every 3 seconds) and join them together to create a motion picture, thus picking up dynamics that the human eye cannot ... such as the tide moving in and out quick, or the sun and clouds moving quickly across the sky etc etc. It is great fun, and very addictive! Hope you enjoy!

https://vimeo.com/41510124

[plutonio]

that would make anyone yearn to be back home, i love it.

[goggs1987]

thanks v much! ... most of the feedback I am getting is from friends moved out of the highlands - making them miss home ha! Glad you liked it.

[Timber-TEC]

Hi.
Really like it. Looks like dolly works great, but you have a lot of flickering in this movie (especially in first sequence). I am guessing that you were shooting in Av mode this first sequence.

[goggs1987]

Hi, glad you like it! I can see where you pick up flickering from - but it is actually the shadows of the clouds going directly over shooting area, going from being in shade to bright sunshine v quick. Daytime timelapsing, I always shoot in full manual mode, everything automated - turned off. The only time I use AV mode in timelapsing is for doing day/night shots .... but it is so hard to do transition light shots without getting flicker (there is software out there to de-flicker, but I've not ventured down that editing route yet!). Cheers for looking! you into timelapsing yourself??

[Timber-TEC]

Hi
Yes, I know by what flickering is caued by. I started to making timelapses too from some time but still learning, I use LRTimelapse software for editing which is free but Adobe Lightroom is required to use with this software. It also has built in deflickering mechanizm and allows to do smooth transition between daylight and starlight if you follow software author method. It also allows to introduce some pseudo camera movement even when shooting from static tripod. Feel free to check my YT channel, where you will find my first time laps attempts http://www.youtube.com/user/spider72wtf/videos
I am going to shoot time lapse of super Moon rising today, of course wheter permiting.

[goggs1987]

Sorry bud, didnt mean to come across condescending at all :) nice to know there are other Tlapsers up north! I can totally see how in the first scene the fast moving clouds / sun can be mistaken for flickering as it is going right over the shooting area, but its actually not aperture flickering from the camera ... not purely because i shoot in manual mode and turn off all automation, but because with it being a Canon you can fool the camera brains into locking the aperture blades by means of a wee lens twist trick! This in turn, allows for the aperture size to be identical for every single picture throughout the timelapse - making it not possible for aperture flicker. This method in tricking the camera brains works with Canons, but not Nikons ... and I couldnt comment on other cameras (only owned nikon and canon). It's all a bit of craic though at the end of the day, bit of fun, constant learning process and v rewarding when all goes right!

ive never actually looked into that software, but heard alot of good things about LRTimelapse and its deflickering, so must check it out sometime! Good stuff, just checked out your videos, some colours in them! I would love to get the northern lights, I must stay awake later at nights ha! I like you vid clips of the moon too, great detail of all the pits and craters, good stuff! I heard about the big moon on the go just now, must try and get out tonight - haha as you say weather permitting ... nothing worse than being rained off half way through!

[Timber-TEC]

I think there is more northern Tlapsers, I have picked up the TL making bug from Barry Stewart he also have zero stage dolly, check up his channel on YT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPExW7XLWvo

Good luck with weather tonight moon will start to rise at about 22.10 and should be whole up over horizont at 22.24, S-E direction (130 deg).
With catching aurora you probably need to wait till late summer as it is too bright during the night now for aurora forecast you can check here http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/Europe/2012/05/06

[goggs1987]

Dynamic Perception have 'liked' us on Vimeo, and have just Tweeted about us too! Delighted :D!

[avalon]

Well done I was thinking of making a dolly my self been looking on you-tube for ideas most people go for 1 1/4 plastic tube. I got a remote release that I can alter time and its wireless which is ideal for this work. How about putting a picture of your dolly on here.

[goggs1987]

There are some really great grass-root approaches to constructing timelapse dollys on the web! My first efforts at a timelapse dolly involved 2m long copper pipes, and a plank of wood with 8 skateboard wheels attached to it, pulled with string!! Come on slightly since then, our dolly is still grass-roots purely because we didnt want to fork out 4-figures sums for a pro setup. Currently putting together a page on our website detailing how we constructed it and a listing of all the parts needed, so i'll post the link up soon ;) there are some pictures of it on the vimeo link, get a rough idea of what it looks like!

[argyle kid]

Hi goggs1987.

Great time laps enjoyed looking at it.

Hope this is not to technical for a photography forum.On a previous post I made the comment that it was all stutter y and broken up .Someone told me to run the sequence again, this worked said it was something to do with buffering.
I thought buffering went into RAM as I have 3Gb of ram should not be a problem,Anyone know how a second play sorts the stuttering?

Regards AK.

[Bobinovich]

Most likely because the video is still stored in your browsers cache, so the 2nd time it's actually playing from your PC, rather than being re-downloaded from the net. If my net is going slow & I want to watch something on YouTube, I'll tend to pause it before it stars playing until the wee grey bar (which moves ahead to the red 'play' indicator and shows how much has actually been buffered) is well up - that way I can usually bypass the annoying stuttering problem.

[argyle kid]

Hi bobinovich,
Thank you for that.
Regards AK.