Time Lapse with Lensbaby Fish Eye, Grand Central
Friday, February 26, 2010 at 12:45PM This project involved the use of many different pieces of equipment, and techniques. I've detailed the process below, but I'll be glad to answer any questions in the comment area.
1) LENS
I used the 12mm Fisheye optic mounted in the Lensbaby Composer. This unique lens allowed me to include the architecturual features of Grand Central Terminal while still capturing the activity on the floor below. The Fisheye optic comes with a series of aperture discs that control your depth of field. I used f8 to make sure I had sharp focus from the foreground to the back wall. For more on Lensbaby, check out the interview I did with CEO Sam Pardue back at Photo Plus in NY.
2) FOCUS
Since you cannot autofocus with a mounted Lensbaby, I had to rely on my eyes to manually focus. While I have 20/20 vision, I didn't want to leave anything to chance so I used the wonderful "LiveView" feature. By doing this I was able to magnify the display on the LCD to 10x. It's like zooming in on the entire scene withouth actually changing the effective focal length of the lens. At 10x everything is much larger which allows you to micro focus on any portion in the scene. Previously I had only used LiveView for Macro work with tiny subjects, but it really shined here as well.
3) SUPPORT
The camera was mounted on the Gorillapod for DSLR's. While this little item will never replace my trusty Gitzo, it was perfect for this project as I was able to set everything up on the bannister without being bumped by the bustling crowds.
4) CABLE RELEASE
I needed the camera to remain completely still so I used a cable release. I know there are special wireless and programmable cable releases, but I just used the good ole' manual remote.
5) TIMING
This scene was shot over 25 minutes. I took a shot approximately every two seconds for a total of 750 images. How did I time it? Easy; everytime the previous image popped up on the LCD I took the next shot. This worked out to be roughly every two seconds.
6) SHUTTER SPEED
To create a Time Lapse it's helpful to use a slow shutter speed. This is sometimes referred to as "dragging the shutter". The idea is to make the motion more fluid and less like blips popping in and out of the frame. For this piece I found a shutter of 0"6 to be work really well.
7) CAMERA SETTING DETAILS
I used the Canon 40D. My exposure was set manually. This is necessary to achieve consistent exposures even with any shift in lighting conditions. The settings were ISO 400, 0"6, and f8. I also used custom white balance. Instead of RAW, I opted for JPEG as RAW files do not generally work with Time Lapse software.
8) SOFTWARE
The trick is to have all of your images in numerical order in one folder. I did this upon the initial upload from the CF card to Lightroom. I then used Quicktime Pro to open the image sequence and select how many frames per second the photos would play back at. I experimented with 24 frames per second and 15 fps before deciding on 12 fps for the final piece. Again, JPEGs are the only file types that would work here. The software also had a bit of a processing issue with the LARGE/FINE files. It seemed that Quicktme Pro could not handle 750 ten megapixel files. I had to use Photoshop CS4 to do a quick batch process and resize the images to 6x9 at 72dpi.
9) MUSIC
The amazing ominous track is by Nine Inch Nails from their album Ghosts (Disc 1). It is part of Creative Commons Licensing and is therefore legal for me to use. My sincere thanks to them as it is one of my favorite instrumental albums.
I've been a big fan of Time Lapse productions for quite some time now. I hope you enjoyed this piece and use the above technical details to create your own film. I'd also love to hear your feedback. Thanks!
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Reader Comments (8)
very cool cc.. good job
Awesome man! Glad you could finally pull that off. Makes sense about the long shutter speed to get the proper blurring. And just as I thought, you needed to have each picture more than 1 frame @ 24 fps - doubling that to two frames (effectively making it 12 fps) seems like it did the trick.
Really super cool! Makes me feel like I'm a fly on the wall. Music was just right!
Thanks! Alex, turns out the real issue with Quicktime Pro was the actual file size. Once I resized to something more manageable, the program could handle it. I was quite relieved too because Adobe Premiere was simply not working for me.
Wow! When your creative juices flow, expect a flood!!
Thanks Cathy, I like that :)
Very cool video. The soundtrack and the footage work together very nicely. The composition of the shot is great. Very, very interesting to watch!
Thanks Sam, the fisheye is such a fun lens to work with. I plan to do a lot more shooting with it and the other Lensbaby optics.