Sunset at Utah Lake (new version added)

Ben Egbert

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It was still snowing a bit when I left home at 4:30, but the weather was supposed to clear up by 7:00. I had my first shot at a star image and a moon image while getting a sunset too boot.

CC welcome



New version with revised transitions, lowered sound volume and rendered at 150% for faster cloud motion

 
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Ben Egbert

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Thanks Alan, I think it is. I am a bit disappointed in the way Youtube is presenting it, this was processed as a 4k.
 

JimFox

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Hey Ben,

Now this is really very nice a clear and crisp. I don't see any flickering in it. This is really getting good.

But 3 things. :)

1. The music is too loud. I am decreasing all of my music tracks to 50% in Movavi when I do it. I would rather someone have to turn up their volume then to be annoyed because it blasts out.

2. All of your transistions here since you are going from close to wide to tight, etc, you should be using Zoom In or Zoom out transitions. These fade ones aren't smooth since you are changing the field of view so much. Had you kept the same field of view say, 2 clips from the same camera and lens position, then a Fade is good.

3. The clouds are moving too slow for me. We need faster cloud movement I think to keep the viewer attracted, or there needs to be another element so the slow moving clouds aren't noticed. Like perhaps people walking in the ground layer, birds flying, etc..
 

Ben Egbert

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Thanks Jim I considered the zoom in zoom out. How do you adjust sound level? I have played with the slider in Moravia but did not know if it was being applied to the output or just inside movavi. I will redo
this
 

Mike Lewis

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Wow, I have not checked in on these for a little while and this seems to be leaps and bounds beyond the previous timelapses I have seen from you. Mesmerizing! So many timelapses that are not quite right seem to go on too long - this one ends leaving the viewer anxious for more. Really really awesome stuff. The music is well matched as well, as stated above. A super teeny small nitpick might be to fade the music out at the end instead of ending it abruptly.

So now the technical questions:

1) Shot with the R5 - is this video based or made from individual images?

2) What is the time compression you have used - things move slowly, but then the transitions move the timeline along nicely. The overall look is very smooth with zero flicker, so I am guessing maybe made from video? If so what video settings?

3) What did you do to put together the transitions?

Very nice stuff - really enjoyed it.

ML
 

Ben Egbert

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Thanks Mike. This was in camera time lapse so video based. And yes shot with the R5, can't beat it for time lapse when using in camera version. The time interval version would have flickering.

This was shot at 2 second intervals, to get where Jim would like would require 4 maybe 5 seconds.

I assembled this in Movavi after first running it through Photoshop and using the ACR filter to make it look better. Just some clarity, haze and a bit of exposure adjustment.

I made a new version today where I changed the transitions, lowered the sound level to 50% and changed the speed to 150%. All per Jim's suggestions. I uploaded it to YouTube today around 2:00pm and it has not fully processed the HD version. I will add it tomorrow,

Your fade out is a great idea, but I am not sure I want to go through another full day to assemble one.
 

JimFox

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I like your edit much better! You are really starting to get the hang of it Ben.

You should just stick with your R5 for these timelapses as they have a really nice look.

Now with future ones, make sure you are capturing longer clips before changing the focallength. They were so short you almost gave my neck whiplash with it going in and out. :) The absolute minimum I am doing is 12 seconds of timelapse, but almost all of mine are 30 sec clips. I can always split them shorter if I want.

What's nice about the 1 sec intervals I have been using, is its super easy to figure out how long I need to shoot to get 12 secs or 30 secs, because it then works out to the same # but in minutes instead of seconds. But on all of my cameras that do incamera Timelapse, when I set the interval and then I set How Long, it shows me in min/secs how long the clip will be.

To Mikes point about Fading the music. I Fade my music In and Out. And it's sliders on the same page where you adjusted the volume of the clip down to 50%.
 

Ben Egbert

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Thanks Jim, The slowest interval I can enter in time lapse is 2 seconds. My camera does the play time calculation in camera while setting it up.

Was the sound better in the second version? It always sounds about the same to me on my computer.
 

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
I asked this in your newer thread, but perhaps your explanation here clears it up - are you saying you are using the video time-lapse function of the R5 for this?

ML
 

Ben Egbert

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Mike, the short answer is yes, in camera time lapse video. You get flicked with time interval and the only way I have solved it is with a very slow shutter speed and that is not assured. In camera time lapse is very clean and can be shot all the way up to 8k. I chose 4k however as that is all that is supported in most places and 8K cannot be processed in Photoshop.

However, the slowest shutter for in camera TL is 1/8 second, so for night work where I may want more than 1/8 second and up to 20 seconds, I need to use time interval. So far I have not seen any flicker in this mode.
 

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Ben,

OK, very good. I was experimenting indoors with this 1TB card, as in the specs it indicated it might not be fast enough to do in camera TL like this at 4K. It seems to be working OK though from what I can see. From playing with those settings, the other unexpected contraint I am seeing (or perhaps I am just not clear on how to change it) is that I seem to be in zone AF. I guess since I would be turning AF off for this that I can prefocus in stills mode and then turn off AF before going over to video mode and that would handle that issue - is that what you have done?

The other approach to this whole thing as you mention is to just shoot stills and then compost them outside the camera. I think that might have the potential of making some higher quality or maybe more flexible, but certainly with a lot more hassle. As you say there is flicker to contend with, as well as all the other details in and out of camera for setting things up. I have been looking at the eBook form the LRTimelapse author who is a world class timelapse photographer. He either runs in complete manual everything and does his own exposure adjustments (which seems to me to be a huge hassle and easy to screw up) or he uses an external phone app connected to the camera over WiFi to automate the sequence. That allows him to have a huge range of possible changed exposure values (typically shutter speed and ISO but can also even use aperture if you are careful about DOF and vignetting changes) and also automates even a full 'holy grail' sequence going from full day to full night or vice a versa. I ultimately with to try some of those, although I might need to walk before I run as they say :)

Now that I have figured out how to do the video based results, I am going to experiment with the phone controlled still frame version, just tomsee how complewicated it might get. I expect it is more power hungry too with the camera WiFi running, and then of course the phone must stay charged too. In the field I can run both the phone and the camera off the power bank though so I am thinking I would still be OK.

Thanks for your assistance!

ML
 

Ben Egbert

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Hello Mike. I see this as something to do while I am making still images. My primary photography goal is making prints. I worked hard at figuring out how to eliminate flicker and have no interest in adding controllers to my camera.

I downloaded the Iphone ap and did some remote control from my phone, but it was really clunky, hard to set up and dropped out all the time.. I wanted it mostly for remote control of the shutter. I bought the Canon BRE-1 and carry it around, it's also clunky and will not work unless you have the camera set to 2 or 8 second delay. You can shoot without a delay by pushing a side button on the remote, but it does not work unless the camera is set to delay.

I just hooked my old Bose accustimass 7 to my computer with an amp. This system will not work without an amp so it's obsolete for my TV unless I buy and amp with Yoku friendly inputs. I just listened to the TL above on this system and the music quality is pretty bad.

I have maybe 100 or so classical pieces from Spotify loaded on my phone and listen with some Bose bluetooth earphones. Hard to match this sound quality.
 
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