I have man flu. I'm dosing it with a good dollop of campanology. The bell ringing is not helping my mastering of time lapse. There are always six ways to achieve something in Photoshop but today I decided on the complicated one……..I’ll not go into detail as many visitors find it boring. Even I found this boring I had to wait while I batched processed 1270 Raw images shot at 3s intervals and then wait while Photoshop synchronised my one slightly surreal image to all the rest and converted them to JPEGs at YouTube size. I am far from mastering this business as you will see. If anyone would like the workflow and the grief then ask. I have a fast laptop but it ran out of hard drive #1 and It couldn’t find hard drive #2. It is showing but I have yet to find a way of letting the computer access it….Help please! I also ran out of Scratch memory… Help would once again be more than welcome…..Mark I do have half a tin of Moffat Toffee. I’m not suggesting you are open to bribery…….BUT.
The surreal is me being Arty Farty I pushed and shoved in camera RAW then forgot to sharpen. I’ll always have Piss in front of artist before my name and never RA after. Sad when I think because I am trying. This is six hours editing and forty minutes shooting. I still managed to do it the same day though. I also forgot to use align frames and Mersad told me to do that before. I forget…silly me, a dumb cluck I am; I wrote down every step I had to follow for this workflow and the wind makes it look silly by shaking the very rigid tripod.
I took Little Bertha out this morning. Wonderful she is, a veritable pleasure for an old man to walk with. We saw a……………….
Considering I don’t feel well it’s no such a bad day.
I think the video looks great. I'm always at a loss as to how people do these things.. not that I'm looking to do them myself. I'm just in awe of the talent, time and effort spent.
ReplyDeleteYour feathered friends, as always, are delightful.
Campanology... hmmm.. the name rings a bell. ;)
Feel better soon, Adrian.
Hillary, the campanology is a euphemism for Keith and I partaking of Bells whiskey. It does ones head in much like Photoshop. Dutch courage is gin and I need a bit of a lift to push Photoshop anywhere near it's limits. I got myself a custom built computer but even this with state of the art graphics cards and 16GB of RAM took almost an hour to process the file for this video.
ReplyDeleteI look at the good time lapse videos. Some the buggers do it in HDR. I'm going to try that. I guess I'll be going for an upgrade first. Do Mac folk ever use anything but three click Apps?
The birds turned out with the new lens. Thank you.
I've been using Photoshop (for work, primarily) since the early 90s. Now I've not upgraded since CS4 but neither do I do much with my images.. a crop.. a sharpen, if need be and a downsize. So there's your three steps.. but it's still Photoshop. ;)
DeleteHilary, I used to use PS Elements. I went posh last year to CS6 then had to go posher still on my laptop. It's never ending but I do like the power to destroy RAW images en mass with only a little bit of fan running.
DeleteGreat work on the time lapse Adrian, I admire your dedication, you certainly put in the time and effort to create it, despite suffering from man flu and a generous prescribing of falling down water.
ReplyDeleteLittle Bertha appears to have settled in well already, I'm sure she'll do you proud?
I hope you manage shake off the flu and get back to full racing fitness soon...[;o)
Thanks for the ID Trevor. I was a bit this way and that when the dogs set them up. Just pointed and fired and the lens did the rest.
DeleteI like time lapse but it does take hours or days. This was okay I gotnht ideas from ADORAMA
They are video tutorials with blurry screens. What the hell, they popped me on the right track,
Did you know that when in Bridge if you press the Space bar it brings images up full screen and left clicking enlarges to full size. I bet you did but it was a revelation to me.
Adrian the video it's great! Really nice to see how the clouds are moving, great! And it is so nice for me to see for a moment the blue sky behind the clouds
ReplyDeleteLaura, it is fun. I left it to it and went to the shops.
DeleteThat goose is quite literally - a nobhead!
ReplyDeleteYP, yes but a handsome knobhead.
DeleteOh well, Little Bertha has been a dream come truthful, photos are fantastic.
ReplyDeleteBob, I'm happy.
DeleteMy son has man flu at the moment ~ it is woeful.
ReplyDeleteCarol, there are few things worse.
DeleteSo once again you've challenged yourself and had lots of fun. Interesting how you get the whole process in your head and then go step by step.
ReplyDeleteRed, I write it all down on a bit of paper but still manage to forget something.
DeleteWelcome to Little Bertha ~ terrific detailed photos of the birds ~ and I wasn't bored watching the clouds ~ slightly mesmerized, in fact. As long as the clouds keep moving, that's a good sign...lots of silver linings passing over head. Wishing you a speedy recovery from the man flu!
ReplyDeleteGlo, yes she is going to be just right for me.
DeleteThe time lapse is my best yet but there is room for improvement and a decrease in production time.
The ducks look like what we call Mallards over here.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - What I liked best about the time-lapse clouds rolling by were the occasional glimpses of blue.
DeleteBob, we have the same Mallard that you do. These are twice as big. I'll try and find some swimming around they are easy to identify then.
DeleteI went to the butchers whilst the camera shot the sequence on auto. I had to buy an intervalometer because the one I built myself I couldn't get to work reliably. The bits for it also cost more than a ready made one. I still have the processor and the wee bread board so it wasn't a total waste of money.
I enjoyed the time lapse although I would have thought you'd have noticed that there was a pylon in the way. (Someone had to say that). Little Bertha is artainly producing the goods.
ReplyDeleteGraham, Thanks I'll keep an eye out for pylons next time. I'm happy with her. For someone not renowned for moderation even I surprised myself by buying Bertha. Hopefully she will find a home with a younger and fitter person.
DeleteAmazing, I'd love to do time lapse also. I could have done without the power lines, however. I love geese.
ReplyDeleteMaria, I composed the shot round the power lines. Sorry. It obviously was not a good idea.
DeleteI'm such a pain when it comes to power lines, it's my fault.
DeleteYou are right I spend my life avoiding them but it's difficult here. I put the pylon in to check sharpening then forgot to sharpen.
DeleteYou are right I spend my life avoiding them but it's difficult here. I put the pylon in to check sharpening then forgot to sharpen.
DeleteYou just need to play that music at the end of an aisle in a woollen mill and the relieving travellers will think they have missed another iconic Scottish sculpture ... hey, you may be on a winner here.
ReplyDeleteJay, I have thought of setting up in a layby with a bucket.
DeleteThe Shelducks on our nature reserve nest in old rabbit warrens/holes and sometimes logpiles too, funny looking goose no wonder the parcel man was scared, I wouldn't have left the van!
ReplyDeleteDouglas, he is a bit naughty but that's the goose for you. They do peck a bit but can't do any harm.
DeleteI never find time lapse clouds boring. They were quite impressive. The camera shake hardly notices. We are always more sensitive to faults we know of in our own work.
ReplyDeleteI think you will like Little Bertha. I find it is quite heavy enough so I hate to think what BB was like to lug around for any distance.
John, it is a memory hungry way of doing the job. It cost me a pony or a monkey for the memory card. Then the laptop says wait. It is the way to go as I have control over the job from start to finish and if I don't like it I can start again. I'm still not happy with YouTube but that's just me not giving the correct information. I also forgot to sharpen. Apparently for You Tube you sharpen 20% more than for prints so it looks haloed. Then YouTube blur it back to normal. On my video the pylon and wires were crisp, one reason I went for the view. They are not at all sharp here but thanks to you and your help I'm starting to enjoy the challenge of movies. Next is voice over.
ReplyDeleteI hate mastering posh editors but love the flexibility that they offer.
Big Bertha was too much. After over a year of intermittent use I only have three or four keepers. Funny that they are all hand held. She weighs 3-4 kg. How Douglas swings his about is beyond me but he does. I don't like zoom lenses but this is manageable and will get at least one walk a day.
I have the biggest Gitzo carbon tripod. She was tethered from her hook to a dog screw and lashed up tight and yet still she moved. Little Bertha took the time lapse at 100mm. I saw the lads doing Winter Watch. They have porters for their tripods and still use sand bags hung from them. They don't have shake, align frames would have got rid of mine, I forgot. I showed them the Dog Screw and a bit of rope job. Impressed they were but not impressed enough to lend me any of their gear. Cameras as big as a breeze block they have and either a genset or big battery boxes. yards of cable and if they can they prefer to shoot tethered to a laptop.....We had something in common.
Adrian, I'm still grappling with the problem of how on earth bell ringing can help man flu. Please advise.
ReplyDeleteFrances, it is counter productive. We don't ring bells but we drink Bells whiskey. It's one of the cheap ones.
DeleteThey run fast those clouds;)
ReplyDeleteGorgeous photos!
a hug
Laura, they are athletic clouds.
Delete