ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Tuesday 29 July 2014

A WET WALK. (29/07/14)

It has been a good couple of days, I’m not a big sunshine fan. It’s nice to see the sun for an hour or two but I don’t enjoy it for days on end. Yesterday I shot another four hours of stills for time lapse. I suddenly looked up from my book and there was a German chap standing in front of the camera listening to it clicking. He wondered why it was left clicking. I explained it would click more productively if he stood to one side and wondered.

He and his middling gorgeous accomplice are parked next door and are great people. They cooked for me last night. Chicken, potatoes, French beans and a mustard and white wine sauce. It turns out he thought I was drying the camera out. They had soaked a baby Canon DSLR the day before. I field stripped it and popped it in my muesli box with a load of silica gel, wrapped up in a bit of old T-shirt. Bingo….it works this morning. It worked at one o’clock this morning, it was a good night. The battery is knackered but what the hell. I gave him the link to a cheapo battery supplier. There is still a bit of fog in there but I’ve told him to get a plastic box from the Spar shop, pop the silica gel in the oven and repeat the process till the fog goes……Don’t even ask why I am the ashamed owner of five kilos of silica gel crystals.

I bounced out of bed at three but didn’t feel too good. I had a glass of milk and went back to bed. No good. I got up again and did a bit of blogging, skimmed through three thousand images looking for errant birds and left the computer converting them to TIFF files while we went for a rainy walk. It takes it a while as there were 64GB worth to do. We must have been out for a while as they were done when I got back.

_MG_3284     Three Cormorants sitting on a rock.

_MG_3289    Just under a dozen Eider Ducks swimming about.

_MG_3286    A few rocks and a dog.

_MG_3290     The same dog playing in the surf. Alf is getting brave. He can swim but is not keen on big waves.

_MG_3291   He now has water up his nose and is wet enough to wander back to the van. I’m surprised the dogs were or Alf was this active because I found Deer Tics on them yesterday so gave them a dose of Front Line. It usually quietens them for a couple of days. Buying it quietens me for a couple of days.

EBB AND FLOW

This is my best yet, not perfect by any means but I feel encouraged. It does involve a lot of faffing about but I enjoy messing. The old Canon FD manual lens does stop a lot of flicker and it means I can leave the camera in Av for four hours letting the camera adjust shutter speed. The first half of this video was shot at 10s intervals in full manual and split when it got too dark and pushed in RAW. The second half at 5s interval in Aperture mode. I have also found that if I duplicate the video time line into a new video layer and shift it one frame then that also helps. A Marks and Spencer plastic bag did the job when it rained. M&S bags don’t have little holes in….well worth saving they are.

TREVOR sent me this link the other day. AUTO PAN /TILT/RAIL. It is a brilliant system, It gave me no end of ideas. The files I shoot are so big that I can do it in post production but not quite as well. It is lovely for the gadget minded but it isn’t practical. There is not a cat in hells chance of my lugging that lot about without a Sherpa or Sherparess or three. Both links are worth a look. Trevor for his infrequent but perfect shots and the second for some middling good time lapse.

Does anyone know anything about Drobo drives?  I need more immediately accessible hard drive for time lapse. I can’t use Cloud as I often don’t have reliable internet access. I need a drive that will plug in via USB3 or Firewire and one I can access whilst editing. I was handling 64GB on the initial work flow of this bit of video.

I am still happy with the laptop, I’ll give PCSpecialists a ring. See if they have a low cost solution.

Have fun.

41 comments:

  1. That looks really stunning. First of all the beach is beautiful just by itself, but the rolling clouds and incoming waves make for a perfect combination. And I love the song.

    Mersad
    Mersad Donko Photography

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  2. I tried to find the song with my Shazam app, but I couldn't find it. What is it called?

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    1. Thanks Mersad. Here is the link to Amy Sayers and tons of free music.

      FMA

      It is all free under creative commons but don't forget to credit.

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    2. Thank you. Really like the song.

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  3. Wonderful time lapse, and how great that you know photography so well that you were able to help out that guy.

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    1. AC, I don't know photography that well but I do know how to bugger up cameras.

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  4. Adrian that place it's magic! There is a light so nostalgic, ilike it a lot.
    The video is great, I'm not an expert in this things but I think it take time to do it or?
    :-)))) the dogs! Please they are so nice!

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  5. Laura, it takes eight hours to shoot and about five hours to edit. It should take an hour but I'm a bit slow. It only last two minutes. I like the first half shot at ten seconds better. It's not easy to visualise before I commit to the shoot.
    The dogs love it here. It's high summer so lots of new dogs to play with.
    Okay. If you are not coming with your dog then I will do a doggy post tomorrow.
    Too busy cooking or couldn't care less. No worries, you are beautiful.

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  6. You are really converting me to a love of the time lapse Adrian. Just think what could be done with the sunrises here over the Scottish Mainland.

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    1. Graham, it's not that easy. You need big filters on and then them off. Dawn to sunrise would be great. but don't let the full sun hit the camera over and over.
      I am just starting out. Try it and like Mersad and I do swap your failures. There is always more to be learn't from failing. I shoot RAW because it gives me three stops of information to work with. It can get expensive.
      What the hell we are only here once....Bugger the expense.
      I eventually got you to try HDR. I use it a lot but could undrstand why you didn't like my early efforts. I did, I was just amazed by digital. I'm older now I've gotter more sensibler.
      Not a lot, I shot 12 pictures in high key the other day on B&W medium format film for a summer foto competition in Sheffield. I doubt any will be any good. I am lucky, I trust Laura my editor. If there is one in there she will find it and doge and burn in print. I must phone her and say don't push or pull in the tank. I'm a piss artist at work.

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    2. Forgot to say. 10s is too long.. The first half is more relaxing. Hey. I'm just a beginner. Try 5s or 7s if you only have little waves.

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  7. Beautiful video, no doubt you were having fun Adrian.

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    1. Bob, it could be much better but apart from titles I don't know how. No worries I'll find out.

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  8. Te time lapse thingy makes me dizzy. All those people jumping off the cliff...but very clever, of course.

    Adrian, do you really leap up at 3am? How, exactly? It's my idea of a nightmare.

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    1. Frances. I should not take them in summer. Or if I do i should blurr them by putting a filter on and dragging the shutter. Give up lass. Give me a break and a mark for perseverance.
      I had a bit of a whoopsy ten years ago. I still get six hours sleep a day but in two hour bits. After two hours my ribs get all tangled up and they wake me up.
      I can leap up at any time. I can also sleep at any time. It's life. The dogs don't mind but my wife kicked me out. Can't blame her really.

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    2. PS. funny you see the foreground. It is just thronged here as you can see. This is eight hours of people. Glad you mentioned it because they are distracting. I have to take these on relatively windless days. That means that during the school holidays there are folk about.
      I just watch the sky for birds flitting through.
      You probably don't notice good time lapse. Country File use it as do News programmes. It's nothing new but they have six folk doing it and £20/£30K of gear.

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  9. I enjoyed the the various people scurrying around like ants the rolling clouds, nice one.

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    1. Douglas. far from perfect those RED cameras don't sell at 100K on someone's whim. I had a go with one. Just brilliant shooting 4/5K video and the ability to still frame. It's pro gear that I can only dream of. I should have shot the second half at 10s. Same as the first half. Bear with me I'm just learning. But thanks.

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  10. I use two external USB 3 drives with the MacBook. A Transend 1TB which has old and new photos backed up on it and a 500GB Samsung M3 which the MacBook uses for auto system backup. Both have proved reliable and fast so far. The Samsungs are quite small, probably ideal for your needs and space. The Transend is a bit bulkier but built to military Grade shock resistance. Both can take their power from the laptop so no extra power supplies needed. As I only have 2 USB3 ports and I keep one free to plug the cameras in I run the external drives from a powered USB3 hub with has a couple of other bits hung on it.

    Transend 1TB around £50 on Amazon
    Samsung 500GB around £38 or 1TB around £48 on Amazon.

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    1. Cheers John, I had an old 500GB WD unit plugged in but it needed external power. It died. I took the drive out and it fitted in the old laptop. What a performance, well a few screws. I said lot's of rude words. Getting the HP to recognise the disk took me five hours. It did but don't ask me how. Got everything off the drive and it looks good. I think I might be turning into a gurk or geek

      This time lapse is memory hungry. I suspect any video is. My processors are top notch but PCspecialiacist say they can speed my lap top even better now then when they built it. I spoke to them today and as long as I don't load Windows Oriface, That is a memory grabber. They will polish it up brand new , get rid of the dog hairs and fag ash.
      They will update the processor to i7 or summat maybe 7i and a lot of summats. Plus they will put a new nivea or summat graphics card in. £250.00p + VAT. I still need an external drive. I'll get the Transend. I never plug cameras in except through EOS Utilities. I use card readers and writers. USB2 they are. It is the very devil keeping up to speed with these things.
      Thanks for the help.

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  11. I enjoyed the time lapse. The systems which can pan and zoom cameras for time lapse are interesting but they do seem to be bulky to cope with the weight of the camera. Whatever else is used it would mean lugging power for it as well. I think you would end up having to buy a golf buggy to cart all the equipment about!

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    1. John it does look better if the camera pans and tilts but you would be carrying a GenSet or big battery packs. I can get five hours and a bit out of the four Li-Ion batteries on the big Canon.
      These are Pro's they are on contract and have lots of Goffers. A grand or two is neither here nor there.
      This time lapse has grabbed my interest. What made it better was getting a flicker free wide angle lens set up for seventy quid. I just knew it was the camera guessing even on manual. FD lenses are cheap as chips and SRB Griturn do an adaptor for forty pounds or so with a lens to let them focus to infinity. If you undo their lens a little bit you also get a soft focus effect, Just great. You don't need super sharp for film or YouTube.

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    1. Thanks John, Already one on it's way from Amazon. I was ripped off £53.23p delivered.
      Many thanks.
      These are mega files and it is good to do initial corrections on one RAW image, Sinc the rest and then convert to TIFF . I sound good, I think I maybe a Smurf or a turd....Got it. Nerd.
      Many thanks.

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  13. Great stuff Adrian. Love your video. What settings do you use on your camera, when you shoot the time lapse.

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    1. Horst, it's a 1DS III with an old FD 23mm prime on connected by an SRB Griturn adaptor. I use the lens at F16 and it is manual focus. I use 100 ISO In the second half I set the camera to aperture. It can't speak to the lens so just adjusts shutter speed.
      I'm getting there but have spent hours messing about. Give it a whirl and any problems just e-mail. I'd love to save folk the grief I've gone through. Old manual Canon lenses are dirt cheap. Nikon aren't as their fitting never altered.

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  14. Your getting better each time you do these time lapse clips,it looks a lot of work but worth all the effort.

    peter

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    1. Peter, it's fun and the quest for how the BBC do it. I'm getting there. A big Sony or a little RED camera would make life easier. So would a director and a sound man. It's just for fun.

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  15. It's a fantastic video Adrian...

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    1. Andrew, it is the beauty of this hobby. There is always room for improvement.

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  16. I'm really disappointed with you that you didn't throw the mother of all snits when the German guy stood in front of your camera! It sounds as if they were alright after all.

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    1. Red, I get used to it. A camera clicking away on it's own is like a magnet. I have to skim through and delete lots of frames.

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  17. Nice bit of time lapse Adrian, you must have a lot of patience.

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    1. Gary, it does take a while but most of the time I can be doing something else.

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  18. That puppy is adorable. He's such a photogenic sweetie.

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    1. Hilary, he needs a hair cut but it will have to wait a month.

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  19. Beautiful, and I really like the music when it ends: "Secret desires of the past..". It's so poignant to see life in a time lapse video, when the humans start appearing, (the beautiful landscape and then seeing humans suddenly appearing. The light is fantastic; thanks for sharing this.)

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  20. Maria, editing is a skill I have yet to master. I listen to songs and then try and work them in. You are not allowed to re-edit free music. It's naughty so I don't. If I got a good enough video I would pay Amy for a special version. The light is the very devil to deal with but without light where would I be.
    This is my best yet. I try to do one a week but they do take time and effort and often neither the time nor the effort are worth it.

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