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I was quite interested for a while in doing some time-lapse films (still photographs taken in a static position at intervals and made into films), mostly beacuse I thought I'd be able to do it by plugging my existing digital camera into the computer. While this idea turned out to be slightly over-optimistic, I instead set myself a budget of one hundred fine English Pounds and attempted to find another camera that would do it.
It seems that almost all professional time-lapse photography is done using video cameras - either with stepper motors attached to the reels, or using the built-in functionality of some of the more expensive cameras. And I do mean expensive. After a bit of research, I found various "domestic" digital cameras which will take photos on a timer. Of these, the Kodak DC2nnn range seemed like the ones that were available cheapest (or even available second-hand at all). So off I went and bought a DC260 on eBay. I might write some more about all this at some point, if anyone's interested (including the rest of the list of cameras) but for the moment let's get onto some things people can click on.
These videos are all copyright so please do not pass them off as your own. I'm a
real beginner at this so I'd be very interested to
hear your thoughts - I admit they're not exactly brilliant.
One thing - If you're at all likely to watch these videos more than once, PLEASE do save them somewhere on your computer. I have to pay for this bandwidth, and if these videos turn out to use to much of it I'll have to take them off again. Many thanks.
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Limehouse, September 2002
144 frames, 5.3mb, Cinepak at 90%, 24hrs
More than anything else, this demonstrates how little happens in 24hrs in Limehouse. There are a few problems with this. The film is taken over too short a period to see any sort of long-term time progression (things being built, seasons, etc) and runs too fast to see any sort of short-term time progression (clouds, traffic, etc). Made the AVI from the JPEGs using
VideoMach, which looks jolly nice and only costs $17. It allows some filtering options but not overlays and the load/save aspect is a little cumbersome, so may try some other packages.
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Limehouse, 1 October 2002
480 frames, 5.8mb, Cinepak at 80%, 24hrs
Second try at a similar thing; was hoping I'd get more cloud motion on account of the enormous number more frames. Worked a bit, but not too much; clouds still a bit jerky. Pity, as it was a great day for clouds with a lovely sunset. I also now have the problem that my largest memory card (48mb) can only hold 530 or so pictures at lowest quality, lowest resolution, so this is about as high a frame rate as I can go for a 24hr shoot. I think the answer is to remove the night-time hours and take more pictures - perhaps 2 min frames. Also interesting is the low increase in file size given the extra frames - I guess this is down to the "difference encoding" aspects of video compression.
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