A lapse in time
The night sky in motion
stars on the move
Although to the naked eye the stars in the sky appear to be stationary, in relation to us on Earth they are moving, albeit too slowly for us to see. However, if you take lots of pictures over a long period of time, for example 2 pictures every minute for several hours and then join these pictures (render) into a video you will effectively have a video that lasts for a few seconds but represents several hours, this is time lapse and here it will show the apparent motion of stars across the night sky
Basic set up
This is a basic set up for a time lapse with no motion control of the camera and the exposure remains constant throughout, this was at the end of a very cold night where I shot a total of 6 time lapse sequences on two cameras. Although there is a lot of frost on the tripod and lens hoods there is no moisture or frost on the lens thanks to the use of dew heaters. Below is the time lapse created from this nights outing, it includes some animated star trails taken from the same data
Motion control and "Holy Grail" set up
This is the set up that I use for a "Holy Grail" time lapse (day to night and back to day" that also incorporates camera motion. The motorised slider use a shoot-move-shoot facility while the "Holy Grail" intervalometer makes alterations to the exposure length and ISO setting as the light changes, the intervalometer also sends a signal to the slider to move in between each exposure. Below is the full day to night and back to day time lapse taken with the equipment above
Equipment for above
- Sony A7Sii and Sony A7iii cameras
- Samyang 12mm f2.8 fisheye and 24mm f1.4 lenses
- Wireless intervalometers (shutter triggers)
- Dew heaters
- Carbon fibre tripods
- Lithium ion batteries to power dew heaters
Equipment for above
- Sony A7Sii camera
- Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens
- Timelapse +view “Holy Grail” intervalometer
- Dynamic Perception Stage One slider with Sapphire Pro pan and tilt head
- Carbon fibre tripods
- Dew Heater
- High power Lithium ion batteries
an unusual collaboration
A few weeks ago somebody from a company called New World Designs got in contact with me to ask if they could use some of my time lapse clips for some experimental project that they are working on for potential advertising opportunities in the future. They do work with bullet time photography. It’s not something I heard of until the movie “The Matrix” was mentioned and then it became clear. They have put together a short film to demonstrate the off road capabilities of a Land Rover Discovery which they happened to film at one of my favourite time lapse locations, Ribblehead Viaduct in the Yorkshire Dales and wanted some night sky time lapse and night to day footage from the same area so they asked me for some help. It may lead to bigger things so I was glad to help. The video is below, it is only 1 minute long but I liked the effect of how the time lapse clips and end of one of my “Holy Grail” clips fitted in.
a musical and charitable collaboration
I had an email from Robert Reed who said that he was doing a reproduction of Mike Oldfield’s masterpiece “Hergest Ridge” to help raise funds for the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine appeal and he asked if he could use my night sky time lapses that I did at Hergest Ridge, Kington, Herefordshire for use in the promotional video for the album. As a big fan of Mike Oldfield and as it was for a worthy cause I was only too happy to help. It was also great to do a time lapse at Hergest Ridge and have the actual music to accompany the video. For those who have never heard of Robert Reed check his YouTube channel out, his music and style of playing is about as close as I’ve ever hear to Mike Oldfield
If anyone would like to make a donation they can do this by purchasing the music “Hergest Ridge” at the following link
360 degree cameras
I have recently been having a play around with 360 degree cameras, notably the Insta360 one X2 and the Insta360 One RS. I primarily bought these so that I could film footage of my trike rides to various locations to add another dimension to my time lapse videos by showing some of the scenery that I ride through in order to get to the location where I am shooting. These cameras have two 180 degree field of view fisheye lenses front and back so when they are filming they cover a complete 360 degree field of view. By using key frames in the processing software provided with the cameras you can alter the view point while the video is playing giving the impression that you have a mini drone flying with you. There are also various special effects that can be added after the filming or created during the filming. The added bonus is that they both are capable of doing time lapse and both have a specific “Star Lapse” function for doing animated star trails etc in 360 degrees
Two examples can be seen below taken with the Insta360 One RS