My timelapse showreel 2011/12

[keylight]

What are your thoughts on using graduated ND filters in timelapses?

Grad ND's can be really useful when you've got fairly distinct areas of high contrast, as long as those areas that will stay that way over time. If you've got a shot where the clouds will cast heavy shadows for a few minutes, then no shadows, then heavy shadows again... an graduated ND may be a little less useful. Depends on what you want it to look like.

Best thing is to get a graduated ND (like a .9) and experiment. Square or rectangular grad NDs are more useful than screw-ins because you can adjust them more. They can be really expensive (sized for matte boxes) or relatively cheap (using the Cokin filter holder with Cokin grad NDs).

And when you shoot RAW, I suggest you get the FASTEST cards you can. Write time is really important because the longer the write time, the longer your interval will have to be. And as you know, RAWs are much bigger than jpgs so they take longer to write.

Edit: Here's a couple of shots I did a few days ago, using a .9 ND and a circular polarizer.

Camera Settings:
Image: RAW 4608x3456
ISO: 160
Shutter: 1/5 sec
Aperture: f/11
Interval: 3 sec


Workflow: GH2 > LR Timelapse > Lightroom > After Effects > Premiere > Vimeo


A 1/2 second shutter might have worked better, but the kind of jitter from the trees is definitely softer than it would have been with a faster shutter.

[Paddy Bartram]

Grad ND's can be really useful when you've got fairly distinct areas of high contrast, as long as those areas that will stay that way over time. If you've got a shot where the clouds will cast heavy shadows for a few minutes, then no shadows, then heavy shadows again... an graduated ND may be a little less useful. Depends on what you want it to look like.

Best thing is to get a graduated ND (like a .9) and experiment. Square or rectangular grad NDs are more useful than screw-ins because you can adjust them more. They can be really expensive (sized for matte boxes) or relatively cheap (using the Cokin filter holder with Cokin grad NDs).

And when you shoot RAW, I suggest you get the FASTEST cards you can. Write time is really important because the longer the write time, the longer your interval will have to be. And as you know, RAWs are much bigger than jpgs so they take longer to write.

Edit: Here's a couple of shots I did a few days ago, using a .9 ND and a circular polarizer.

Camera Settings:
Image: RAW 4608x3456
ISO: 160
Shutter: 1/5 sec
Aperture: f/11
Interval: 3 sec


Workflow: GH2 > LR Timelapse > Lightroom > After Effects > Premiere > Vimeo


A 1/2 second shutter might have worked better, but the kind of jitter from the trees is definitely softer than it would have been with a faster shutter.

The shots look really nice, I will definitely think about investing in some ND grad filters

[keylight]

Here's a new site that has a some of the more innovative timelapse videos: timelapse.org