Fog Lapse - Time Lapse Video taken w/ GH1

Shawn Storm

Shawn Storm

New member
My latest short video. Footage of fog rolling around the hills in the mountains of Oregon. Mostly shot with my GH1 and Intervalometer, but a few scenes were shot with a Panasonic FZ50.

Camera settings varied, but usually shutter was set between 1/60 - 1/120. Intervalometer settings were either 1 photo per second or 1 photo every 2 seconds.


-Shawn-
 
very nice, I do a lot of that stuff up in my neck of the woods (olympic peninsula). how did you get the zooming effect?
 
UncleBenji1977 said:
That looked great. Very fluid... Honestly looked like it was all flowing in real time. Excellent job!
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Thanks! The smoothness is due to two factors (I think):
1> I use a medium shutter speed (usually between 1/50 - 1/120)
2> I always plan my footage based on the fact that I will be compiling the footage at 29.97fps (many people compile the footage at 15fps and then convert to 29.97 which obviously creates more of a "stop motion" look, or people use frame blending which can look ok but not nearly as nice as native 29.97)


fotoman said:
very nice, I do a lot of that stuff up in my neck of the woods (olympic peninsula). how did you get the zooming effect?
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I do all the zooming/panning/etc in the post process. My footage is usually taken with the camera static on a tripod (although I want to get a motorized dolly at some point). I shoot at medium resolution (which for my GH1 is around 3000 x 1700) and then drop that footage on a 720p sequence which gives me lots of extra resolution to use movement effects. So for example the zoom effect is simply done by setting two keyframes (one at beginning and one at end) and having the first keyframe be image size of say 50% and second keyframe maybe 80% - which creates a nice zoom in effect. Since it never goes more than 100% of actual size, the footage retains high image quality (assuming the original photos are quality).

-Shawn-
 
got ya, great idea..I would love a motorized track system as well. I just got a GH1 and hacked it mainly to shoot video with..but I did shoot some raw files with it and was impressed. will try a test of a GH1 raw file up against my canon 5D raw file next..so many pixels so little time..John
 
fotoman said:
got ya, great idea..I would love a motorized track system as well. I just got a GH1 and hacked it mainly to shoot video with..but I did shoot some raw files with it and was impressed. will try a test of a GH1 raw file up against my canon 5D raw file next..so many pixels so little time..John
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Do you have a 5D MarkII? I have been really impressed by the video footage from that camera and I was actually thinking I might prefer to have it over the GH1, so I find it interesting that you would get a GH1 if you already have the Canon. :)
 
well I only have the normal 5D, not the mark 2. I use it for just stills obviously..I was going to try out a 7D for video, but after reading about the hacked GH1 I just bought a body as I already have a lot of old olympus and nikon lenses around to play with, plus it was cheaper :) and so far I must say I do love the quality, and have been trying various settings files from lpowell and such..
 
i'm actually surprised that came out as smoothly as it did. usually when i shoot with shutter speeds that high and intervals that spaced, the video looks a little more staccato. i usually try to stretch my shutter to fill the intervals of the shots. good job though! looks really good!
 
fotoman said:
well I only have the normal 5D, not the mark 2. I use it for just stills obviously..I was going to try out a 7D for video, but after reading about the hacked GH1 I just bought a body . . .
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Got it. The new 60D looks pretty nice for video as well, but I am happy with my GH1 so I need to stop thinking about other cameras and focus on what I have. :)

dust'n the callipygous said:
i'm actually surprised that came out as smoothly as it did. usually when i shoot with shutter speeds that high and intervals that spaced, the video looks a little more staccato. i usually try to stretch my shutter to fill the intervals of the shots. good job though! looks really good!
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Thanks! I keep hearing that dragging the shutter is crucial to smooth time lapses, but it just hasn't been my personal experience thus far. I guess I have been lucky. I actually prefer a "sweet spot" between the subject being sharp and the footage looking smooth. Dragging the shutter too much creates a "smeared" look that is great for certain types of scenes, but isn't always desirable in my opinion. There are so many factors to consider in each situation, but I usually go the "intuitive" route and try not to put too much thought into it. :)

-Shawn-
 
Hi Shawn,

I just watched your video, looks really good, nice work on this. I await my new GH2 at the moment. Since you are in Oregon, I thought you might like to know about an intensive training program in digital cinema we are running at Willamette University this summer. You can read about it at this link:

http://www.thefilmmakersintensive.com/

Larry
 
larrys said:
Hi Shawn,

I just watched your video, looks really good, nice work on this. I await my new GH2 at the moment. Since you are in Oregon, I thought you might like to know about an intensive training program in digital cinema we are running at Willamette University this summer. You can read about it at this link:

http://www.thefilmmakersintensive.com/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment and the link to the training program. Sounds interesting. And congrats on the GH2 - I think I am going to hold off for awhile until I can determine if its really worth upgrading from a hacked GH1 or not. :)

-shawn-
 
Wow! that was Great...

Which intervlometer did you use? Is it safe?
I heard that there is a limit of the times the shutter clicks. May this damage the shutter?
 
exttreem said:
Wow! that was Great...
Which intervlometer did you use? Is it safe?
I heard that there is a limit of the times the shutter clicks. May this damage the shutter?
Click to expand...

Thanks! I use the JJC TM series made for Panasonic. It works with both my GH1 and FZ50. It is relatively inexpensive and works for the most part (but doesn't want to stop taking pictures unless you turn it off - or perhaps that is just my mine).

Can it damage the shutter? I don't know. I wouldn't think so. The shutter is made to click. :) Think about those trigger happy sports photographers that hold down the shutter and take rapid successive shots for lengthy periods of time. Most time lapses have at least 1 second between shots, which seems less intensive than the scenario I just painted.

HOWEVER, I do have a slight concern about the huge quantity of shots affecting the life of the camera, specifically its capturing mechanisms. I have heard that this can be an issue on other DSLRs, but I am not clear if this concern goes away with m4/3 cameras since there is no mirror flipping about. I would assume that taking thousands of shots will decrease the camera's life, but I am not sure how much.

So this is a question for anyone out there reading this post who might have an answer - Will doing lots of time lapses on a GH1 significantly effect the life of the camera?

-Shawn-
 
Most cameras are rated for about 100,000 shutter actuations. In the year and a half I've had my camera I've taken about 13,000 photos.
 
Ben_B said:
Most cameras are rated for about 100,000 shutter actuations. In the year and a half I've had my camera I've taken about 13,000 photos.
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Hey Ben - thanks for that information. Do you know if the "100,000" number is a general amount, or would that apply to the GH1? For some reason I assumed the lack of mirror made m4/3 cameras last a bit longer. Is that logical?


Going with the 100,000 figure: The average length of my individual time lapses is around 12 seconds x 30 fps = 360 shots. Average length of short videos made with time lapse footage = 3 minutes = 180 seconds x 30fps = 5400 shots per average short video.

So theoretically that means I could make roughly 18 short videos of time lapses before my GH1 would croak due to max shutter actuations. Whoa. That is actually kind of discouraging and makes me want to chill out on the time lapses. :)

-shawn-
 
with 100000 figure, its really hard for me to think of Time Lapse. :undecided

Shawn, I think we must start new thread on this topic in main GH1 forum.
Then with lot of disscussion, we all could get to the Conclusion.
 
exttreem said:
with 100000 figure, its really hard for me to think of Time Lapse. :undecided

Shawn, I think we must start new thread on this topic in main GH1 forum.
Then with lot of disscussion, we all could get to the Conclusion.
Click to expand...

I agree. Would you like me to start it or you? If you start it, please post a link here.
 
that looks excellent. I love these rolling cloud shots. Would you recommend using the intervalometer or just leaving the camera running for say 10 mins and then speeding it up? I never considered using this intervalometer but this looks so smooth and real time
 
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