Seeking advice: 15-hour time lapse

cdbourbon

cdbourbon

Active member
Hey everyone. Just got a rather high profile gig to shoot an exterior, stationary subject from before dawn 'til nightfall. Am going to use an HPX, Canon 5dMII, and possibly an XLA1 for backup. It's a remote location with no power options beyond batteries (got about 20 hours worth) and an AC converter from a SUV. Have got 64GB of P2 storage and can offload to a P2 field deck (60GB AJ-PCS060G). Security and clearance issues abound, so there's only one chance to nail this.

Final running time to be 4 hours (as far as I know). Have to shoot 720p and have no clue how to approach it.

Am two weeks out and seeking suggestions. Am aware of the online time/ratio calculators. Cloud movement, sunlight, and shadows are the focus.

Por favor,

--msg
 
cant speak for the hpx, or a1. First, do you have an intervalometer for the 5d? For you daylight/night shots, i would suggest going AV mode and take a picture every 10 seconds if you have enough cards/batteries. Also, there will most likely be flickering in video from light changes, there are plugins to help tone done their effect.
 
Do have an intervalometer for the 5d, which I'll rely on as the primary camera. Am trying to figure if it might make sense to shoot x number of minutes straight on the HPX -- 10 min., for example -- then wait 10 min., shoot another 10 min. and repeat all day. In post, long dissolve the individual shots end to end for a seamless time lapse. Primary concern with this approach, however, is cloud movement, clouds popping up then vanishing, etc.

Also trying to figure if, beyond manual focus, I should let the camera run on auto.

Again, any advice is appreciated.

--msg
 
I would NOT shoot 10 min straight and 10 min off... I don't see how that ends up looking good or smooth. A TRT of 4 hours seems extremely long, but if that's the case just do the straight math, pick the best frame capture per time interval based on that math and let it go. I've done a few HPX time lapses with the sky and they generally turn out pretty cool. The hard part is the iris. I've found auto iris works well, especially if you won't be standing next to the camera, as well, you have to pick the full daytime ND filter (1/64) if you're not going to be there. Otherwise the sun blows out your shot way too soon and you don't get a nice color change when it actually appears in the camera. This is especially true if you will see the actual sun in your frame.

If you are going to be standing right next to the camera, then I would step through all ND filters periodically based on over exposure, going from OFF to 1/64, to help get some nicer color changes before the sun ever appears in your shot and then into full noon daylight. But you have to be on top of it for a few key moments when the sun starts rising and exposure gets too hot. Then, step to the next ND filter in-between capture intervals if you can - to minimize tripod and camera movement - and just chop those ND changes out in post - then once you are on ND 1/64, step away and let auto iris do the work. Manual Focus for sure, but auto iris will save you with the clouds.

As for auto white balance for a sunrise/sunset timelapse, it seems like it might work.. but I've never used auto white balance in field production and can't recommend it. The colors have always turned out nice without auto and I think that kind of ends up as part of the effect. Plus you could color correct a few bad spots if you had to and long dissolve to those parts. I believe I used presets and flipped the switch one time to the 5400 preset after around 10am, but it's been a long while since I've done super extended sunrise into the full daylight. Otherwise my last timelapse for about an hour or so of timelapse at sunset was white balanced around 3200K and the color transitions looked great.

I think 1 frame every 1 second turns out to approx 25 minutes of video (over 12 hours at that timelapse rate) if my quick math is correct.

Take all of the above with caution, I could be wrong! Do a couple of extended tests at sunset or sunrise. You need to be set up by 4 am to really see the dark sky start its transformation.

Good Luck!
 
msg- just checking in to see if you found good settings, a plan that worked for your particular timelapse, and/or how your footage ended up looking?
 
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