Time-lapse Collection 2012 Showreel

My time-lapse showreel arrived a bit late this year but here it is…

2012 was an exciting travel year from Svalbard, Norway to Northern Arizona photographing polar bears to ancient Sinaguan monuments. Time-lapse challenges with equipment and software were numerous and new workflows and techniques were forged by inevitable progress.

The monarch butterfly metamorphosis was the most challenging and educational. See my post on the process of capturing this impressive macro event in my studio.

The day-to-night time-lapses are the most difficult to capture smoothly and I tried several new dissolve techniques with varying degrees of success. The big tip is to know the moon phase and other celestial events that will influence your lighting. Shooting in RAW is critical.

Traffic was a new subject tested last year and I discovered the twilight hours produced the best results with a setting of a 1:2 ratio of exposure to interval. A stable platform is a must.

Astrophotography is one of my favorite time-lapse subjects and 2012 offered us a rare chance to witness a full solar eclipse which I botched due to my tripod. Lesson learned long ago was to use a two tripod or mono- tripod combo to stabilize long lenses. And good luck focusing.

My equipment performed flawless this year accept for crossing the leads on a 12v battery which melted. Always cover open battery leads! My Nikon D7000 dealt with extended freezing and hot conditions without any problems. Really hope to use the Dynamic Perceptions MX Dolly more in 2013 with planned car travel.

Some of the software used to create this showreel includes; Photoshop, Bridge, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, LRTimelapse and Starstax.

My new favorite app is The Photographers Ephemeris  (TPE). It saved me hours of scouting for my time-lapse workshop and worked flawless when we scuttled to Plan B because of fog.

Please join me at one of my time-lapse workshops over the next few months:

ASMP San Diego Time-lapse Photography Lecture & Workshop: May 9 & 11, 2013 in San Diego, California.
Brooks Institute Time-lapse Photography Workshop: July 12-14, 2013 in Ventura, California.

Thanks, Rich.

richreidphotography.com
timelapsecollection.com
richreidphoto.wordpress.com/

Music by Alexander Maas, MUX, iStockphoto

Time-lapse Workshop – Show Reel

This past weekend, a group of photography enthusiasts joined me for an inspiring time-lapse workshop in Ventura, California. Our predawn and twilight shoots with the changing weather were awesome. A passing storm and developing cold front combined with a full moonrise and set were our palette of subjects.
After a sleep deprived 48 hours and lots of creative synergy, our crew produced these memorable time-lapses with a combination of software in Brooks Institute’s lab; Bridge, Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects and Final Cut Pro.
In the digital lab, our computers were like dueling banjos testing the processing speeds of Bridge, Camera Raw and Lightroom. I personally learned a tremendous amount leading this workshop including software limitations exporting in Bridge, advanced Camera Raw adjustments and a few After Effects tricks. Collectively, we found our camera’s ISO thresholds, optimal file sizes for post-processing and tested a crazy array of intervalometers.
I am already setting a date for my next time-lapse workshop in Ventura sometime this summer. Stay tuned.
Special thanks to the following people….
Workshop Crew:
Darren Edwards, Larry Gibson, Zachary Levey, Stan Pechner, Dennis Stone
Technical Assistant:
Michael Lopez
Brooks Institute:
Katie Huber

Ventura Highway Sunrise

Winter provides the cold clear skies that create optimum photography conditions in Southern California; sunrise is relatively late, skies are generally clear and temperatures are usually moderate. Add a little weather plus surf and its an ideal winter photography location.

This Ventura Highway time-lapse at sunrise combines many photography and software technique to achieve the final clip. The best shooting time is the dusk or dawn hour with clear skies. The following are the stats and general workflow…..

265 JPEG (3,000 x 2,000) large, exposure 1/2 second and interval every 2 seconds
Nikon D7000, 10mm lens at f/4 with intervalometer
Bogen tripod and head with rubber foot grips

Download card and view files in Bridge. Deleted eight files for exposure anomalies to avoid flicker.
Select All, Open in Camera Raw, made minor adjustments to shadows, white balance and saturation to a middle image. Select All and Synchronize. Save Images as 12 JPEG sRGB into a separate folder.
Import Folder into Final Cut Pro, render and export as a ProRes 422 HD file. Wha-La!

Sound simple. If not, come join me for a three day time-lapse photography workshop this January in Ventura, to improve your photography and learn new time-lapse techniques.

http://workshops.brooks.edu/time-lapse-photography-january-25-27-2013/

Time-lapse Photography Workshop – Ventura, CA – January 25-27, 2013

Time-lapse Photography Workshop – Ventura, CA – January 25-27, 2013

Digital photography has opened up infinite possibilities to shoot time-lapse video with the simplest DSLR cameras. This intensive 3 day workshop provides the knowledge necessary to create advanced time-lapse videos using basic post-process workflow. Many years of trial and error mistakes will be discussed to improve everyone’s learning curve.

Join me for next month for a great weekend of photography and creating memorable time-lapse videos.