Time Lapse Photography
With all the advances that are occurring today in digital photography it is becoming more and more an integrated multimedia platform. In addition to creating fine photographic prints I find that more and more of my time is spent in maintaining websites and galleries, as well as in creating books, e-books and slide shows. I have found the process of creating digital slide shows to be among the most rewarding tasks as it incorporates the use of photography and music.
Recently I was perusing the photos that Cathy and I took while shooting in the Southwest. We had gone to Arches National Park early in the morning to photograph sunrise on the Organ rock formation in the park. We set up our tripods and waited for sunrise. Every couple of minutes I took a photo as the lighting changed.
I loaded the photos into Lightroom and as I quickly ran through the images, looking for the best image, I noticed something amazing. Right before my eyes on the computer screen I was watching the sunrise being re-enacted. Because my camera was on a tripod, all of the images were in perfect register. It was one of those Ahah! moments. I immediately realized that by stringing the images together in a slide show I would be able to create the illusion of a time-lapse movie of sunrise in Arches National Park.
I quickly loaded the images into ProShow Producer and created a slide show. Though rough, it was clear that the potential was there. I simply had to define the conditions. In order to create smooth motion I set the slide duration to 0.1 second. I used a dissolve transition of 2 seconds between each image. When I replayed the slide show under these conditions I had a nearly perfect time-lapse movie of sunrise on the Organ in Arches.
I decided at that point that this would be the opening for my Southwest slideshow. I wanted to begin the sequence with a black slide and fade up, as if we had been waiting for sunrise in the dark. Unfortunately, my first shot in the sequence showed the Organ in the pre-dawn twilight, not darkness as I wanted. Undaunted I made 3 copies of the first image and dropped the exposure 1, 2 or 3 f stops to create the illusion of the sun rising.
The end result was almost exactly what I hoped for. Initially the sky and the face of the Organ brighten as the sun rises, then the color changes from a cool pale to warm orange as the rays of the sun illuminate the rock surface. If you’d like to view the sequence, check out the video at the end of this post.
Of course there are may ways to include video in slide shows today. ProShow Producer allows the incorporation of video files directly. However, this is a technique that is within the reach of most photographers in that it is simple to set up. Give it a try and if you come up with something interesting, let me know at mspemberton@att.net.
With all the advances that are occurring today in digital photography it is becoming more and more an integrated multimedia platform. In addition to creating fine photographic prints I find that more and more of my time is spent in maintaining websites and galleries, as well as in creating books, e-books and slide shows. I have found the process of creating digital slide shows to be among the most rewarding tasks as it incorporates the use of photography and music.
Recently I was perusing the photos that Cathy and I took while shooting in the Southwest. We had gone to Arches National Park early in the morning to photograph sunrise on the Organ rock formation in the park. We set up our tripods and waited for sunrise. Every couple of minutes I took a photo as the lighting changed.
I loaded the photos into Lightroom and as I quickly ran through the images, looking for the best image, I noticed something amazing. Right before my eyes on the computer screen I was watching the sunrise being re-enacted. Because my camera was on a tripod, all of the images were in perfect register. It was one of those Ahah! moments. I immediately realized that by stringing the images together in a slide show I would be able to create the illusion of a time-lapse movie of sunrise in Arches National Park.
I quickly loaded the images into ProShow Producer and created a slide show. Though rough, it was clear that the potential was there. I simply had to define the conditions. In order to create smooth motion I set the slide duration to 0.1 second. I used a dissolve transition of 2 seconds between each image. When I replayed the slide show under these conditions I had a nearly perfect time-lapse movie of sunrise on the Organ in Arches.
I decided at that point that this would be the opening for my Southwest slideshow. I wanted to begin the sequence with a black slide and fade up, as if we had been waiting for sunrise in the dark. Unfortunately, my first shot in the sequence showed the Organ in the pre-dawn twilight, not darkness as I wanted. Undaunted I made 3 copies of the first image and dropped the exposure 1, 2 or 3 f stops to create the illusion of the sun rising.
The end result was almost exactly what I hoped for. Initially the sky and the face of the Organ brighten as the sun rises, then the color changes from a cool pale to warm orange as the rays of the sun illuminate the rock surface. If you’d like to view the sequence, check out the video at the end of this post.
Of course there are may ways to include video in slide shows today. ProShow Producer allows the incorporation of video files directly. However, this is a technique that is within the reach of most photographers in that it is simple to set up. Give it a try and if you come up with something interesting, let me know at mspemberton@att.net.
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