it’s been a while since i shot my last time lapse clip and i am happy to finally present the candle clip that i intended to shoot for a very long time:
the clip consists of 3100 jpgs combined using virtualdub and exported as an xvid avi file. it runs at 36 frames per second with the pictures being taken each one second apart.
the equipment I used was:
canon eos 5d mkii @ iso 100
tokina at-x pro 100 f/2.8 @ f/8.0
tc-80n3 timer remote @ 1second intervals
manfrotto tripod & head
the pictures were taken in jpg form to save space, then imported to lightroom, resized to 1280×853 and then exported. virtualdub was used to merge the jpg files into a video clip with the nine inch nails song “36 ghosts iv” as atmospheric background.
total working time (shooting and post processing): about 3 hours.
i might produce a full hd version of the clip later down the line and release it via bittorrent.
i just backed up the macbook pro using time machine and i am doing a clean install of macosx to make sure that no password or login data might fall in the wrong hands if it should get compromised or stolen (i will do so when i get back from har2009, too).
something i am also packing for the trip will be the eos 5d mkii. yes, this is expensive equipment, but since i am there among fellow geeks there might be some others who use it as well and would enjoy some chit-chat.
that’s what you learn when you chose to update the firmware on a 2400€ camera.
the update 1.1.0 for my canon eos 5d mk ii just finished and the whole process went fine. (more…)
yesterday i spent the evening (and eventually a good part of the night) at a campfire up in the hills of the wienerwald, enjoying a cold heineken beer and snapping a couple of shots of the people around.
well, it didn’t work out as planned.
the eos 5d mkii locked up after two shots displaying an “error 20″ with a quite audible, ugly “cluck” from the shutter mechanism. you know that feeling if you have a car and manage to shift badly and the gearbox makes this spine-chilling squeal? it felt exactly like that when the camera locked up. i was advised to remove the battery and turn the camera off and on again. i did that, but the error persisted. changed the lens – to no avail.
what a great night – looking like a dork with a 2.5k € camera in hand that doesn’t even work.
what is a dork supposed to do when this happens? remove the item in question and replace it with an even dorkier one.
well, i did just that and started to play my didgeridoo.
i’ll spare you the details of that night. the camera is now working again, but i am really not comfortable with it. i am thinking about sending it in for service just to make sure.
yesterday i lay in bed and couldn’t sleep. for two hours i lay awake and was thinking. then an idea popped up in my mind.
after having seen so many cheesy movies about people hacking computers using 3d operating systems (“hackers”), nine displays that show just crap (“password swordfish”) or any other movie that aims to look like what it’s not, once i get the canon eos 5d mk ii my first project will be to shoot a short clip about the stuff i know: computers. (more…)
when the first promotional hd-video shots of the new canon eos 5d mkii started to surface i was pretty impressed. this might get interesting: weather sealing, full format, live view and: video.
usually video capability was something fun to toy around with, like on a mobile phone.
that’s why i discarded that feature at first although the idea to shoot hd video footage looked promising to me, yet even more so because i also tried to mimic it by shooting my own time lapse movie “15 minutes”.
you could think of macro videos of tiny insects or wide angle documentries. so many possibilities.
