Category: Time lapse

The island of Kallo

8.4.2015 – The weather forecast said it would be a stormy day. I thought I would have a perfect opportunity to shoot some photos down by the seaside. So I went to Kallo, which is a little rocky island by the Pori coastline (location on map). You can drive there through a narrow neck of land.

After I got to the location I thought it would be better to shoot video after all. I ditched the tripod because I wanted to be able to move fast and smoothly when needed. So I attached variable ND filter, pistol grip camera handle for better ergonomics, RØDE VideoMic and wivi VF-3 DSLR view finder thus transforming my 5D mark III to a run and gun video camera.

Of course there will be some shakiness when shooting handheld. Great help is the EF 24-105mm f/4L lens with image stabilizer and the warp stabilizer effect in Adobe PremierePro.

First I went to the wooded part of the tiny island. The wind was not so apparent there, but you could here the roaring sea nearby. I grabbed few shots in the forest, which I thought would work well in the beginning of the video. Then I headed to the shore. Soon the lightly salty baltic sea water started to dribble on the ND-filter. I was afraid it would cause a permanent damage, but luckily it didn’t. In the edited video a few shots are kind of fuzzy because of this.

Rocks of Kallo. Shutter speed of 1/6th of a second was used to get some controlled motion blur, which should look good in timelapse sequence.
Rocks of Kallo. Shutter speed of 1/6th of a second was used to get some controlled motion blur, which should look good in timelapse sequence.

The last take is a timelapse sequence shot with TB3 and motorized slider. The wind speed was around 20 m/s and I knew it would cause some trouble. I chose to go with the idea I had despite the challenges. I wanted to use shutter speed of 1/6th of a second to get some controlled motion blur. Because the camera and the TB3 combination had such a big wind resistance, I knew there was no way to avoid unwanted shakiness and uncontrolled motion blur. Fortunately the issues could be fixed in post to some extent.

Gear List

Video:

  • EOS 5D Mark III (+Magic Lantern)
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  • Haida variable ND filter
  • Pistol grip camera handle
  • VisionTech -picture style
  • RØDE VideoMic with the Windcutter windscreen

Timelapse:

  • EOS 5D Mark III (+Magic Lantern)
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  • eMotimo TB3 + Rhino Pro 4FT
  • Anker 2nd Gen Astro Pro2 20000mAh battery
  • Triopo MT-2205+KJ-1S

Post

  • Video edited with Adobe Premiere
  • Holy Grain ULTIMATEGRAIN BUNDLE ( http://holygrain.com/ )
  • Timelapse edited with LRTimelapse and Adobe Lightroom

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Testing motorized timelapse slider

I’m no boater, but a boat should not be stored in the water during the winter, right? This was the case when I found myself in a small boat harbor by the river Kokemäenjoki. The river was frozen and the scene was quite picturesque. I thought this was a perfect place to test my new motorized timelapse slider and planned to revisit the next day. In the evening I checked the weather report. They actually predicted the next day would be one of the coldest of that december so far.

Jarno Kylmänen
29.12.2014 – Testing Motorized slider by the river Kokemäenjoki. Temperature is near -20 °C .

My intention was to shoot night to day timelapse with Holy Grail technique ( https://vimeo.com/57265142 ), so I needed to be in the location very early. I had a good plan, but implementation was not up to par. Basically I was late and adjusting the timelapse gear took longer than I expected, although there was a good reason for that; Temperature was near -20 °C . Even little things tend to be hard to do when your fingers are turning blue.

Although it was freezing, the motorized slider and all the other equipment worked quite nicely. Even the battery for the TB3 and the slider’s stepper motor  lasted just fine. I did have some difficulties with the knobs of tripod and slider etc. but that was to be expected because the cold.

The camera operator didn’t perform so well. I made a rookie mistake, which is described in the video. Also, I’m not pleased with how I used the TB3 three-axis motion control device. There’s so much more it can do.

Gear List

Timelapse:

  • EOS 5D Mark III (+Magic Lantern)
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  • eMotimo TB3 + Rhino Pro 4FT
  • Anker 2nd Gen Astro Pro2 20000mAh battery
  • Triopo MT-2205+KJ-1S

Video:

  • EOS 5D Mark III
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  • VisionTech -picture style

Post

  • Timelapse edited with LRTimelapse and Adobe Lightroom
  • Video edited with Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects
  • ”Earth Zoom” is made with Earth Zoom Pro Kit ( http://goo.gl/j7TmxV )
  • Holy Grain ULTIMATEGRAIN BUNDLE ( http://holygrain.com/ )

Searching for the sun

4.4.2013. – Waiting for the spring sun on the ice at Yyteri ( location on map ). It took almost two hours to shoot this timelapse. The idea was to have a human figure on the scene with a sort of animated movement. Since there was no volunteers, I had to be the puppet.

Exposure and all the other settings were constant throughout the shoot.
Exposure and all the other settings were constant throughout the shoot.

Basically everytime I heard the camera shutter sound, I moved myself a bit. The final timelapse would be rendered as 25 frames per second video. Interval between frames when shooting was four seconds. In a nutshell, every second in the finalized timelapse was about 1,5 minutes in real life. I can only imagine what passers-by thought when they saw me trying to imitate movement in slow-motion. And as you can see from the timelapse, I wasn’t slow enough.

Gear List

  • EOS 5D Mark III
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  • Hähnel GIGA T Pro Remote Control
  • Tripod

Post

  • Timelapse edited with LRTimelapse and Adobe Lightroom
  • Finalized with Adobe Premiere

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