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Hi Guys! Welcome to Samui, Thailand
And I'm trying to shoot a timelapse with dolly movement
I'll go through the parts of this process
And I think something of this will be helpful for you
So, I started around 4:30pm
And it's already shooting for 1 hour
That gives us around 5:30pm and we are in the "golden hour" time right now.
I have a custom build dolly, nothing really fancy
based on the step motor
And a controller which gives me the ability to control the speed with what the camera moves over the dolly
and all I need to do is to calculate the time I need to shoot for and the controller will move the camera over the dolly for this time.
Don't be geeky about the equipment, any motorized dolly will be OK
They are all more or less the same and very "easy" devices.
As you can see it's half made by order, half made by myself with this PVC legs
The original ones were huge and big and the were PIA to travel with
So I just left them at home and bought some PVC tubes
"T-Connections"
Which give me the ability to adjust the legs
So I can plant it on any landscape I want
On this dolly is 5d Mark 3
With Samyang 14mm lens
Filter system from Fotodiox
called Wonderpana
it's fairly new, not to many people have this in the wild
And I'll try to do a mini-review during this shooting
Let me check what we have here regarding exposure
What I just did - I opened my aperture for 1 stop
I'll go into the details about bit later
Right now the exposure settings are ISO 100, f22, and 10 seconds of exposure time
If you think about it - it's really amazing
because in broad day light I can get 10 seconds of exposure with ND filter in front of my lens
the reason to have this is to smooth the sea
If you shoot the sea with fast exposure times
which will freeze the water
and when you stack it together into one timelapse
and look at this at 24 frames per second
it will be really hard to look at.
It will be wobbling and "busy"
really-really not good
The only way to avoid this is to use long exposures, so these waves smooth out
And you get very smooth and nice water
I have to look at this again
to be sure that everything is fine
Basically, I'm exposing for the sky right now
Sun and the surroundings are OK
But the foreground is kind of black but I don't worry about this too much
I'm planing to push it later in post
because the last thing I want to do is to loose my highlights
When I loose my highlights there is nothing there, no info
My shadows, if they are not totally black, I can later somehow push in post, they will become noisy
at some point, I'm aware of this, but there is way to avoid this.
Let's talk about Wonderpana System filters
They make it for bunch of lenses,
they are all wide lenses and it's the unique selling point of it.
You can get it for Nikon 12-24, Sigma 12-24, Samyang 14mm
Canon 17 TS-E, (oh, it's raining)
Just check their website (http://fotodioxpro.com/)
The way it works is you have two parts of this filter holder
one is attached from behind of the lens
and fixed on the back part of the lens hood
and another screws from the front of the lens. You are getting the filter holder 145mm in diameter
For this diameter they make several ND filters, UV filter and CPL filter
The "darkest" ND filter you can get is ND32
it's effectively 5 stops ND filter
and if you want to get 10 seconds in the broad light with such settings like here
5 stops is not enough, you will get around 5-2.5 seconds
I was not happy about this, I ordered 2 ND32 filters
I was planning to stack them. Filters have threads on them and I assumed that you can stack them
and technically you can, they will fit together very nicely
but this system starts to vignette like crazy
On full frame sensor and it makes you 14mm lens
effectively like 17mm or 20mm
it was totally not an option to use
What I did is I took these filters apart
because there is one stop ring which you can just screw out and I stacked two glass filters together and fixed them with one stop ring
it's very easy to do
apparently quality of these filters are so high (they are multicoated)
so when you do this it to be a disaster
but some miracle happened and in this configuration
it does not degrade image quality almost at all
Granted, you will get a little bit more flares
But for the time being until Fotodiox come up with single 10 stop ND filter
this works amazingly good
I can not believe my eyes of what I see with this filter
getting 10 stop ND filter on a wide angle lens can give you very unique look to your photos, to your timelapses
and that's the system defiantly to consider
Let me have a peek of what's happening here
the sun is behind the clouds
we are in the shadow here
but judging from the screen it looks ok
the system works here like this:
I have canon remote control
it's not a requirement, you can get any aftermarket one, and it will work as good as this one
it is programmed to take a picture every 20 seconds
with 10 seconds of exposure, and picture every 20 seconds I get "180 degree" rule shutter
in theory my timelapse is going to be looking good
I do not bother with Move-Shot-Move (MSM/SMS) system on the slider
this means the system will move your camera, stop, take the picture
wait for the exposure to end, move the camera, take the picture
wait for the exposure to end and repeat this again
my slider is moving all the way without any stops
I personally it to be a problem
because the blurriness which it introduce to your pictures is minimal
and even with this blurriness i think the picture looks better
because if you look at cinema frame (you just put on pause a any movie)
it's blurred, it's not crisp
our eye compensates for this blurriness
while we watch the movie or timelapse
it's perfectly ok to get a little blurriness in the frame
because of the dolly movement
Samyang 14mm is fully manual and it's a big advantage for shooting timelapses
and it's a big advantage for shooting timelapses
the biggest advantage is that you do not get aperture flicker at all, you just set it, it's mechanical
and it stays there all the way until you change it manually again
and again, it stays in this position all the time
when you use your canon lens or nikon lens (automatic)
the way they work - the lens stays open
the aperture stays open while you are not taking the exposure
when you do take and exposure, it will close, stay closed during this exposure
and then open back again
the problem with this for the timelapses
is that every time the aperture closes
and opens and closes again
it never closes to the same position
where it was the shot before
and the amount of light
which is getting to the sensor varies a little bit, but still varies
when you put your pictures together in 24 or 30 fps speed
your eye will immediately notice this flickering
and this is just another step in post production to eliminate
I don't feel like wasting my time for this
I use manual lenses
for shooting timelapses
they are giving me full control over my aperture
let me have a look here
because may be I need to crank my ISO up
because we are loosing light fast, now the sun is behind the clouds
but I think we are ok
coming back to the aperture flicker, I think a lot of you heard about lens twist method
this works on Canon cameras, I'm not sure about Nikons
on Canon it works like this: you set up the camera, you set your desired aperture
you press (and hold) DOF preview button, and then twist the lens a little bit to disconnect the contacts and not let it fall off the bayonet
by doing so you fix the aperture mechanically closed
and it will stay the same way until you connect lens back to the body together
it is a good way, definitely better than letting it jump during opening and closing
but there is one flaw in this setup
when it get darker you will eventually go up with ISO, you will remove the filters,
but you will get to the point when you need to open your lens
yes, it's not good thing to do, but it's better to have a picture than not to have it
if you were at f11 of f16
you will have like f8, f5.6, f4, f2.8, f2 etc, like 5 stops more light if you will continue to open the aperture
and this really can help in some situations, may be you wan to shoot from sun to the stars
and that's the only way to do this
with the lens twist method it's really hard to do
you have to connect lens back to the camera, it's moving and you have to change the settings
and twist it back to connect together
it does not sound like a good way to do things
because you can move your dolly, you can move your camera
you will have to stabilize it later, it's not that good
you will have to stabilize it later, it's not that good
when you have manual lens, all you have to do is just turn aperture ring
not to mention that this particular 14mm Samyang is better than 2000 USD Canon EF 14 II 2.8
it's just better optically, it's better in every way when picture matters (except geometric distortions, but it's very easy to fix with lens profile)
there is almost no chromatic aberrations, it's very sharp from edge to edge from may be f4
and it costs just 350 USD, it's amazing
let me come back here
from the screen I feel that we are getting a little bit dark now
don't get me wrong, I do use histogram, I know what it is
but I know the camera good enough to judge my exposure from the screen
right now I felt it's time to open up a little bit the aperture
the reason why I am changing the aperture is because of I started with f22
and this is ridiculously high f-stop
I do no benefit from it
I will see all the dust on my sensor, I will loose the resolution because of diffraction
And going from f22 to f16 to f11 and even f8-5.6 on this lens will not change the appearance of vignetting
If I go from f5.6 to 2.8, with every opening I'll introduce more and more vignetting
and I will have to compensate in post
but opening the aperture from f22 to f5.6 is not noticeable on this particular lens
in the final picture, so I will first open the aperture to the limit I can reach
may be till f5.6, and that if it will be really dark I'll go up with ISO, may be to ISO 3200 max
modern cameras are amazing right now, on super high ISOs they still preserve the quality
don't forget that when we present our work we usually do it in FullHD format (1920x1080)
I'm not talking about 4k right now, just normal 2k FullHD
it's (frame) so much smaller than 22 megapixel, so essentially, what we are able to do
is that we can downsize a lot, of course we will have to crop for 16:9 dimensions
but still we can downsize like two times at least and when we do this
we actually eliminate the noise
so when I shoot for the highlights and protect my highlights
of course, there are no miracles, I loose my foreground
of course, there are no miracles, I loose my foreground
it becomes underexposed
but when I push it may be 2 stops in post it will be kind of noisy
but when I push it may be 2 stops in post it will be kind of noisy
but after I downsize it becomes much better looking and much more acceptable
but after I downsize it becomes much better looking and much more acceptable
and you can this HDR (in a good way) look from one frame
you do not have to shoot 3 frames and merge them together to get highlights and shadows
actually with proper post production you can pull a lot only from 1 frame
I find it's unnecessary to say that I'm shooting RAW, it's essential when you are shooting pictures
shooting JPG with camera that costs more than 1000 USD is a waste of your money
you paid the money for the information this sensor can capture and the only way to get it is to shoot RAW
I don't think we have to come back to this question ever again
as you can see I'm not using any software to shoot the timelapse right now
there is a way to connect a computer and let it analyze the pictures camera is taking
and compensate the exposure
you just put on your camera, connect a computer and you can go away
and it will gradually increase exposure times
Right now I just set the camera to Manual mode, and let is shoot
when the scene gets darker I will add one stop of exposure
you can do it with ISO setting, by increasing the exposure time, or opening the aperture
but I try to stay consistent and if you will change the exposure time with interval it will cause uneven flow of time in your time lapse (increasing the exposure time without changing the interval is OK)
in the some point of time you will have to increase your exposure time and possibly the interval
because you'll have your lens wide open, ISO at maximum acceptable level so the only thing will be to increase the exposure time
every time time it gets darker to my eye I'll open by 1 stop and after I'll compensate for this ladder type fluctuation in post
I'll take these 2 frames with exposure difference and make them look the same
let's say this is frame with ISO 100, and this one is with ISO 200
in post I'll push the first one up half stop and the second down half stop
so they will be the same, this is manual work, but for the sequence of the sunset it should be around 10 adjustment points
it's not really hard to do
there are several software bundles which can help you to do this and I'll cover it in second part of this tutorial when we get to the editing
for the time being we will see the big jump between the frames and later I'll compensate
we already are shooting for 1 hour 22 minutes and we have 44 minutes to go
the sun is almost set the thing about Thailand is that it's close to equator and the time between the sunset and "blue hour" ending is very short
it's around half an hour, you can not shoot very long
it's around half an hour, you can not shoot very long
if you want long "blue hour" go somewhere north like Island - you can shoot for the whole night there
sometimes there are no night at all
I also should tell you about planning of the timelapse shooing and it's very important thing to do
the whole process of shooting will take several hours, you can say that half a day is wasted because you have to pack your gear
go to the spot, unload the gear, set up everything, shoot it, pack the gear, go home
half day long - gone. So you have to do your best not to mess something up
and one of the things that will help you is careful planning
first thing you have to do is location scouting
that means you have to take your car, your motorbike, anything that moves and go around the places you think could be interesting
and just to have a look around, because when it's a good weather and you think "OK, that's it, it will be an amazing sunset today", or something cool will happen
but you don't know where to go, and it's very little chance you will get it right
so take your time, no rush, just go when you have a free time, go see around with your Google maps
when you get to the spot take several photos of this place with your phone and don't forget to include a geotag so after you have this database
of the places you will eventually start to forget where this particular place is you can pull out geotag see where it was
take a bunch of photos of this place, not just one angle, picture all the surroundings
also you can record a video and later it will also help you to plan your shot
after you have these possible spots where you can shoot, you should use a special software which is developed for the smartphones
My favorite is Sun Surveyor
this is amazing piece of software which helps you to plan precisely the time, the framing
it gives you in old fashion way all the text info when the sunrise will be, where the moon is, where the sun set will be, when the blue hour begins, when the blue hour ends
all this info is under your fingertips - it's essential
not only the sun, but also the moon, it will tell you all the same info about the moon
I'll come back to this a little bit later, another very special thing about this software is that it can make a overlay over the camera view
you take your smartphone, point it to the scene and you can see through your lens and on the screen you will see overlays with sun path, moon path and times where and when
what place exactly the sun and moon will set or rise
I'll explain it again
I'll explain it again
you just point smartphone camera to the scene and for example you see the mountain and sun setting over the mountain, even if you move the camera
and the mountain is still in the frame the overlay will move and still show you the exact same position where the sun will set
it's just essential information to have, you really need where exactly and when it will happen
let's have a peek here, it's taking another shot
it's kind of getting darker I'll wait a little bit and then I'll open up
coming back to software - having this essential info is so necessary - you can not underestimate
The moon. Why the moon is important?
First of all - you can shoot night timelapses, they look amazing and you can shoot the stars
when you are doing this you do not want the moon in your frame
because it's so much brighter than the stars and when you start - the stars can look amazing
but in one hour the moon will enter your frame and ruin everything
this software really helps you to plan, again, it's called Sun Surveyor, it was originally developed for Android but is available for iOS right now
if you around the sea and shooting some seascapes get yourself tide clock app
that will tell you about low and high tide, as you see - I'm sitting on the rocks
and they are actually under the water for some time during the day
but I know it's a low tide right now and do not worry that a wave will come and wash me away
that's another very important thing to know about
that's another very important thing to know about
that's another very important thing to know about
the sun is trying to hide against the big loud but with the wide lens it does look OK
We have 36 minutes to go, I'll pause the camera and later bring it here to show you setup in close-up
We have 36 minutes to go, I'll pause the camera and later bring it here to show you setup in close-up
to let you see how it is set-up and to save some battery, because I'm recording on the phone and I'm sorry for "bad" video quality guys
So before it's too dark let me show you this setup in close-up
So before it's too dark let me show you this setup in close-up
this is slider
this is slider
the motor
custom made legs from PVC tubes
just went to Home Depot and got what i liked
just went to Home Depot and got what i liked
stupid controller, really big, really bad to travel with
shows all the necessary info here
traveled 70 cm, moving for 1 hour 42 minutes and 23 minutes left
this is Canon remote control which is programmed to shoot every 20 seconds
and camera is set to 10 seconds of exposure, we are already at f8 because it's getting darker
let's what we get on camera right now
a little bit blown out, but actually the info is there we have a headroom in RAW
the thing I was talking about the shadows
the shadows look black, but we will push them a little bit and they will look really nice
that's how the scene look like from the phone camera
this big cloud really ruined everything today
but because of unique view of 14mm lens I think we will still get something usable out of this
this is Wonderpana system
as you see, it consists of two parts, this one does from behind of the lens
this one from the front, they are screwed together
they hold this really big 145mm round filter which is ND64 made of two ND32s
that's essentially it, we have to finish here, wait for 21 more minutes, go back home and edit this