First Water Lily of the Season

[_Paz_]

Set my alarm for 5AM this morning to get time lapse footage of the first water lily blossom of the year. It looks jerky.

So here is some footage in 'real time'. Hope you enjoy, background sounds include waterfall from the fountain and cicadas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-4YIoDgclQ[/youtube]

[RJ Johnston]

That was very soothing. Good music selection for that. It reminded me of a nursery I've been to where they have a fountain with fish and in the backround is harp music. There is also a restaurant with outdoor tables, and there are lots and lots of plants to look at and buy.

[Steve Grisetti]

I agree with Robert. Very nice footage and music.

[momoffduty]

Very nice Paz! What was your interval setting? I am still testing out time lapse settings.

[_Paz_]

nice + good music choice

Thanks! I found the "Maid With the Flaxen Hair" lying about in a folder on my C drive. I assume Bill Gates gave it to me to use. Hope so anyway!

It reminded me of a nursery I've been to where they have a fountain with fish and in the backround is harp music. There is also a restaurant with outdoor tables, and there are lots and lots of plants to look at and buy.

Ah, sounds familiar! We have the fountain and fish, a table and umbrella with rocking chairs where we have coffee most mornings, and breakfast pretty often....And nearby there are lots and lots of plants I've already bought! At the moment another dozen roses need to be planted.

Very nice Paz! What was your interval setting? I am still testing out time lapse settings.

Thanks, Mom! The jerky footage (not shown) was the middle setting, 2 seconds. I have the choice of 1, 2, or 5 seconds. I'll have to pull out the manual to see what that really means. I'm not sure if it waits 2 seconds in between recording, or if it records for 2 seconds when it records. Previously I did a time lapse of a magnolia opening that was smoother. I don't remember which setting I used that time. I hate it that Premier Elements 11's metadata doesn't give more information than it does... I guess the full program - Premiere - probably gives more, like Photoshop does.

I can tell I need to do some trial runs when the outcome is not important and make carefully detailed notes. Especially since I'm working with multiple camcorders that have different features.

[_Paz_]

JVC GZ-HM690BU time-lapse settings:

Off
1 sec interval, 2, 5, 10,20,40,80 interval.

JVC GZ-GX1BU time lapse settings - the same.

That sounds like the time selected is the lapse in between recording. No idea how long it records when it does.

I'll go find the manual!
.....................

Well, I found the Quick Guide. Then downloaded the Manual. No doubt that's another file I've moved to a safe place while swapping out hard drives.

Anyway, the cameras take one frame per time interval. The greater the number, the longer the interval between shots.
1 second interval playback at 30X speed
2 second interval playback at 60X speed
5 second interval playback at 150 x speed
10 second interval playback at 300 x speed
20 second interval playback at 600 x speed
40 second interval playback at 1,200 x speed
80 second interval playback at 2,400 x speed

Makes sense to me the longer the interval, the jerkier the footage. Next time I'll try a 1 second interval and speed the process up in software and see what happens.

[momoffduty]

Time lapse is tricky. I'm still testing out a few settings. The jerkiness would be between the longer interval and if the action is fast moving like the fish. Clouds on the other hand can be slow or fast. I found a list of intervals based on what you are recording. The list is about half way down the page:

http://forum.timescapes.org/phpBB3/view ... =40&t=1871

[_Paz_]

Oooohhhh! Thanks for that link, Cheryl. Great information there!

I've always found time lapse nature shots fascinating and I'm thrilled that I now have equipment I can use to do it myself. I'm hoping I can use it as lesson lead ins too. But as I've come to realize from the footage I did post above, I can take real time shots and simply stop them when a good composition presents itself.

When I get a chance I'm going to look at the water lily opening footage again to see if I can figure out why I didn't like it - and see if there is anything I can do to improve it. For starters, I thought I started filming before dawn but when I checked about 7AM I found the camera turned off. The flower was already partially open and it was quite light. I don't know what I did wrong.

In any event, it was the flower itself that seemed jerky. There wasn't much fish activity during the opening because I wasn't there. They go into feeding frenzy when I show up. When I bought the early ones, about 2 dozen of them, the guy at the pet store told me if I was patient, I'd have them eating out of my hand in a week. Little did he know. I had those puppies eating from my hand their first day. Since then we've had a couple of spawnings and were up to about 70 fish at one time. I haven't counted lately.

Anway, poor things, they worked hard filming day, swimming from one side of the pool to the other as I checked what was going on through the camera viewfinder and then went back to the other side to wave a branch around to simulate dappled shade movement. Fortunately my neighbors don't have a view of the garden!