After three weeks, over 17,000 photos and hours of video, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are done. It feels strange to see the city slowly transform itself back to the pre-Olympic state (with some Paralympic exceptions).
Once I get back from SXSW mid-March, I’ll jump into the Paralympics as much as I can using my True North Media House badge. I’m also still waiting to hear from Nikon about my D90 that got a little too exposed to the elements during my adventures. I’m hoping it can simply dry out and work again but we’ll see in about a week.
For now, here’s a highlight video I made using various video and photographic content I created during the games:
Over the holidays, I got to check out a friend’s Go Pro HD which really blew me away since you can put it just about anywhere thanks to its numerous mount options, waterproof housing and wicked wide angle lens. Unfortunately it’s about $300 and I just can’t justify that right now but I still wanted to be able to have some fun with the cameras I already have and attach them to different things to shoot HD and timelapse videos.
So this weekend, I picked up a Delkin Fat Gecko Mini-Mount (Amazon link although I bought mine from London Drugs):
It’s a beefy suction cup mount for attaching your camera to all kinds of things…like your car:
I know what you’re thinking…but this mount is much more robust than the $12 mount I found on ebay (which I overloaded).
I wanted to try it out with some ’safer’ positions first that I could keep an eye on but after spending some time today with it stuck all over my car, driving at different speeds (including taking it on the highway) I trust it to carry my smaller cameras like the Kodak Zx1 and even my trusty Nikon P6000 pretty much while attached in any position to my car, inside or out. Driving from my home to downtown (about 30 minutes on the highway) over all kinds of turns and bumps resulted in no problems with the mount…it’s solid.
Here’s a video showing some of the different angles I shot during my ‘test drive’ today:
The mount also comes with an extension arm which lets you get out and away from the attach point better so I’ll be trying that next. I also need to dig out my wide angle and fisheye lenses to make the field of view on the Zx1 even wider.
UPDATE: Found my fisheye lens and added the extension arm to the Fat Gecko….the results are pretty awesome:
On the weekend after shooting the 12×12 timelapse video, I was talking with Angela who also owns the Nikon P6000. She wanted to know how I shot the timelapse. I figured it would make a good blog post so here you go…keep in mind this is how I do it and there are many other ways/options to create these kinds of movies. I’ve made a lot of ‘test movies’ that have never seen the light of day as I experimented.
One of the reasons why I bought the P6000 was the fact that it had built in support to shoot time lapse movies. With support for large SD cards and a power adaptor, you should have no problem shooting 1000s of frames. I use a 16gb SD card in mine and can get well over 2000 frames with the settings below. The P6000 is also nice and small and easily put on a mini tripod or clamp to tuck it out of the way to make a good timelapse.
It can do this two different ways, one via the Movie mode (on the dial) and by choosing the ‘Time-Lapse Movie’ function or via the method I’m going to outline here. The benefit of using my method is that you have more control over the end result and each frame will be treated like a still photo.
You’ll need to be in something other than the auto mode…I usually use aperture priority but feel free to experiment with the settings as they can create some interesting results.
First thing you’ll want to do is setup your shot using whatever settings you’d use to capture a good still image. This includes focus, exposure, aperature, shutter, etc. Take a few test shots to make sure it works for you.
Then enter the MENU and under the SHOOTING option, choose CONTINUOUS:
Then choose INTVL TIMER SHOOTING:
Then choose your interval time:
Depending on what you’re hoping to capture, this can vary and you’ll want to experiment. Unfortunately, the P6000 can only do intervals as short as one frame every 30 seconds. I wish this went lower but it’s probably a safety measure to ensure the sensor doesn’t burn out. I almost always choose 30s. You’ll want to think about how long the end resulting video will be. In the case of the 12×12 timelapse (at the end of this post), I planned for about 5 hours of shooting (the length of the event).
You’ll also want to adjust the image quality for your timelapses:
I always set it to FINE (jpeg)…it yields great image quality without excess filesize….as I usually shoot in RAW for stills, make sure you check this before starting or you’ll fill your memory card up faster and also run into issues later when creating the movie.
I usually set the IMAGE SIZE to 1600×1200 which gives me slightly better than HD image sizes that gives me a little room for cropping/letterboxing the image frame for HD later (iMovie 09 handles this without doing anything). As the P6000 doesn’t shoot HD video natively, this is the best way to do it that I’ve found.
Hit the shutter button and get ready to wait for awhile to get a substantial amount of frames. This could be a few hours or all day. Ideally you won’t move the camera at all but if you plan it right, it can add some interesting results to the video.
Once you’ve finished shooting your timelapse, you’ll have to turn the camera off to stop it from shooting anymore or navigate to the menu and change the shooting mode from CONTINUOUS.
Creating the Movie
I’m using a Mac with Quicktime 7 to create my video but there are probably a bunch of different apps to do this on a PC or Linux. If you’re running OSX Snow Leopard, you’ll need to install Quicktime 7 from your Snow Leopard disc as it’s not installed by default (Quicktime 8 is).
Upon launching Quicktime 7, you’ll want to open an IMAGE SEQUENCE:
Point this at the folder of your memory card and choose the first image in the sequence. Quicktime will know to import the rest of the sequence. This can also be fun to do with still images to create a fun movie but that’s a topic for another post.
Another minor shortcoming of the P6000 is that time lapse sequences are limited to 200 images per folder. This means you’ll have to create multiple image sequences (depending on the length of your timelapse) and join them later in your editing software. Repeat this process for each of the folders of images, again depending on how many frames you shot.
You’ll then be prompted to choose a frame rate. Once again, this will require some experimentation depending on what you’ve shot.
Once you’ve selected the frame rate, Quicktime will build a movie from your images. This can take some time and if you used the settings I described, it may not even be very playable on your computer due to the high resolution nature of the sequence. Make sure you save the file as it doesn’t do this by default. If you have multiple sequence folders, repeat this process and name the movies accordingly.
The end result looks something like this once dropped into an editing package (in this case iMovie 09 where I added titles, music and fades):
I exported the resulting video in HD from iMovie and then uploaded it to Flickr which supports short HD movies. I’m also a fan of Vimeo and occasionally use YouTube.
Keep in mind that while I’m using the P6000 in this example, similar functions exist in other cameras and the basic concepts should apply to them all. I recently bought an intravalometer for my DSLR to accomplish the same thing with the added flexibility of other lens options….something which the P6000 is also capable of, albeit more limited.
Wow…what a day! This past Saturday was the 1st annual 12×12 Vancouver Photo Marathon…aka 12×12YVR.
I was on the organizing committee and spent (most of) the day at our homebase inside the Blenz Coffee in Yaletown answering questions, meeting other photographers, drawing themes for the participants to agonize over, helping with the marathon’s social media efforts and taking a lot of pictures of the event.
Morten has a great recap of the event up on the 12×12 site and I couldn’t have said it better than he does. Suffice to say, the response, participants, feedback, turnout, sponsors and the positive vibe the event generated far exceeded our humble expectations.
Back in September when the committee had it’s first meeting, we were concerned about being able to sell 40 tickets to the event….let alone having to turn away interested participants because we were at capacity.
There is no question that this was a gruelling challenge of endurance…not to mention a big chunk of time for folks to make available during one of the busiest times of the year. The challenge was also somewhat technical – having to contend with camera gear that may not have been used for years (or ever by some of the participants who bought or borrowed their gear just for the event).
We also witnessed heartbreak when one participant went to turn in her roll of film, only to discover that it possibly hadn’t been loaded in the camera correctly and despite shooting all 12 of the theme shots. We’re going to process the roll anyway just in the off chance that the camera did expose something.
We also had the weather to contend with…fortunately the snow held off until the day afterwards!
I mentioned that I spent almost the entire day inside Blenz. Ben and I managed to duck out twice to visit one of the event sponsors, the Vancouver Lookout at Harbour Centre. We went once in the early afternoon:
and then again after dark:
You can view all my photos from the event on Flickr or visit the 12×12 YVR Flickr Pool where we’ll be posting the entries once they are processed.
I have to say, I’m kind of envious of the participants…if I wasn’t directly involved in the event, I would have loved to taken the challenge myself.
UPDATE: Check out the details about the 12×12 YVR event, Raw Talent which will showcase the winners at the Vancouver Photo Workshops on Saturday, January 16th at 6pm.
December is shaping up to be a fantastic month for photography, despite the usually crummy weather we get in Vancouver. On December 12th, the first annual Vancouver 12×12 Photo Marathon will take place.
What is it? It’s a twelve hour event where participants will check in, receive a roll of 35mm film and then each hour, will be giving a theme of which to shoot one exposure. At the end of the event, the participants will hand in their film, with twelve exposures on it – one for each hourly theme. The cost is only $12 which covers the cost of the film and processing.
The photo above is me, back in high school shooting with a Pentax K1000.
I’m on the event organizing committee and am really looking forward to seeing this event unfold as I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Be sure to get the details and sign up on the 12×12 site as space is limited. All you need is a working 35mm film camera (any kind) and $12 to participate – you don’t need to be a pro photographer! If you have any questions, check out the FAQ.
Amazon link
