This week's banner is by Tooquilos from Sydney, Australia

Straight photography and off-topic
Back to the book | Post New Topic | Search | Help | Log In | Register

» Forum Index » Straight photography and off-topic » Topic: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse

Posted on 22/08/19 1:11:08 PM
GKB
Magical Montagist
Posts: 3704

Reply


Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
A few weeks ago I thought it might be a nice project to film the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth in timelapse shooting a day to night sequence. Earlier this week the weather conditions seemed suitable so I loaded all the required kit into the car and off I went. I shot a separate sequence earlier in the afternoon but this day/night sequence started at around 6.15 pm and lasted until 9.30 pm.

Happily I was set up on the balcony of Carluccio's Italian Restaurant so boredom was not a factor, with plenty of coffee and cake and scrummy Italian food to while away the time.

The motion control device controlled both the panning of the camera and the time interval (a shot was taken every 6 seconds). The camera's exposure was controlled by a software programme on my iPad called qDSLRdashboard. This computed the changes required to the shutter speed, aperture and iso in order to get a smooth-ish transition as the light changed.

Post processing took place in LRTimelapse and Lightroom working together to smooth everything out completely.

Images were output as a folder of 2724 jpgs. This folder was opened in Hit Film for final compositing.

Hope you enjoy it.

http://vimeo.com/355310401



_________________
If at first you don't succeed then skydiving is not for you.

Posted on 24/08/19 10:28:21 AM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4903

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Missed this earlier Gordon. I used to do a lot of this in years long gone. Horrible bulky equipment back then.

The trickiest part is always exposure. We had to do it by hand in those days adjusting the aperture ring manually. Often as the sun goes down the sky brightens and you have to stop down, to avoid an overexposed sky, putting your foreground progressively into silhouette. Then, as the sky darkens and lights start to come on, begin opening up again, often quite violently, but without losing the black densities. It was one of the times when I would always use my spot meter as opposed to my usual practice of incident readings.

I don't know how much post smoothing was needed but your iPad gizmo seems to have done a pretty good job. To my eye the background at the very end is a bit over exposed with a lot of detail 'crushed' into peak white. Doing this by hand I think I would have used a leaner exposure at the end to hold more details in the highlights and then lifted the shadow details in post. But it's a very delicate balance - if you make it too 'lean' and the shadows go 'thin' then there is no information to rescue and it get's 'flabby'.

That is, of course, a completely personal and subjective assessment. There are so many different ways this could have been treated. Very, very nicely done Gordon.


_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 24/08/19 11:25:11 AM
GKB
Magical Montagist
Posts: 3704

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Thanks David

Your thoughts about the overexposure towards the end mirror my own. I think it needs a bit of tweaking along with the colour being enhanced in the sky. I also think that I made the final images a little too dark.

When we next have a wet and windy day and ‘er indoors hasn’t got a honey-do list for me I will re-render the images.

In days gone by, with film, this would have been so very hard to do but now, with digital gear, it is actually quite a simple process to get it right; and with RAW images you can change it and not lose any quality.

Glad you like it.

_________________
Time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.

Posted on 24/08/19 11:48:48 AM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4903

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
It all depends on whether those whites are crushed in post or by virtue of original exposure. If the former there is little to be done. Lost highlights are truly irrecoverable.

Like me, you bridge the analogue digital divide with many years of experience using film. I found it odd that when we went digital I had to learn to reverse my old assumptions. I was raised on the notion of striving for a full negative. Let the highlights go a bit if necessary and keep the shadow detail. It was very difficult to accept that for CCD's it is better to be lean. Keep the highlight details and don't worry about the shadows because there is more there in the RAW than you think.

_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 24/08/19 12:24:51 PM
GKB
Magical Montagist
Posts: 3704

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
I saw, while the shoot was in progress, that some of the highlights were blown, mainly around the setting sun area. I reckon that I can get much of it back in Lightroom with a bit of judicious tweaking.

_________________
If at first you don't succeed then skydiving is not for you.

Posted on 24/08/19 1:44:08 PM
lwc
Hole in One
Posts: 2615

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Wonderful Gordon... I really like timelapse videos.

Wouldn't it be fun to go back forty years or so, armed with modern digital equipment.


Posted on 24/08/19 2:15:40 PM
GKB
Magical Montagist
Posts: 3704

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
lwc wrote:
Wouldn't it be fun to go back forty years or so, armed with modern digital equipment.



A thought that has occurred to me often. For my air to air work I used a couple of Hasselblad cameras shooting 6x6 cm transparencies and negatives. I was always constrained by various limitations. I do wonder how things would have been shooting on just the one medium format digital camera and producing highly detailed RAW files. Focusing was always an issue with wind in the open cockpit so autofocus would have been a wonderful asset.

I am definitely one of those photographers who welcomed the digital age with open arms; I can see few reasons for going back to film.

... and to have had that equipment and been doing this kind of work in the 50s and 60s with all those lovely old piston-engined airliners as subjects ....



_________________


Posted on 24/08/19 3:39:33 PM
lwc
Hole in One
Posts: 2615

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
I don't miss film at all... nor my selenium light meter.

Posted on 24/08/19 5:14:16 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4903

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
lwc wrote:
I don't miss film at all... nor my selenium light meter.


I started as a B/W darkroom printer before getting into movie. So film has a very special sentimental place in my memories. I worked with it for fifty years! But now I love being digital and I don't really miss it.

But I do miss the cameras. I loved my Leica and Hasselblads - they had character and personality - and some of the professional movie cameras were examples of precision engineering that were sheer joy in themselves quite apart from their function.

I started as a teenager with a Weston Master III meter. Later I moved up to the Sekonic because I wanted an incident meter.

When I started in professional movie I got the US made Spectra Combi. It was the essential go to meter made for movie professionals. Here I am in the late sixties using it on the first cinema movie I ever shot. I used it until the late seventies when the digital Minolta meter came along.

BTW Gordon, the young actress was called Felicity Gibson. She was the daughter of the Dam Buster's pilot Guy Gibson.



_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 25/08/19 10:27:12 AM
tooquilos
Wizard of Oz
Posts: 2793

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Fantastic Gordon!

_________________
Dorothy: "there's no place like home!"

Posted on 29/08/19 6:42:52 PM
Frank
Eager Beaver
Posts: 1563

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Great work and results Gordon👍👍👍

Posted on 29/08/19 11:22:34 PM
GKB
Magical Montagist
Posts: 3704

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Frank wrote:
Great work and results Gordon👍👍👍


Thanks Frank et al.

Hopefully there will be some more day-to-night time-lapse sequences to be posted in the not too distant future. It’s just a case of finding 5 or 6 hours to sit beside a camera waiting for it to finish its job in the right location and weather conditions.

_________________
If at first you don't succeed then skydiving is not for you.

Posted on 30/08/19 11:17:53 AM
Frank
Eager Beaver
Posts: 1563

Reply


Re: Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Timelapse
Not an easy task if your weather is anything like ours.
Back

[ To post a reply, please Log In or Register ]

Powered by SimpleForum Pro 4.6