Time-lapse

Jaren Wilkey is the manager of Brigham Young University's photography department (perhaps he helped on this shoot?). His Behind The Scenes Contest submission idea was to create a photoshoot that played off a news story there at the university. Jaren and his students set out to produce an editorial type image featuring computer hackers. These hackers weren't the malicious type you typically think of but rather the winners of a large computer science hacking competition. Check out what Jaren and his students came up with and they even used the Eye-fi to ipad tethering tip we exposed here. Congrats guys and good luck with the contest!

It seems every week someone is producing a piece of art that pushes the limits of both technology and also creativity. One trend has been to create commercials and videos completely in camera with minimal post processing. The new music video for Kina Grannis completely blows my mind! Director Greg Jardin worked with Kina to produce a music video that features "jellybean art" in a stop motion sort of way. The video is not only incredibly entertaining but by creating such an interesting video, Kina has found a way to spread her talent to a much larger audience (almost 2 million people at the moment). Even if you may never create something that requires this much work, as a creative professional you should always be thinking of a clever way to share your work to a larger audience. Check out the video below and then click the full post to watch the making of video.

I just ran across across Dustin Farrell's newest timelapse and I know I say this a lot but I really think THIS is my favorite so far. Quality timelapse videos keep coming out and raising the bar each time but this is a big leap in my opinion. Obviously these shots have been enhanced in post and I would LOVE to know how he did it. If you like this timelapse then you may want to check out all of the them we have posted on our site by clicking here.

This video by Trey Ratcliff is a pretty cool idea. Trey traveled across the world in 80 days and documented his adventures with over 8,000 photographs. I hardly ever travel with a camera when I'm on vacation and even if I did, I'm not sure if I could ever force myself to take so many images in the moment. But then again I probably won't ever have anything this cool. Click the the full post to watch how Trey made this video.

Awhile back we featured a popular video by Jeff Calbom in his Walk Across America commercial. Smithje77 recently traveled from Washington to Maine in 7 days. He was creative enough to take photographs every 90 seconds with his Droid X and piece them together in this fun video. The video is no where near as complicated as Jeff's version but it's still fun to see how much the landscape changes across North America. This reminds me of the time my family drove from Alaska to Maryland and down to Alabama back when I was a kid. I'd love to see someone create another video like this but travel through some more extreme terrain like the Rockies or the Arizona desert. Always remember, just because you only have a camera phone doesn't mean you have an excuse not to be creative!

A couple months back Patrick and I flew up to Chicago to film a BTS of a Gatorade commercial featuring Chaz Ortiz. We have still not completed our BTSV but someone just sent me ANOTHER Gatorade commercial shot at the very same school featuring Chaz Ortiz that has a killer BTSV. The video below was shot in one single take and it will blow your mind. Our video should be released soon but it will be hard (impossible) to top this one. Check out the full post to see the BTS.

Part of the appeal of doing something the long way is exactly that: proving you have the guts to reinvent the wheel. When Stephen Doyle was asked to help with the New York Times story What If The Secret To Success Is Failure? he decided to try something that would have been rather easy to produce in post production. Instead of relying on Photoshop, Stephen used forced perspective to physically write out words within different scenes. The final images appear to have words written on top of the images but infact they are embedded into each photograph directly. Click the full post to check out a second video and see a few examples of the final published images.

It seems every day someone is creating an interesting timelapse that shows something we've never seen before. This one comes from the International Space Station as it orbits around the earth at night. The video was made from using data from the Gateway To Astronaut Photography Of Earth and stitched together with the open software Virtual Dub. It's pretty amazing how much light pollution makes it to each exposure and look carefully for bursts of lightning over the Pacific Ocean. Props to the person who spots the satellite that makes the frame as well!

In the video below Barry JC Purves gives us a really unique look at the creation of a stop motion video. Normally an image is taken, the subject is moved, and then the next image is snapped. In this video Barry took extra images as he was moving the puppet and the results are really incredible.

If you've been shooting stills or video for any length of time, chances are you've often thought about making a product that could make your life a bit easier. Cinetics designer Justin Jensen's own idea was to make a simple dolly system for DSLR cameras that was also portable. He designed and launched his CineSkates on Kickstarter and the response has been huge. So far Justin has raised more than 6x his initial goal of $20,000 so it looks like this production version will soon be in photographers' bags world wide. The system basically adds skateboard wheels to the versatile Joby Gorilla Pods and creates a system that gives your video footage high production movement. You can also the CineSkates for timelapse photography. Check out the video below to see exactly how the system works.

Tom Guilmette is now a pretty regular name on Fstoppers because his BTSVs in the field of video are some of the best we have seen. In the video below Tom travels out west with Eric Kessler to film BTS footage of some of the top timelapse shooters of our time. My personal favorite is Tom Lowe and we haven't heard much from him in the last year because he is still working on his timelapse feature film. Check out the video below to learn from the best.

If you are planning a behind the scenes video for our 2011 photo contest, you probably also need to setup an interesting interview segment to explain the details of your photoshoot. Most photographers spend a lot of money on their flash equipment but often don't have much in the way of constant lights. The guys over at SLRlounge have come up with a great BTS video on how you can create an interesting interview set on a budget. In this video, Pye Jirsa used basic work lights mixed with natural ambient light. In our contest video we either shot completely natural light or mixed in some of these inexpensive LED lights to make it a little more interesting. Taking a little bit of time to make your interview footage look good always goes a long way and is often just as fun designing as the actual photoshoot itself.

Now I'm not exactly sure what the "largest stop motion animation" actually means but there is no doubt this video is pretty spectacular. You may remember Aardman Productions from our post on the world's smallest stop motion video which is equally as mind blowing. This time they decided to use the beach as their canvas and film the entire animation on a Nokia N8 cell phone.. It's pretty amazing to think how much work went into changing each frame on a set this large especially with tourists and tides. Check out the video below and then jump to the full post to watch how they created this clever cell phone commercial.

The guys at T-Recs (short for timelapse recordings) created a timelapse video that is unlike anything I have seen before. We have all seen timelapse videos that have camera movement but nothing like this. Some how these guys are making really big moves, almost like they are shooting out of an airplane. Anyone know how this sort of thing is done?

Believe it or not, the video below was taken with a cell phone. Stu Kennedy from kakepipe.com created a really cool timplase video using his Samsung Galaxy S2 cellphone. After filming the video it was edited using Vegas 10 and the tilt shift look was added using After Effects. This video looks better than what a pretty expensive video camera could have shot 5 years ago... and it was shot on a cell phone people!

We have posted a lot of timelapse videos on Fstoppers but very few of them are very informative. In the video below Jay P Morgan takes us through the setup of a quick timelapse video. Jay does a great job of combining a timelapse created from stills and standard video shot at 24fps.

This video was emailed to us and I when I watched it I thought "wow I've never seen anything like this before!" We've all seen rainbows and you've probably had your fair share of experiences taking images of them. What's so interesting about this video is it showcases the elusive "moonbow" formed as moonlight passes through the mist created by waterfalls. Yosemite National Park is known for it's amazing rock formations, waterfalls, and forests but few people know how beautiful it can look after the sun has set.

One of the most important things any photographer can do to push their career forward is to take on assignments that are beyond what they feel comfortable shooting. When Todd Rosenberg was approached by Sports Illustrated for a commemorative issue, he was asked to shoot 10 historic cars from the last century of the Indianapolis 500. The only problem was Todd had never photographed an automobile before in his life! Using advice given by car photographer Michael Furman, Todd built a large studio (which included a 10'x30' Chimera softbox) directly inside the auto museum. Check out this great interview conducted by PhotoShelter as Todd discusses how he organized the shoot as well as some business tips on how he got the client in the first place. Also check out all of the images on the Picade Indy 500 page.

Everyone loves a good timelapse video, and Benjamin Sichert has a great one here. Ben filmed this at the NA Otto & Cie factory in Germany which was the first plant to produce 4 stroke combustion engines back in the 1870s. As you can clearly see in the video, this was entirely filmed on a Canon 5D Mark II (video sequences), a Nikon D90 (photo sequences), and the automated Pocket Slider. I love how Ben added a behind the scenes element by including a few camera shots of the setup and motion. It always amazes me what these motorized dollies can do...might have to pick one up soon.