Time-Lapse Photography

I never thought a hiking film could be exciting until I saw some of last year's clips from The Muir Project. Well they are at it again, and this time they are working in collaboration with Project Yosemite to bring us another film from one of America's most epic places, Yosemite National Park. The film, called "Yosemite HD II" is as you might have guessed, sequel to "Yosemite HD", which was a beautiful time lapse put together by Project Yosemite last year.

Preston Kanak has been featured here before for his wonderful tutorials on time-lapse cinematography. Now, he's back with an all-new 3 minute short  called, ' A Moment of Silence. Shot with the Kessler CineDrive, Preston explains in this very comprehensive behind the scenes video how the CineDrive functions and gives some amazing tips on how to push your cinematography to new heights. You can view the 3 minute short in the full post below. Enjoy!

For the longest time, I've been using a 17" Macbook Pro for tethering. The big screen is great. Everything else, however, was a nightmare. I recently saw some colleagues of mine raving about a new product called the CamRanger, which allows you to tether to your Android device (April 2013), iPad or iPhone to your camera and had to try it out, as any solution that would resolve my near-daily tethering headaches would be fantastic.

The group iVideoMaking realsed their latest timelapse TimeLAX 01. Take a couple minutes to enjoy the moving and restless beauty of Los Angeles . "TimeLAX is a time-lapse photography project that shows the Greater Los Angeles area from many angles.The project includes different types of photography such as panoramic, architectural and artistic. We have scouted, tested and selected more than 200 locations that will be presented in a series of videos.

Karst Country is a collaboration between artists Glen Ryan and Phil Ryan that has resulted in some absolutely surreal infrared imagery. This timelapse, shot with both RED Epic and Scarlet cameras at 4k resolution, is a joy to watch. I always find it so refreshing to see when new techniques are integrated into timelapse movies.

Its not uncommon to gaze and completely lose yourself during those long flights to and from your destination. The latest film from Tim Sessler is just that; a film composed of shots taken out of an airplane window during a long flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia. The end result is mesmerizing, calming and quite simply, beautiful.

Last spring, I met a group of 4 cyclists planning a 35 day epic adventure from coast to coast across the US. Their goal was to cycle over 100 miles a day, resting only one day a week, in order to raise awareness and funds for the poor and needy in Burundi, Africa. I decided it would be awesome to tag along and film their journey.

Jess Dunlap created this masterpiece of a timelapse. What I really enjoyed about it was his very unique camera movements throughout the video, they really add some dimension to each section. I tell myself timelapses are becoming less and less intriguing, then I always end up eating my words when I see work like this. Not sure how he was able to accomplish some of these camera movements, but if anyone has any ideas please feel free to share because I am dying to know.

One of the greatest challenges when creating art is being able to create something visually stunning while maintaining the integrity to your message. Often, one must suffer for the other to thrive, and blending them both can be a challenge within itself. Jony Karlsson was able to merge those two perfectly, with his beautiful and heartfelt short film entitled Balance of Life.

I have not come across a whole lot of time lapses that grab my attention lately. Daniella Sibbing, videographer, and Marsel van Oosten, professional nature photographer put together this short and serene timelapse that leaves me wanting more. "The idea was to create a night photography timelapse video featuring his most popular subjects in this amazing country: the fairytale-like quivertrees and the eery, dead camelthorn trees in Deadvlei - something that had never been done before."

Timelapses aren't just for moving clouds and the northern lights (but they sure are pretty) but in fact their use for studying earth sciences is becoming a key part in learning more about our landscape and using the images to educate and inform the masses. I interviewed Forrest Pound of San Francisco based Kontent Films, who was tasked with building custom timelapse rigs to document parts of the Colorado River. He has shared this DIY project step by step, so read on to learn more.

Kickstarter product "Lil-Mule" is small, motor-powered camera platform that has been developed to capture timelapse or real-time video for lengths much longer than most rail or slider based systems can provide. It's aim was also to give the user a simpler feature set, doing away with the complicated math and setup that other systems offer. This video gives you a glimpse of what the system is capable of, with more informative videos inside.

Several years ago Richard Schneider of PictureCorrect.com decided his new years resolution would be to begin training to be able to fly a wingsuit. This dream along with his passion for photography eventually led him to Dubai, where he captured the footage you'll see in this video. Learn more about Richard and the work it took to get to this point in the full post.

Looking for your daily inspiration? Look no further. As a result of the famous Blue Marble photograph, author Frank White coined the term 'The Overview Effect.' The Overview Effect is the reaction most astronauts have to seeing the Earth from space: common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet,

How many times have you seen an amazing timelapse project, and wondered where exactly the photographer was when they recorded their exposures? Or maybe you wondered what they had to do to get to such an amazing vantage point? Sean Goebel created his timelapse film "Epochs" and documented the location and equipment details for most scenes. Sean told me some about his background, and links to his work and shot setups are also inside.

Filmmaker Jamie Scott spent a six month span of time filming his time lapse titled "Fall" in New York City's Central Park. The amount of planning and execution that went into this time lapse is pretty impressive, and I'm definitely digging the results. As a New Yorker myself, I really appreciated the subject he used to show off the changing fall colors.

I'm not going to lie. With all the time lapse videos of the sky hitting the web these days I'm kind of over it. But "Leonid and Zodiacal Light", by french photographer Stephane Vetter is very short and there is just something about capturing the entire sky with trees on the on the fringe that still holds a bit of magic.

Not to long ago we showed you part 1 of Paris in Motion by Mayeul Akpovi along with the behind the scenes of how they did it. Well, Mayeul just released part 2. I still love the look of doing these hyper laps shots. They give a whole other dimension to time-laps photography.

It takes a lot of patience to put together an extended time-lapse work; I have great admiration for anyone who actually finishes one. "Existence" is a time-lapse project which Michael Shainblum worked hard on for four months.

Astronaut Donald Pettit has spent more than a year of his life in space. Between two long-term stays on the ISS and a six-week Space Shuttle trip, he's racked up an incredible 370 days living, working, and photographing in the most hostile environment known to man. In this video, Donald shows us the techniques he's developed to create some of the jaw-dropping images and timelapses that he's created

Typically I am not a fan of timelapses or stop motion videos. However, sometimes I come across one that is done so well that I am left with no choice but to admire the beauty and creativity of it. Christophe Thockler is one of those magical people that have momentarily turned me from a hater of timelapses, to a lover of them.

The next chapter in Preston Kanak's 'The RAW Timelapse Tutorial' series is now available for free on Preston's Vimeo page. In this chapter Preston goes over the importance of planning your timelapse  (pre-production) in three different sections: Story, Scheduling and Scouting. This tutorial will help you plan your production accordingly to help your margin for error decrease, so that your shoot runs smoother.

Rob Whitworth has created this master piece of a timelapse with some really amazing camera movements and interesting perspectives, this video will not disappoint. The attention to detail, transitions, and the way he tracks motion truly make this timelapse stand out from the rest. Rob put a lot of thought in the video trying to show the transitions between night and day in this Malaysian city.

A few weeks ago Rebecca posted "How To Shoot A RAW Timelapse: New Series By Preston Kanak" which was an introduction to this series. This video is part one of Preston's free tutorials on making compelling timelapses, which covers hardware options. Intervalometers, batteries, motors, sliders, and bears, oh my! Very informative stuff from Mr. Kanak.

Preston Kanak, creator of 3minuteshorts and assistant editor of Philip Bloom  is launching a new series of tutorials about how to film timelapses. Perfect for the professional or advanced hobbyist videographer, the series is the perfect way to make your jump into Timelapse filmmaking. The series will be broken up into seven parts including the gear he uses, pre- and post- production, and distribution.