In late December, the Perkiomen Creek behind my house flooded and engulfed the trailcam I had attached to a tree about four feet above the normal waterline. When I retrieved the camera a few days later after the water had receded, I found it had taken 1,497 images, about two-thirds of which were during the flooding and as the water receded, before the camera died forever. I was surprised that there were any pictures after the water got to the camera as it was designed to be rained upon not submerged.
The three images shown here include 1) a representative single image of the flooding as it came from the camera, 2) 100 images merged, and 3) 200 images merged.
My original idea was that combining 100 of these would create an effect not unlike a very long exposure of moving water, the usual glass-like effect. That's not what happened. So I tried 200. Considering how much time it took Photoshop to do these, I doubt I will try a larger quantity, but if I ever decide to upgrade my system it might be an interesting experiment.
Wow, that's crazy Andrew. We've had a lot of flooding (again!!!) up here in Vermont, but thankfully I was not affected.
Thanks for sharing the images, it looks like it took a lot of work. It's interesting to see how the color of the reflections changed in the water, although, as you said I would have expected the water to even out.
Perhaps your next trail camera may have more bells and whistles, and perhaps waterproof!
This was a $50 camera, so I did not expect even what I did get. The camera I replaced it with was marginally more expensive, as it is solar-powered and records a few more megapixels. The weather sealing looks better, but it is not rated for being underwater. In that we're getting pounded with rain again I'm afraid I may find out sooner than later. I'm afraid a trailcam with an underwater rating would be dramatically more expensive.
I woke up today to a flooded woodland behind my house, so a third trailcam has been underwater. It will be a few days before the water has receded enough and the ground dried out enough for me to recover the (probably) dead camera and see what is on the SD card.
I've lived here since 1989 and we've never had three floods in four weeks before. Once a year or so has been common, usually in the spring, and twice is not unheard of, but three times has not happened since we moved here specifically because the woodlands are protected and we will never have human neighbors back there. Is this a result of global warming? (Please, do not waste our time with an attempted answer.)
This was an interesting post - I'm sorry about the cameras. I was surprised to read that you were able to retrieve any images. The PS combining of that many photos was really fascinating. Thanks for posting your experience even if it was frustrating losing your cameras.
When I originally merged the 100 and 200 image composites shown in this post, I loaded them as layers into one file and used Photoshop's auto-blend feature. Then I merged the layers.
What did work as seen in this image, which is a composite of all 1,374 images, was to reduce the opacity of all the layers, in this case to 3%.
I would not say the original approach was a mistake because it might be appropriate for some source images, but it did not create the effect I was expecting. I will do some reading to try to understand what was actually going on.
Wow, almost 1400 layers? Your PC must have been smoking!!!!
From what I have discovered using opacity over multiple layers is that those at the top have the greatest impact on outcome (for similar opacity throughout).
I suspect that the lower images have no impact at this setting - have you tried tuning the bottom/base layer off/on to see? If you see the checkerboard this is having an impact on the result, if not then it (and likely some above) is not having any impact at all due to the cumulative opacity of those above.
Either way, this has turned out to be a wonderful result Andrew.