Tank/Coral Time Lapse Video

[ruppertb]

of course now i see that he already did the write up. Very informative I will have to try this

 

[revolution]

That is a joy to watch. Thanks for explaining how to do time lapse.
One thing i would love to see is what happens when the lights go out, with the moonlights on. It would be pretty neat to see how the aquarium comes alive when the night time dwellers come out.

 

[ruppertb]

so i have all the programs you used, plus the remote shutter on the way. Was eager to try this out, so I made a time lapse/ stop motion video with my son and some lego people and stuff he built. Tonight we built a new lego firetruck and took a pic every step. I am making the vid right now. Hope it looks cool

 

[mcarroll]

No nice camera or remote, but...I do have a Mac and an iPhone.

While I have neither a nice camera nor a remote timer, I do have an iPhone and a free iPhone App called Camera Awesome (the good names were taken? ) which has the timer function needed to take time-lapse photos.. (Nice take on image stabilization too.)

Once you have the photos captured, and if you have a Mac then Apple's (free with the computer) iPhoto can export a movie of the photos for you via the Export dialog:

At least for those with a Mac and an iPhone, this can be an extremely cheap and easy way to try time-lapse photography!

(iPhoto for iPhone does exist, but not too sure if this feature is in the iOS version. For just a few bucks you might be able to do this all on an iPhone.)

-Matt

 

[ruppertb]

@Jetsteam - I cant get the second vid to save in the virtualdub program. I import video (ie image 1) and it takes the rest in and then makes the movie. I slow down the fram rate and go to save avi file and it never works at the end. It is always a 15sec vid of the first image. Any ideas

 

[CJO]

Hey forum goers! Nuocmam let me know that he posted my video here and I'm glad you guys like it! I checked out your forum and there is a lot of reefing talent here I see.

The camera I used to shoot the time lapse footage was a Canon T2i. Pretty much your average but great for the cost DSLR. And from the looks of it, there are many people here that have DSLRs as well. I hope to upgrade to the 5D mark ii within a couple of months. Footage was shot with the kit lens (18-55mm).

I used a cheap intervalometer (remote with timer) to shoot the time lapse stuff. Here is a link to the remote, and I'm sure they have Nikon versions of it as well. Amazon.com: NEEWER® Timer Remote Control RS-60E3 For Canon XS XSi T1i XT XTi: Camera & Photo

I'm a firm believer in saving money where I can, and this remote, although cheap, works perfect for shooting time lapses.

All I did to shoot this movie is set up the camera on a tri pod, wait for the lights to turn on, and had the remote start taking pictures every 2-3 seconds until the corals were open (anywhere from 30 minutes to 2-3 hours). This left me with about 700-2500 pictures per shot, which I then edited in Lightroom. The only editing I did, actually, was cropping them to a 16x9 ratio (for the HD widescreen resolution of 1080P) and reduced the resolution from a million megapixels to 1920x1080, which is 1080P. This helps reduce the file size from 20 mb per picture down to less than 1mb.

Lightroom allows you to crop an unlimited number of photos at the same time using the sync feature, so it literally took seconds to edit the photos. Then, I exported them at the resolution I wanted.

After I had the cropped/reduced photos, I opened them in a program called Virtualdub. This program is perfect for time lapses as you just have to open an image with a number (i.e. Blasto1) and all other files in the folder with subsequent numbers (Blasto2, Blasto3...Blasto2405, etc) will import automatically. Then I just compressed the video with Virtualdub (easy to do) and exported it as an AVI (movie) file. I repeated this process for all 10 or so shots of the corals and merged all the movies using Windows Movie Maker (still the best simple HD video editor in my opinion!).

So in short:

Take photos with remote timer->Lightroom->Virtualdub->Windows Movie Maker->Youtube.

If you have any other questions, please let me know. I will be happy to explain further! If you have a DSLR camera, I HIGHLY suggest buying a cheap remote timer for it. Very easy to use and you can get some stunning results.

Thanks for the great write-up. I just ordered one of the remotes for my Nikon.

CJ

 

[BarbH]

cool video, and another new toy to add to the list :smile:

 

[SpawnGawn]

Very cool....thanks for sharing!!!

 

[Rob.D]

Very cool video!

 

[prsnlty]

Great video!

125g mixed reef Peninsula
salinity: 1.025, CA: 500, ALK: 9.0DKH, NO3: 0, PO4: 0.25, MAG: 1355
AI SOL BLUES/ 24" T5 Combo
30g Sump, 1400gph Return Flow, 3700 gph PH Flow

 

[nitrox36]

thanks for the video, found one on amazon for my Nikon thanks

 

[bairdimusprime]

totally awesome video.. gorgeous tank as well

 

[Nuocmam]

Thanks guys! I forgot about this thread. Coincidentally, I'm actually about to release Sunrise On the Reef 2. Just finishing up the last of the shots tomorrow.

Geez what's taking so long!

 

[Wankell]

Awesome videos!! I love it! Keep em coming!

 

[Singlefin]

Awesome videos. Love the acan part. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Nuocmam]

Awesome videos. Love the acan part. Thanks for sharing.

The acan gettin jiggy is my favorite part too.

 

[strange33w]

very cool vid

 

[joshporksandwich]

Very nice videos! Thanks for the detailed explanation on how to do it. I will be pming you for help soon lol.

 

[wakeboardgeek]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Isoprene]

what are the paly or zoas whatever they are at 1:45 and 1:56, I want some!