Trout lily bloom

 

Time lapsing clouds in southern Minnesota can be a little dull and I'm turning my attention to time lapse of the environment. Last weekend was a perfect opportunity to try a short term environmental time lapse. The beauty of time lapse is you never know exactly what you will see.

Technical: GoPro Hero4, 10 second intervals, recorded until the battery was depleted.

Learning a new technique

I have had a time-lapse feature on my trail camera but never used it until now. There are still some technical issue with camera motion but I like the technique and will be working on it more. The concept of seasonal transition intrigues me and this might be a way to represent it in motion.

Watching the Sky

 

I watch weather forecast and radar apps all the time. One morning in early August I pulled into a field driveway and watched the clouds for several minutes.  Looking up renewed my appreciation of them and reminded me of my place on earth. There is something to be said for the real world.

Milkweed and Friends

One of my goals this summer was showing the interaction between insects and prairie flowers. Common milkweed is a perfect plant to show insect drama on the prairie. While it is not native it has been adopted by resident butterflies as a preferred food source. Slow motion recording is the perfect medium to show butterflies and bees around these flowers.

Technical: Insects are shown at 1/8 normal speed, recorded with SonyRX10ii.

Clouds over Crex Meadows

Earlier this week I spent an afternoon and morning  at Crex with Gary L. While waiting for cranes to come in at sunset these clouds caught my attention. 

Prairie Clouds

The last post talked about the feeling of space on the prairie. Prairie clouds can also create mental space and re-energize at the end of the day. Photographing clouds is a great way to spend a summer evening!

After the Storm

My latest playground in photography is time-lapse. It does not require a big investment, perhaps only an intervalometer. I use Magic Lantern which is an incredible free program for Canons and I think Nikon has a built in intervalometer. I have been using an old Quicktime Pro program but switched over to Sequence for this video. At $35 it is a perfect replacement for Quicktime on Macs. Its ability to remove flicker is a major improvement over Quicktime.

Prairie Clouds

 I've been playing with time-lapse for a couple years and am still learning the craft. I recently discovered software called Sequence that is cheap and works well for removing the flicker which is a major problem in time-lapse photography. The basic camera settings I use are: 1/60, f22, manual focus, cloudy WB. If I can see the clouds moving I shoot at 2 second intervals, if not then at 3 second intervals. There is some math involved since at least 300 images are needed for a short clip.

Ice Out

The sure sign of spring is ice leaving the river. We may get false hopes up when the temperature temporarily rises or some snow melts but once the ice is out winter is over. It's reassuring since the forecast is predicting another winter storm today. Always looking for the silver lining, it will make for a good snow melting time-lapse in a couple days.

The season of change

Spring's transitions can be hard to capture in a single image, especially in March, so I have started using time lapse to show change. Time lapse is a faith driven exercise since there is no predicting what will occur over a 6 hour period that is recorded in a 10 second video. 

Technical: 1 minute intervals for 6 hours, manual exposure, Giga Pro T used as the intervalometer on a Canon 30D, JPEG capture. Edited in iMovie to half speed, deer further reduced to 25% speed.

Cold and Stormy

Those are the words that describe January, 2014. Photography was tough due to the cold and I didn't get out much. the highlight of the month was the sea caves that have been in recent posts. Last Sunday I shot my first video of the year. It was a blizzard but what better opportunity for some action video. After all how many photographers, or any sane people, go out into a blizzard to get some pictures? After talking to my daughter she asked if the shots were taken with the weatherproof, waterproof GoPro. My response was " I wish I had thought of that instead of using the expensive 7D."

Technical: manual exposure, 2 second interval for about 10 minutes

Happy New Year!

One of my goals in photography is sharing the beauty of the natural world and this blog helps fulfill that purpose. Along the way a few opinions are interjected just to keep life interesting. To those who have viewed this blog during the last year I would like to say thank you.  A quote from Mary Oliver:

Instructions for living a life.Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it. 

May your new year be filled with astonishment and sharing.

Cottonwood River Sunset

After a dark, gray day there was a rim of brightness on the horizon just before sunset; an excellent opportunity to do time lapse! 

Technical: manual exposure 1/60, f 8.0, ISO 1250, 3 second interval using Magic Lantern, JPEG files, images connected with Quicktime 7.

Storm Clouds

Lots of weather in Minnesota yesterday!  I hope there was no damage in your area. The storms gave me an opportunity to try time lapse with Magic Lantern firmware. If you are a Canon user this program increases your possibilities beyond belief.  It has sound activation, light or motion activation, and trap focusing.  I was trying for lightning shots but didn't have the camera in the right direction when the camera fired.  More to follow over the next few weeks.  Check out: www.magiclantern.fm