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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RED ONE Time-Lapse

Drew599 said:
The 40D has a better A to D converter in it. 14bit instead of 12bit. I just wanted to make sure the gradients, like in sunsets and many other things look as smooth as possible. What I would really like is a full frame DSLR to do my timelapse with. But I went with the 40D because of 14bit thing and the high frame rate.
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Hey Drew,

Just visited your web site. Love your time-lapse work. Great Stuff!
 
redsail said:
I recently shot a film for Timothy Ferris based on his book Seeing in the Dark. I used a Canon 1DsMk2 with a Zeiss 28mm Distagon. The night time lapse work was Raw, ASA 400, shutter speed set at 15 seconds, F2.8, and a hand warmer to prevent condensation. It worked perfectly on several sequences. I too am looking forward to shooting time lapse with my Red.
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Hey Francis, since we last spoke I had a chance to see Seeing the Dark and I have to say, it's awesome! I really enjoyed your cinematography, and I enjoyed the subject matter. I'm a worshipper of Carl Sagan, and I know about his history with Ferris, so I found this documentary to be fascinating.

This was my favorite timelapse. Was this taken witht the 1DsMk2? Can you tell me what the settings were? This is one of the best timelapses I have ever seen of the Milky Way. It's silky smooth and perfectly exposed.

vlcsnap158974uo4.png


Kudos, sir!
 
Hey Drew,

Me too...I've admired your work for some time now (found you on youtube and stage6 last year) . Joe, your landscape and astrophotography shots are fantastic. How do you post your work? I'm using AECS3 myself.

cd
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see samples at www.footagebank.com > in news, scroll down to the timelapse link.
 
Wow, that is a nice shot of the stars.

Joe and Cd, glad you guys like the timelapse. Stage 6 pissed me off for a while. Someone had taken my two timelapse clips off of my site and edited them together and put this retarded music on there. Stage 6 wouldn't take them down. So I just started posting in there about how mad I was and they finally came down. Then someone posted the clips on there the way I had them.
 
Drew,
stage6 is gone now...the quality of divx was great. Stories like that make me nervous about posting a demo reel but I guess that's the price of getting your name out there. Some internet kids have too much time on their hands. I guess sending out a copyright infringement notice (threat) to the host would get their admin. hopping to action. Are you posting with after effects or fcp? Just curious. Keep up the inspiring work.

cd
 
Hi Tom. The settings were the following: Camera Raw - for a film out. The 1DsMk2 is more than enough resolution. ASA 400 (no higher because noise becomes an issue). 28mm Zeiss Distagon Lens using a Contax to EOS adapter that allows for infinity focus. These lenses can be purchased for a song on ebay. Or you can send the lens to Conurus in Vancouver. Bo Ming, Conurus, is amazing. My hope is to try these lenses on my Red using the Birger mount. Shutter speed of 15 seconds. A higher shutter speed would be nice but the stars become oblong rather than circles. Stars (or the earth) move at around 15 degrees per hour. Keep heat on the lens. As it gets cooler condensation becomes problematic. If you want to ride the exposure from twilight to night only change your stop in one/tenth increments. Try and put something in the frame that will remain stable, like a rooftop or hill. It will give it scale. If you have tree shake, or something moves during the sequence, use Adobe After Effects. The tracking filter works wonders. Let me know about your Red experience with time lapse. I can't wait! F
 
fwdinc said:
Hey Drew,

Me too...I've admired your work for some time now (found you on youtube and stage6 last year) . Joe, your landscape and astrophotography shots are fantastic. How do you post your work? I'm using AECS3 myself.cd.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what "AECS3" or how it works compared to using something like Motion, which I also know nothing about. Will either help with video streaming on the web?

For my "Dead Lonesome" clips on youtube, I just ran the film through Quicktime with low rez rates so that it would fit. I plays back real jittery online, so it looks kid of crappy.

Joe T.
 
redsail said:
Hi Tom. The settings were the following: Camera Raw - for a film out. The 1DsMk2 is more than enough resolution. ASA 400 (no higher because noise becomes an issue). 28mm Zeiss Distagon Lens using a Contax to EOS adapter that allows for infinity focus. These lenses can be purchased for a song on ebay. Or you can send the lens to Conurus in Vancouver. Bo Ming, Conurus, is amazing. My hope is to try these lenses on my Red using the Birger mount. Shutter speed of 15 seconds. A higher shutter speed would be nice but the stars become oblong rather than circles. Stars (or the earth) move at around 15 degrees per hour.
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Francis, the screenshot I posted above of the milky way is only a 15-second exposure at ISO 400??
 
fwdinc said:
Drew,
stage6 is gone now...the quality of divx was great. Stories like that make me nervous about posting a demo reel but I guess that's the price of getting your name out there. Some internet kids have too much time on their hands. I guess sending out a copyright infringement notice (threat) to the host would get their admin. hopping to action. Are you posting with after effects or fcp? Just curious. Keep up the inspiring work.

cd
Click to expand...

The copyright infringement did nothing to get the site to pull that clip. Me bitching about it on there did.

Im posting with a couple programs. I use Lightroom for color adjusments and framing. Then I have it export all my RAW frames as TIFFs and then those make they're into FCP for editing and output.
 
Hi Tom. Correct. 15 second shutter speed. ISO 400. The histogram looked pretty slim. Shooting RAW with a high resolution camera helps. The 20Da camera did nothing for us. We had hoped to photograph a lower nanometer. Those colors never appeared. Using a higher ASA than 400 introduces noise. Longer shutter speeds creates oblong stars. Also, they have areas called "Dark Spots" that are best for astrophotography. Try and shoot on a moonless night. And know what area of the sky you want to see. Tim Ferris shot a sequence using his Canon 5D. He set the camera on automatic, with limits on shutter and ISO, and went to bed. It looked great! I am curious about shooting time lapse with the Red. What are your discoveries? Check out Robert Gendler's site http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/ Robert is a Radiologist but is also a great astrophotographer. Also, I agree with Drew about working in a TIFF format. Have you been able to integrate Red footage to Adobe Photoshop or After Effects CS3 yet? F
 
Thanks, Francis. So you think having a full-frame DLSR like the 1Ds or 5D makes a big difference for these night star shots, compared to something like a 20D or Rebel XTi with cropped sensors?

I can tell you right now I could never get an exposure like that in 15 seconds on my Rebel XT. Even at f/3.5 it would be more like 45 seconds, at least!

I haven't shot any timelapse on Red yet. There is a forum here for discussion of AE and Premiere Pro CS3. I haven't delved into it yet! I'm kind of waiting to let others sort it all out. :)

But Drew599 has shot some timelapse and posted the results in the footage section. It's all daylight stuff, of course, since there seems to be no option for longer exposures at all yet.
 
Hello Francis,

Your shot that Tom posted, was that shot in the Southern Hemisphere? I hear the Milky Way from a dark spot in Australia can blow a mind. Awesome shot.

"Seeing in the Dark" has been queued.
 
I think the larger sensor makes a difference. I could be wrong. You'll find that the histogram pushed left, spiking towards blue. Developing in Raw will help. Lightroom could be a good way to develop. I tried to shoot with my XTi, which I had a company called lifepixel.com remove the UV filter, without much success. You will get other cool shoots using a camera w/o UV. Basically this is what Canon did with the 20Da. Very similar to infrared photography. The shot in question was taken in Vermont at the Stellafane Conference. Orion. I will try and find some of my Milky Way shots for you. Shoot a southern sky on a moonless night. Or try what Robert Gendler did with the Andromeda Galaxy. Now that will blow your mind. Considering that you are looking in to the past. You're right about Australia having great dark spots. The Southern Cross. I have been shooting with the EX-1 lately, in combination with the Red. It seems fairly easy to do time lapse with the EX-1. Although it is a toy compared to the Red. I will check out the forums for Premiere. Not much luck so far with Red and Adobe. Let me know if you find a way. F
 
Yeah I looked into the IR filter removal, but from what I understand that helps mainly with photographing nebulae. I'm still stunned that you could get such an epic exposure of the milky way with only a 15 second exposure. Maybe I will have to invest in a full-frame DLSR. I guess I should call my bank and see if they'll loan me ten grand! :)

Here is a similar shot from me, taken on my Rebel XT on a perfect night up in Lone Pine, CA. No moon at all, and a great view of the milky way above Mt. Whitney.

milkywaywhitneywn3.jpg


My settings were: f/4.5 90sec ISO 400 10mm. And the image above is cranked up 1.5 stops in Photoshop RAW processing!

So even given the fact that you were at f/2.8, I'm still stunned that you could get a better image in 15 seconds than I got in 90 seconds. Was the IR filter removed from the 1Ds?
 
IR filter was in, not removed (you mean UV). You are correct that the reason for removing the UV is for Nebula. Or reading the colors of the Nebula. That is a very beautiful shot you took. You got the Milky Way! As you can see the stars become oblong with the longer exposures. There is a ton of photoshop work that goes in to any good star sequence. I can also tell that you are getting some ambient light coming from a city in the background. I had the same problems in Vermont. City Lights are everywhere. It is one of the things Tim Ferris talks about in his book. So, let's see....90 sec at 4.5 At 2.8 with a 15 sec shutter I would be around a half stop darker than your shot, figure 1/22.5 shutter. My work could of been about a stop and a half darker than a normal exposure, but remember, we are shooting white against black. Perhaps the added resolution of a full size chip gave more resolution. I know that my XTi has smaller pixels than the 1Dsmk2. I am generally disappointed with anything smaller than the 1Dsmk2. I carry the 5D only for the weight issue. I have a 7 year old so I take a lot of photos. I think that you can pick up a 1Ds2 pretty cheap now that the Mk3 has arrived. I understand that Sony is releasing a 25meg camera very soon. Which will make the 1DsMk2 cheaper.

Glad you love the night sky and time lapse work. It is a field that has never arrived to the movies in detail. Full rez cameras now afford us the opportunity to create a real night sky for background, plates, or photomerge photos. Did you check out Gendler's site? I hope that the Red will have time lapse capability soon. F
 
Yeah, Gendler's site is awesome!

My real goal in all of this is to shoot timelapses for features. Certainly The Assassination of Jesse James received some praise for its timelapses, which were shot kind of randomly on 35mm by one of the ACs, I think.

BTW, those shots where we see Ferris at the telescope with the night stars behind him, I am assume those are composited? Can you tell us the technique you used to do that?

I am scouring ebay right now looking for a deal on a 1DSmk2. :)
 
Hey Tom. It was composited. After Effects. I took a ex-1 out tonight and shot some very cool time lapse of the stars. My settings were +9db, frame record 10sec-1 frame. Shutter at SLC. Not sure what the actual shutter speed is with this camera because it is a bit like a toy. But I got some nice stuff. If you tell me how to dowload or upload a quicktime sequence to this site or to your email I will mail it to you.
 
Tom. You can buy my 1DsMk2. I am done with it. I own about 7 digital cameras. I haven't used it in months. Or I could get you a new 1DsMk3 through the ASC. We get them wholesale. Recently I have been shooting a documentary with Rodney Charter's Red camera and an EX-1. I find that I go through phases with shooting digital stills. Perhaps it is because my daughter is now beyond the toddler stage. You can do some amazing stuff with astrophotography. It is a field that is still wide open. Your stuff is great! I like your work.
 
Wow, thanks Francis! I sent you a PM.
 
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