Time-Lapse Photography.

[xmastree]

Long(ish) story, bear with me.

Right, ages ago, when I ran the Internet cafe, I installed a 'webcam' which was rather different from the usual type. It was a regular digital camera, remotely controlled by a computer. Read about it here (http://xmastree.34sp.com/webcam/tech.html) for more details and see if it's still running (http://xmastree.34sp.com/webcam/backup.html) (pictures of girlie students...!).

I then had the idea that it might make a neat timelapse photography set-up.

So, when I came back home I bought myself another one on ebay. Same family, but slightly better (DC210 plus) with a zoom (a proper optical one) and a close-up setting.

Hooked it up to my laptop and worked on the script. Having got something working reasonably, I decided to make a movie.

But what should I use? Clouds whizzing by? Flowers opening? Nah, something easier to set up.

So, for your entertainment, I present the Ice Cube (http://www.xmastree.34sp.com/timelapse/melting.avi)

:banana:

It's a clear night, with a full moon passing by. I'm currently 'filming' that. Although a white blob describing a perfectly predictable path across a black sky is hardly entertaining. :?
If it's a good day tomorrow, I might look to the sky again and catch some planes leaving their trails across the sky. we get a few passing over this way


So, what unusual things have you guys done with your computers?

p.s. Does this (http://www.xmastree.34sp.com/laptop/antenna1.jpg) count as a mod? :p

[tybrenis]

Windows Media Player cannot play the file. One or more codecs required to play the file could not be found.

????!?

[xmastree]

Oh, erm, works fine in linux... Hang on...

try this one instead:
http://www.xmastree.34sp.com/timelapse/melting.mpg

(I hate video, all the different bloody codecs...):mad:

[tybrenis]

Might just be my piece-o-crap computer. Perhaps a different format?

[xmastree]

Well the original was in avi, but my windows friends couldn't see it so I re-encoded it with a different format, and that's the one I posted.

Did the mpg work?

[tybrenis]

The MPG one gave me a ? sign over the quicktime logo.

[xmastree]

do you have any other media player? DivX maybe?

[tybrenis]

SICK. It opened fine with VLC media player. That was pretty cool. Did you just set a video camera running the whole time or did you take pictures periodically like on your previous Cafe cam?

[sirkillalot617]

i got the ? sign as well i thought i got it workin for a moment but no:think:

[xmastree]

It's a series of stills from a Digital camera, same as in the cafe (that's where I got the idea), compiled into a video using mencoder.

[Scotty]

thats pretty cool. seen stuff like that before not with a ice cube though.

[xmastree]

The framerate's too slow though, because I downloaded every frame as I took them, and I'm having trouble getting it to run faster than 9600 (serial port).
Now I have a 256MB card in there I can store thousands and download them all at the end instead.

[xmastree]

If it's a good day tomorrow, I might look to the sky again and catch some planes leaving their trails across the sky. we get a few passing over this way

It is a good day.

http://www.xmastree.34sp.com/timelapse/dcp02172.jpg

Now, to catch some of those trails...

http://www.xmastree.34sp.com/timelapse/dc210.jpg

[onelegout]

nice!
I've wanted to do something like this for a while now, but never had the patience.
I've always been into long-exposure photography though, Ever tried photographing star trails?

H

[xmastree]

nice!
I've wanted to do something like this for a while now, but never had the patience.Patience isn't really the problem, just set it up and forget it's running. Although as it's running just now (frame 1557/3000), and I can't see any of the results without disturbing it, I do wish the day was already over... I ought to go out and find a blue LED instead.

It's hardly a drain on the computer's resources, so this little laptop handles it just fine. Or if you really want, build a dedicated one. I've run it successfully on a P166.

I've always been into long-exposure photography though, Ever tried photographing star trailsNo, I've never tried long stuff.

Something I do fancy having a go at is pinhole photography. As I have the SLR, all I need is a body cap with a hole in it. hmmm... :think:

[nil8]

That's really cool. rep+ for sharing with us.

As for people having codec issues, download ffdshow and quickalt, that will take care of the problems.

[xmastree]

Houston, we have a problem.

Having waited patiently for it to finish the 3000 frames, I noticed that it was doing them too quickly. My script displays progress, and it was updating too fast.
It also became foggy, so I stopped it at 2800 but found there were only 1000 images on the card. Could this be a limitation in the camera itself? The 256MB card was less than half full, but I just couldn't get any more pics on there. :mad:

The other way is to download each one as I take it, but I get a much slower framerate that way.

Still, the video came out ok, but rather large at 3.9MB so before I share what I got I'm batch-resizing all 1000 images to 320x240 (from 640x480) and I'll render the video again.

I looked into the codec issue also. DivX ought to be able to view it.

[xmastree]

Right. The video is about 4MB, and it's 40 seconds long.
I tried reducing the size but the resulting file was about the same size. :?
so, here it is in 640x480:

Edit: moved the file to save my bandwidth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie-TtdiFUUI

[Aero]

haha, sweet xmastree. Last weekend we had some kids ding dong citch our house a few times....sooo...

I set up my web cam by the front door and taped about 8 hours of footage hoping they would try it again. They didn't but I now have 8 hours of night turning to day. Unfortuantely I don't have the right software to view it in under 2 hours :p. Windows Movie Maker only lets you speed it up 4X I think.

[nil8]

The sky shots are so awesome.
BTW, the first set of clouds indicate low pressure moving in, so you might have storms tomorrow or in the next day or two. Or not, I don't know how the UK weather system works.

Still, very sweet. Keep sharing.