She has long since passed the rated shutter actuations but despite all the abuse I give her, she stills hangs on in there like some kind of Keith Richards. Past her sell by date and a constant cause of me missing shots, I’ve been awaiting, but not wishing the death of my camera now for a while. I am anxious to upgrade, but on the road I need to travel light, so carrying two bodies isn’t an option. Really I need to excuse of a dead camera to justify a new purchase.
Death by excessive shutter actuations is the most honourable way for any DSLR camera to die. It certainly beats robbery from a Lao guesthouse, or being smashed to pieces after having a tripod blown over by the Mongolian wind any day. Timelpase photography provides fair means by which to hasten her demise in my opinion, so here’s my latest offering, a timelpase video named “Sri Lankan Skies”.
It contains footage shot from a month I spent wandering around Sri Lanka’s southern hill country and south-western coast. From the much sought after sunrise atop Sri Pada and the photogenic triangle cast by its peak all the way to the horizon, to the arrival of the monsoon in early summer, my camera was pointed toward the turbulent Sri Lankan skies for much of my time there. This coupled with the lush green landscapes of Sri Lanka, and it made for an enjoyable time to shoot there.
Sri Lankan Skies
This will be my last timelapse for a while I think. It’s starting to affect my social life! Those longs days and nights stuck in front of a computer passing 1000’s of images through so many different software packages is exhausting. Although it is nice when it comes together and you get that three-minute video, along with two red marks on your lap from a seriously overheated laptop which had been long since crying out for a break!
So, here it is, and don’t forget to check out below for an explanation of how I made it. Enjoy!
How it was made
For anyone interested in knowing my techniques for making timelapse video, here’s how I go about it:
- I shoot a series of images using entirely manual settings in the camera. Throughout the shoot, if required, I vary the shuter speed manually when I deem the light to have changed sufficiently. This is done entirely through viewing the histogram.
- Once I have a series captured, I use LRTimelapse (but sometimes Panolapse) to process the images. Here I set the key frames, which will correspond to the first and last shots, along with those frames where a change in the exposure has occured.
- I then enter Lightroom to manually adjust the exposure and process the key frame images to my liking.
- Then it’s back into LRTimelapse (or Panolapse RawBlend) where I can adjust automatically the images between key frames to give a seemless transition between each frame.
- With the metadata saved, it’s back into Lightroom where the images are exported.
- I then use Premiere Pro to assemble the video, merging the different clips together, applying any special effects and adding the audio.
- The Youtube Audio Library is a great place to find some royalty free music to go along with your video.
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