Saturday 19 March 2016

First Extended Time Lapse Experiment

On Thursday afternoon I started a first test run for a long duration time lapse video. As I was checking the apples I keep for the Blackbirds I noticed a couple going bad. That gave me the idea of cutting a good one one in half and filming it over several days, one shot every 10 minutes.

That is 6 each hour, 144 photos each day. Each day of shooting producing about 5 seconds of video. The camera card should hold 1,150 photos which may well not be enough, about 8 days worth. I may have to reduce the picture quality a little, buy a larger card or lengthen the time lapse.

The first set up:

DSCN5985

The 12V battery is on the left next to the topless grey box containing the Arduino Nano and associated electronics with a 2 digit display to show how many minutes between shots. It is now programmable from 1 to 60 minutes delay in whole minutes. That switches on three 12V LED lamps for each photo and fires the 350D.

After a short test I decided too much daylight was reaching the subject so I rearranged things with the apple inside an upturned cardboard box which should help keep the lighting from the three 12V LED lamps more even day and night.

 DSCN5992

Only time, a long time, will tell how successful it has been. and whether the battery will last long enough. No problem with the camera as that is powered from a mains adaptor. The lamps are the largest drain on the battery but they are only on for 2 seconds for each photo.

This morning I checked the battery and its voltage had dropped a bit below 11V so the light from the LED lamps had lessened. Fortunately I was able to find a 12V 1A power supply to replace the battery.

6 comments:

  1. It's looking good.
    I would still go for speedlights and ETTL. I have added up many times but it is impossible to tell how many flashes I get from a set of new Maplin alkaline batteries as the power is from next to nothing to potentially full. The minimum is over 150 and the max probably 400. The beauty is that the subject is constantly lit if kept in the shade.
    I await the timelapse with impatience.

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  2. Adrian: There should be no problem with constant illumination level now they are powered from a 12V PSU. I think my choice of a photo every 10 mins may be too 'fast' for the reaction on the apple. Still, it's all part of the learning process. At least the theory seems to be working in practice.

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  3. Interesting ideas John, I do hope it works to your satisfaction. Much of the information you give floats over my head. Things like this have to be instant for me - I have absolutely no patience - or indeed interesting - in this kind of set-up - but I shall be really interested in the result!

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  4. It will interesting to see what you get!

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  5. Interesting experiment to view the final days or an apple!

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  6. I'm intrigued to see the results John.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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