On Thursday I had one of those all too few flashes of inspiration. Why not use the intervalometer that I use for time lapse photography to monitor the pond waterfall. To that end I set up a 350D on a sturdy tripod at the opposite end of the pond and set the electronics to take a photo about once every twenty seconds. Over three hours it took nearly a thousand photos a few of which did manage to capture a few of our feathered friends.
Nothing out of the ordinary as yet. The first was a House Sparrow peeping to see if it was being watched.
They are very communal birds so there are normally several together.
I wonder how many you can spot here:
Easier to count this time.
And finally a male Blackbird with a Wood Pigeon.
As I said, nothing out of the ordinary but I have learned a few things. The idea works, just have to be patient. My chosen spot, where I needed to have a telephoto lens with fixed focus, meant a shallow depth of field. The weeds in the way are too far in the pond to reach for pruning. I have sussed a better spot nearer the waterfall where I can get closer and probably use a 50mm lens. Of course it rained most of yesterday and is raining again this morning so I will have to wait for finer weather to have a second go.
The basic set up for time lapse photography can be seen here. In case you are wondering it doesn't take very long to check a thousand photos. I copy them to the hard drive (that takes the longest) and use IrfanView to view them. I just keep hitting the 'next' key and with the view being the same in each photo any changes show immediately. Those with activity I move to a folder and then delete the rest.
I use an old second hand camera as this technique is hard on the shutter / mirror mechanism and can give a years wear in a day. To make the camera battery last the session I turn off the LCD display as that uses a lot of energy in displaying each shot.
I like the possibilities here. Did you make the intervalometer? Beyond my skills but Hamel do one for reasonable money I understand.
ReplyDeleteHi Adrian. Yes my gizmo was home built but surprise, surprise I found this on eBay:
ReplyDeletehttp://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Time-Lapse-Photography-Timer-Intervalometer-DSLR-/150472316336?pt=UK_Photography_DigitalCamAccess_RL
which is sold with a choice of connectors for different cameras. Check down the list to make sure yours is available as I see one of the Olympus connectors is unavailable, but can be ordered.
Looks very interesting and versatile as well as being much more portable than my setup!
A great flash of inspiration John. I can see that set up producing some amazing results in the future.
ReplyDeleteHello keith. I am sure there are more than just the well known local visitors to the waterfall but many disappear as soon as they spot movement. I must look at the idea of having a passive IR detector to trigger the camera. That may give more reliable results.
ReplyDeleteJohn, this is fantastic! What a great idea. I counted four sparrows in the second shot and six in the third. They are well camoflauged!
ReplyDeleteHello Wilma. From time to time I have spent ages sat outside trying to photograph birds at the waterfall and usually got nothing. Far easier to let the camera get on with the job while I do something else ;)
ReplyDeleteIn fact there are 6 sparrows in both photos. You need to look at the full size photo on Flickr to be able to pick them all out in the second shot.