Two Way Clouds - Timelapse Video

Monday morning started with some interesting cirrus cloud formations:



Later on I set the Toshiba on my sturdy tripod in the back garden:



A bit of overkill with such a tiny camera on that tripod!

As before I set the Toshiba to take one picture every 5 seconds until the battery ran flat. This time it took 1126 photos which were downloaded to the MacBook, processed as a video in the free Mac app Zeitraffer and then cropped and title added in iMovie.

Cirrus moving northwards and Cumulus moving southwards:



I always find it fascinating the way the winds at different levels can blow in different directions. That can be seen clearly in this video. There is some flicker as the exposure is automatic and can change from photo to photo.

Soundtrack is royalty free music 'Slow Dissolve' from Purple Planet.

The Met Office have a useful pdf file for identifying cloud types HERE.

X-Sports Timelapse Clouds

It's ages since I last used the Toshiba Camileo X-Sports camera so I though it was time to blow the cobwebs off it and grab a bit more timelapse. I wanted to see how long a battery would last. I made sure one was fully charged. The camera was set to take a shot every five seconds and placed on a mini tripod in my bedroom window. Bits of the window frame and building show as the Toshiba has a very wide angle lens.



The disadvantage of shooting through glass is reflections which show on the brighter sections but as I knew I would be out for part of the time it was running I didn't want to set it up outdoors.

The battery lasted about 1.5 hours with those settings. In that time it took 989 photos.
The camera saves each main photo but also a thumbnail for each one. I found this a problem last time as I only wanted the full size ones for processing as a video. How to get rid of the thumbnails? It was a while before it dawned on me to sort them according to size. Then it was easy to see which were the small files and delete them.

The stills were processed as a video using the free Mac app Zeitraffer (German for timelapse). It just makes either an mp4 or mov video. That was then processed in iMovie to crop to 16:9 and tweak exposure as the originals were too dark.

Bird Table (Toshiba X-Sports)

'Twas a good start to the day, bright though not particularly warm:



I decided to have a session with the Toshiba X-Sports next to the bird table and grab a few still shots as well as movie:



Today, just a few of the still shots, all cropped.

Blackbird:




Starlings:






As before I put my feet up in the Summerhouse and controlled the camera from the iPod Touch while my supervisor did what she does best:



I'll probably put together some of the video clips for Friday at the Flicks.

More Feeder Visitors (X-Sports)

Bank Holiday Monday brought wall to wall Sunshine without being too hot, at least until the heavy rain arrived after tea time. So far this month we have had 40mm of rain.

I remembered I had another stand that could be used to hold the Toshiba X-Sports. Originally it was an iPad stand so I removed the iPad holder and clamped the X-Sports case. That gave a good clearance from the metal parts:





Another advantage of this stand is the ability to hold the camera across, above or below things when needed. Set up the iPod Touch in the Summerhouse, put my feet up and waited.

 

The birds couldn't see me from the feeders so it was an ideal place to enjoy a bit of fresh air and bird watching.

This is the first time I have tried the 'side by side' effect for combining movie clips in iMovie:



Blackbird and Starling
Greenfinch and Chaffinch

The Persistent Robin

I set up the Toshiba X-Sports camera right next to the hanging bird table to try recoding some of the visitors. It wasn't a good day for WiFi reception. The picture on the iPod kept freezing. Part of the problem could be to do with the nature of high frequency transmissions and the way I had previously mounted the camera on the tripod. The metal upright was between the camera and the iPod which can cut down the signal strength.

 

I fiddled around for some time and eventually cobbled together several of the supplied mountings with a clamp I already had to come up with a mount which put the camera a short distance away from the metal pole.



This wasn't a complete cure so I'm not sure whether it is a bug in the iOS app as even when the monitored picture had frozen it would still record OK. Maybe the camera goes on some sort of standby though I hadn't notice that the other day.

Anyway here is one of the captures

There she was, a female Blackbird, trying to stuff as many sunflower hearts as she could get in her beak when along comes a Robin who is determined it is its turn on the hanging bird table:




I cut down the quality of the recording by setting the camera to 720P in case the reduced processing time would help with the WiFi problems, it didn't but did save space on the microSD card. The quality looks fine so I will probably stick with that setting.

Friday at the Flicks - Bird Bath (Toshiba X-Sports)

Not a brilliant day on Wednesday, overcast with showers from time to time. I decided to mount the X-Sports camera in its waterproof case to see what the picture quality was like:

 

 First I tried it next to the pond waterfall but while I was watching no bird went anywhere near it. Later I moved the camera to stand next to the bird bath:

 

Having switched on the camera's WiFi signal I could control it with the iPod Touch in the kitchen:

 

When the camera was next to the waterfall it was out of range of the kitchen but it was possible to pick up the signal from the Summer House so somewhere between the two is the limit for a decent signal.

I only managed to get a few clips of visiting Blackbirds but it did show me that the picture quality was good with the camera enclosed behind what I assume is acrylic. It also survived a short sharp hail shower:



The original was shot at 1080P, 25fps. The finished video was reduced to 720P to keep the file size down for uploading. Having WiFi on uses more power so the battery life seems to be somewhere around 70 - 90 minutes. At the moment the batteries are charged while in the camera but I have ordered a charger with comes with a couple of extra batteries.

The one thing I have to take into account is a delay of 1 or 2 seconds between touching the record button on the iPod and  the recording starting.

Toshiba Camileo X-Sports Camera

Managed to pick up a very little used Toshiba Camileo X-Sports camera. It belongs in the same range of cameras as the Go Pro but for far less money. The Toshiba version comes complete with waterproof casing and a range of fixings for mounting it. Without the case it is a very dinky size:



It has a fixed wide angle lens which focusses from about 30cm to infinity, 12M pixel sensor  and built in WiFi (which is very useful as there is an app for iOS and Android devices which can control the settings of the camera, operate the shutter and gives a live view of what the camera sees). It also comes with a wrist control which can also be used to control the camera but is much more basic. There is the facility for up to 10x digital zooming though that will obviously affect the picture quality. On the back of the camera is a 2 inch LCD. A microSD card is needed for storage.

Yeserday I just had time for a quick fiddle with the camera to work out what does what and make sure it was working OK. Along with various qualities of movie and frame rates, still photos and burst shots it can be used for time lapse photography. This was a quick trial looking through the bedroom window. One shot every 2 seconds:



The Toshiba doesn't make the video. It just saves the stills. These can be dragged and dropped to the laptop once plugged into the USB port. One problem I found was that the camera stores two photos for ever still shot. One is full quality, the other being a thumbnail which is what is sent to the app for the live view. That made it a lengthy job choosing only the full quality photos. These were then process using a free program called Time Lapse Assembler. This used the full size of each frame:




The resulting movie was then cropped to 16:9 in iMovie. As can be seen there is distortion noticeable at the edges of the view as a result of the wide angle lens. I think it has about 135 degrees view.