Time Lapse Revisited

A while ago I found a cheap kit for building a time lapse controller so I decided to use that when I rebuilt my circuit.

Here the 350D is set up on my sturdy tripod ready to take a few hundred, 1302 actually, snapshots at 6 second intervals of the clouds yesterday from 5 to 7.15 p.m. The photo is 3 shots (+-1EV) processed as HDR using Photomatrix: Of course 'Santas Little Helper' was supervising!



The controller powered by a 12V battery was on the garden table. I modified the kit so that the controls were easy to use, the original design had them on the circuit board.



I rested the Lumix on top of the 350D to take this HDRd view. The Canon lens hood is visible at the bottom of the photo. The view is to the East with the Sun directly behind the camera.



After processing the 1302 photos using VideoMach this was the result of over two hours hard work on the part of the old Canon.



It would appear the Canon 350D is a good sturdy camera as it is taking a year's worth of photos in an hour or two. I do have access to obtaining another 350D so I think I will buy that as a backup, just in case!

Juvenile Blue Tit

This little beauty has visited several times and had me fooled for a while as it was often accompanied by an adult Great Tit. The photographs didn't do justice to the almost canary yellow of it breast feathers,

Juvenile Goldfinch

It seems to have been one of those weeks or even fortnights. Very hard to get motivated. There has been very little activity in the garden especially since one of the local raptors appears to have caught a Collared Dove looking at the amount of grey feathers covering next door's back garden. That was a few days ago and since then the numbers of birds visiting has fallen right off.

These are a couple of photos I took when I made the video clip of the juvenile Goldfinch.





Today I ache all over as I spent a few hours yesterday assembling a couple of bookcases. Wouldn't you just know it - one had a few items missing so now I have to wait until the missing parts are sent before I can finish the job.

Sorry I haven't been looking at the blogs I normally follow. I hope to catch up with all your activities very soon.

Friday at the Flicks (Clouds at Sunset, Juvenile Goldfinch)

This time lapse video was made a short while ago when it looked as though we might get a decent sunset. Unfortunately dark clouds crowded out much of the effect.



Today I was fortunate enough to spot a juvenile Goldfinch at the seed feeder. The weather was very blustery and the bird was having to work hard to maintain its balance on the perch.



It was interesting to not that the juvenile had a mixture of adult wing and tail colouring but still had the mottled front and head of a fledgeling.

Hedgehogs on a Wet Summer Night

If you are a Hedgehog then you just have to shake off the rain and get on with the job of eating.




It looks as though the time they came for their dried mealworms, crushes unsalted peanuts and sunflower hearts was when we got our heaviest rainfall of the day. Overall we had about a third of an inch and so far today (Tuesday) less than a tenth of an inch.

Visitors to the Garden Pond

I have been waiting quite a while to see the return of a Broad Bodied Chaser to the garden. I didn't see any last summer or the summer before that but one had visited two and three years ago. Finally I spotted one yesterday.



It flew around the garden a few times and only landed twice so I was lucky to get a few hurried shots and a short piece of video.

I am very sure that Blue-tailed Damselflies have been breeding in the pond for a while as the numbers seen are gradually increasing year by year. This year I can normally see six flitting about amongst the reeds. This is the first time I have spotted them mating.



Various insects come to the pond to drink, flies, wasps and the occasional visit from a Tiger Crane Fly. Their numbers have increased this year as their yellow ochre colouring can often be spotted flying about various areas of the village.



Filming was difficult as the sunlight was so strong bright colours became washed out and there was a stiff gusty breeze.



Today has started out dull and wet. The garden desperately needs a decent amount of rain though so far today we have only had one hundreth of an inch. The last rainfall was one tenth of an inch on the 29th June.

An HDRd Summer Afternoon Sky

On our walk yesterday afternoon I took a few bracketed photographs +-1 to see if the HDR result would bring out the cloud formations.

Some of the clouds in the first photo really did look as though they had been painted out of focus on the blue sky. Cannot say I have ever noticed this sort of formation in the past.





Two different processes on the same group of photos here.

HDR Tonemapped



Exposure Fusion


Finally not HDR but a panorama made with six hand held photos. Pity the sky was so washed out.



On a larger view on Flickr towards the right you can see the spire of Louth parish church standing well above the valley and towards the left is Belmont TV mast standing on top of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

HDR processing done with Photomatrix Pro v3.2 and the panorama stitched using Serif Panorama Plus v2. Photos taken with the Lumix TZ7.