Apple Time Lapse Experiment

Well, my first experiment at long term time lapse photography has been running for about five weeks. Today I stopped the experiment. Instead of rotting away the half apple just dried out, shrank somewhat and became mummified. This is just the final 500 shots, one taken every hour, converted to a video. I will have to try to find out why the lighting flickers so much. There are several possibilities. Maybe the flash gun doesn't give exactly the same light output every shot. Maybe the camera doesn't give exactly the same exposure every shot. It is set for 1/25 sec at f18.



I have started a new one with a tomato which is already showing signs of mould growing so that may give a more interesting video. I had to stand it on something to stop it from rolling around. The blue object is an upturned measuring cup for the liquid I use in the washing machine:

    

One thing which is working as it should is my program on the Arduino. Even after a week or so the timing is within a second or two of the 60 minute wait between shots I set it for.

Friday at the Flicks - Tiger Worms

Having moved the base and stand belonging to an old bird bath I saw that many worms had made the damp earth their home. By the colour and banding on their bodies these look to be some tiger worms which escaped from my wormery:



There seemed to be several different sizes so they must be breeding OK.
Filmed hand held using the little Nikon.

Stacking Oliver

It's just a year since I last photographed Oliver's catkins.
What is Oliver? See HERE.

This time I took 21 focus stacked photos to process using Zerine Stacker.
Why focus stacked?  Close, macro, shots have very little depth of focus so each photo has a slightly different part of the plant which is in focus. Zerene Stacker does a fantastic job of picking out and putting together just those in focus parts to make one resulting photo.

Here are the photos from each end of the stack:





And the finished result using all 21 photos:



I also used Photoshop Elements 10 to darken some of the lighter background patches.

Wordless Wednesday

Dwarf Rhododendron

Heavy Rain is Good for Some

At least the Blackbirds are happy when there is enough heavy rain to flood part of the back garden. This female spent ages paddling to collect worms, grubs and larvae driven to the surface. Some babies were going to be well fed:







I would guess that they were mostly Leatherjackets, the larvae of the Crane Fly.

Monday Mystery - Guess What

Last week's mystery photo was a bit difficult to guess exactly what it was. The virtual Midmarsh Silver Star goes to Adrian, Ragged Robin, Wilma and the Weaver of Grass who were on the right lines with saying it was some sort of stone statue. To be exact is was a photograph of one of the grotesques on the village church:





I wonder how you will get on with the new mystery photo.
Guess What:


Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.
Just for fun.
No prizes except possibly a virtual Midmarsh Gold or Silver Star.

Neither Bird Nor Beast

A flying rainbow:






Not often I see anyone kite flying these days.