Nijmegen 2 – A Timelapse Trailer
Photos shot: 3514
Duration in realtime: 11h 35min
Upload & Rendering:
Resolution: 4096 x 2304 – Full 4K
Framerate: 24
Bitrate: 123 Mbps
| Used equipment: Sony Alpha 7 II – Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 Samsung NX30 – Samsung 18-155mm f3.sdsd5-5.6 Polaroid Variable ND-Filter 6-600ND Digislider (and a bag for fishing rods) 3 different Tripods LRTimelapse Adobe Lightroom Adobe After Effects Adobe Premiere Pro MS Excel (for frame- & accleration calculation) …and a lot of time! | Places shown [realtime] Nijmegen Skyline (taken on Island Veur-Lent), [00:14h] Hatertse Vennen, [00:17h] N1 Local Media Office, [00:21h] Graafseweg, [1:08h] Marikenstraat [0:06h] Burchtstraat [0:12h] Galgenveld (taken from SSHN Galgenveld 11th floor), [02:01h] Café Samson [01:28h] Café Samson (Timelapse of Timelapse), [01:18h] Takenhofplein (Wijchenseweg) [00:19h] Marike van Nieumeghen & De Waagh (Grote Markt) [00:19h] Waalbrug [01:23h] Oranjesingel [00:20] |
Behind the scenes
Whenever I show my timelapse to people I get questions like “What’s the app called for your phone to create those timelapses?”, “Your phone must have a good camera” followed by “You must have very steady hands”. Once I also got the question if I needed a torchlight to the see the stars better (not because it can be scary in the middle of the night in a forest)
To clarify: I used a tripod, and a real camera, and some “real programs and no app on my phone”. I shot everything in pictures and not in video. No I don’t hit the shutter button every time I want to take a picture all the settings of the camera aren’t on “auto”.
All those questions where the reason why I made a behind the scenes.
About the video:
A bit of general timelapse talk, a bit of composition talk and a bit of edit talk – and show timelapse of me what I’m doing while I’m shooting a timelapse (I will make sure that next time my microphone is better levelled).
Music:
Even the best Timelapse wouldn’t work without music, but not for every timelapse fits every music. The music choice was difficult for me since I show nature, the city skyline and architecture. On soundcloud I listen to many various artists, but only one of them fit to the scenes.
I want to thank Bytheway-may for letting me use their song “The Ferries Wheel” for my timelapse video. Visit their webpage http://www.bythewaymay.com and listen to more songs here: https://soundcloud.com/bytheway-may
New Gear:
This time I used my new gear, a motion controlled dolly slider. While I was outside a lot of people asked me what the purpose this “thing”. After you’ve read the questions above you may imagine what questions I got when I walk in the streets (especially in the night) with two or three tripods and a 1,10 meter (3,6 feet) “monstrosity” of a slider.
So why using a dolly slider: The movements on the slider are real and not done by postedit. This makes every scene more interesting, moreover it allows me to play with the composition. It also creates a 3D-effect to several scenes.
The camera moves few millimetres per minute in real time but if I play the pictures you can see the elapsed time: the camera moves in ‘normal speed’.
The Composition
Every scene that I take with the slider takes more effort in setting it up. I’m not talking about putting the slider straight on the tripods, and then the tripods straight on an uneven ground (which is challenging sometimes, especially on high grass), the real challenge is in front of the camera. It looks good on one side, but after the camera moves on the slider the composition changes, very often to “not intended moments”.
That’s why it took me, for example the Marike van Nieumeghen (short: the statue), about half an hour to set up the slider.
The locations:
In my first Nijmegen timelapse I used positions which were accessible “from the ground”. For the second one I try to get higher buildings within Nijmegen. I want to thank Regus Nijmegen for giving me access to the 17th floor, and my friend Loes for giving me access to her studentflat on the 11th floor.
The locations:
In my first Nijmegen timelapse I used positions which were accessible “from the ground”. For the second one I try to get higher buildings within Nijmegen. I want to thank Regus Nijmegen for giving me access to the 17th floor, and my friend Loes for giving me access to her studentflat on the 11th floor.
The postedit:
Next to the timelapses I spend also a lot of time in the postedit. I adjusted for every clip several keyframes to ensure e.g. the correct lighting (brightness & shadows), white balance, colours contrast and so on.
This is probably the first time where I indeed photoshopped the images: the clip with the Marike Statue & the Lentloper (last scene) were manipulated. I simply removed the people who walked in front of the camera, by that I created more calm scenes.
The final product:
The trailer may seem complete, but there is a lot of work to do. I want to make much more scenes, I hope that in the winter I can make snow scenes as well. Other than that, anyway it will be a surprise!
