TimeTraveler

Magic Window

Magic Window is an iPad app that is basically an evolved time-lapse player for your iPad. You can choose from several scenes that will transform your iPad into a window peering through to another world. I have seven time-lapse scenes included in this extremely cool iPad eye candy app. Check it out and let me know what you think!

   Magic Window Magic Window App
 

Time-lapse Favs

Here is the closest thing that I have put together to a demo reel of my time-lapse work. It is some of my favorite pieces from the last few years strung together into one music video. Check it out:

Time-Lapse Favs from Chad Richard on Vimeo.

Italian Science Musuem

The Immaginario Scientifico, a science musuem in Italy, licensed some of my time-lapse work for their 25 foot multivision screen set up. Here was a snapshot. I need to get over to Italy!

Cool Screen!

Checkout this cool screen! Samsung and FuseProject licensed some of my time-lapse work to display on this super groovy display. The display is visiting museums & trade shows.

Sunrise & Sunset compliation

Here is a compilation I put together of some of my favorite sunrise and sunset time-lapse clips. Some of these are HDR, others are just straight up time-lapse. The song is a remix of Norah Jones. This is a long piece so pop it full screen, sit back and relax!

This is the same content but at about four times the speed and to a different song...

Which version do you like better?

How To Pan & Zoom Time-lapse with Final Cut Pro

One of the cool things about time-lapse photography os the massive resolution that you can capture the individual images at. I usually focus my authoring on a 1920 x 1080 resolution movie which allows me to create great Blu-ray DVDs to showcase my work and I can easily down sample from there for posting to Vimeo or YouTube.

I am typically capturing images that are about twice the resolution needed for 1920 x 1080 so it allows me to do some cool panning in post processing as opposed to just panning at the time of capture with my Mumford step motor, which I love but can definitely be a pain to lug around and set up. Doing the panning in Final Cut Pro also allows me to make creative decisions after seeing the footage.  I can determine the speed and easing of the pan, choose what areas I want to provide greater emphasis on and even zoom in or out as well. Here is how you do it... 

1) Shoot your time-lapse at full resolution (my Nikon D700 shoots at 4256 x 2832)

2) Process your photos in Aperture or LightRoom and export out full resolution

3) Import your photos into QuickTime 7 Pro using File: Open Image Sequence... (Command + Shift + O)

4) Save the movie to your hard drive (I prefer to save it as a reference movie to avoid massive file sizes)

5) Launch Final Cut Pro and set your Sequence Settings to be 1920 x 1080 (HDTV 1080i)

6)  Drag the QuickTime movie onto your time line. Final Cut will automatically scale the movie to fit within your canvas

7) Double click the movie on the timeline and it will load in the viewer window

8) Click on the video tab and drag the yellow play head marker to the beginning of the video clip and press control + K to create key frame markers

9) Drag the yellow play head marker to the end of the video clip and press control + K to create key frame markers

10) Turn your canvas view to read "fit all" from the first pull down menu in the top center of the canvas window. Then set your scale and position for the end of the video by moving the video clip around the canvas and pulling on a corner to resize.

11)  Go back to the beginning of the video clip and set your start size and location

12) Watch your masterpiece and export

I put together this update compilation of my southwest time-lapse footage using pan & zoom where I thought it made sense most of the pans and zooms are in the second half starting around 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

Panning + HDR + Time-lapse

I am starting to pull together panning, HDR and time-lapse into one somewhat chaordic capture and workflow system. As you would imagine there are a gazillion places things can go wrong and I am definitely finding areas where you are in unchartered territory and things definitely do not "just work" together. Ahhh but that is what makes it fun. Here is a picture of the set up.

The rotary table is on the top of my tripod. It is controlled by the Mumford Time Machine and Motion Controller that you can see on the ground.

Here is an example where things mostly came together. There are plenty of ways to improve it but there is a certain harmony of all the processes that starts to sing together at a somewhat acceptable level.... It is from Cannon Beach in Oregon.

Here is another example from Bandon Beach in Oregon which is further south down the coast, about 70 miles from the California border....

Here is a fun experiment doing a full 360 degree pan.