Category Archives: Timelapse

Still Photos, Timelapse

Meteor, Lightning and the Milky Way

 

 

 

While editing timelapse I shot July 2012, I noticed a meteor in a frame. I caught it on 2 Canon 5D Mark III cameras. Last July, I posted a photo of the lightning and Milky Way, but missed the meteor. Phil Plait wrote about that photo last July.

Meteor with Canon 14mm on 5D Mark III Cropped from 14mm
Meteor with Canon 14mm on 5D Mark III Cropped from 14mm

I also caught it on a second camera, with a 25mm Zeiss F2.0 lens.

Meteor, Lightning and the Milky Way with Zeiss 25mm F2.0
Meteor, Lightning and the Milky Way with Zeiss 25mm F2.0

 

Print or Gallery Wrap, is available of the second photo here.

I borrowed both of the lenses from Borrowlenses.com, who is also a sponsor for my next timelapse video, that will be coming out this winter.

Still Photos, Timelapse

Meteor Persistent Train – 2012

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Update: Phil Plait also wrote this article about it.

What are the odds that you can catch a meteor with a persistent train, in the same spot, one year later? On October 6th, 2012, I setup timelapse, in the location that I caught this one.

2011 Meteor with persistent train – click to enlarge

2011 Meteor with persistent train
2011 Meteor with persistent train

 

I had not shot any timelapse at that spot, since October 2011. At 10:07 PM the camera caught a meteor, the following 40 frames show the persistent train drifting off to the east, then it disappears. It lasted over 20 minutes in real time. I don’t think it would have been visible to the naked eye, but with 30 second exposures, it is. Taken in central South Dakota with a Canon 5D Mark III, Nikon 14-24 with novoflex adapter, F2.8, 30 seconds, ISO 3200

Phil Plait wrote about meteor persistent trains, with my photos from last year, here.

The Meteor – click photo to enlarge

2012 Meteor with persistent train
2012 Meteor with persistent train

2 minutes 10 seconds later – close up of persistent train – click to enlarge

Meteor persistent train 2012

 

Meteor from 2nd Camera, a few hundred yards away – 5D Mark II with Canon 16-24

Meteor from 2nd Camera
Meteor from 2nd Camera
Still Photos, Timelapse

Shooting timelapse in cold weather, Storm Jacket camera cover, Rokinon 14mm lens


The other night, I shot a timelapse of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter conjunction west of Madison, WI. It was about 20 degrees, so not real cold, but cold enough to need some cold weather gear on the camera. The above video shows the short timelapse, and also a behind the scenes timelapse. It is a crescent moon, but I was shooting 20 second exposures, so it looks full. A Storm Jacket by Vortex Media is on the 5D Mark II, on the Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly.

Hand Warmers for dew/frost

I get a lot of questions like, “How do I keep Dew or Frost from building up on the lens?”, in cold, or just damp nights from humidity. Every night I shoot, whether I think I need it or not, I use disposable hand warmers on the lens. I place it on the bottom of the lens and hold it on with a rubber band. You could also use anything else that would work to hold it on, like a velcro strap, tape, etc. The temperature of the lens only needs to be a little warmer than the outside temp to keep it dew and frost free. I used them when I shot Sub Zero, in -25 F wind chill. This works most of the time. But if the humidity is extremely high, it may not keep up on a real wide angle lens with a large front element, like the Nikon 14-24. But I’m not sure if a battery operated one would work any better. They sell battery operated lens warmers, but I don’t want to deal with any more wires and batteries than I already have. You can also buy a lot of hand warmers cheaper than buying one battery operated lens warmer.

Hand warmer on lens for dew or frost prevention
Hand warmer on lens for dew or frost prevention

 

Storm Jacket by Vortex Media

My timelapse setups usually run for 3-4 hours, and most of the time I’m not immediately near it. It’s best to set it up and leave it alone. That way stray light from a flashlight, doesn’t ruin the shot. I have been looking for a replacement for the cheap rain covers that I have used in the past. I found one that I think will work better than others I have looked at. It is the Storm Jacket by Vortex Media. The Storm Jacket is compact when folded up and has a bungee closure at each end. See more info about it on their site.

The Storm Jacket Pro Model, which I have, also has a large velcro opening on the bottom. That way you can use it with a tripod, or on a dolly. I’ve used it on the Dynamic Perception Stage Zero dolly and it worked great. The Storm Jacket is well made and will keep dew, rain, snow and dust off of the camera. It also hides the red led on the camera, but with the 20 second exposures in the timelapse, it shows up more than it actually did to the eye. See photos below.

Rokinon 14mm lens

I also recently bought a Rokinon 14mm lens, it seems like a good lens for the price, and I like what I shot with it that night. There is a still from it on my T2i, below. I have yet to try it on my 5D Mark II, but I’ve heard it works great on it.

4K, Aurora, Meteor, Milky Way, Motion Control, Timelapse

Temporal Distortion Extended Cut

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Temporal Distortion Extended Cut

 

See the Temporal Distortion short with Bear McCreary’s music here.

This extended cut excerpts video, features Simon Wilkinson’s music. Buy and download the 23 minute extended cut below.

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What you see is real, but you can’t see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of 20-30 second exposures edited together over many hours to produce the timelapse. This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other phenomena, in ways you wouldn’t normally see them.

In the opening “Dakotalapse” title shot, you see bands of red and green moving across the sky. After asking several astronomers, they are possible noctilucent clouds, airglow or faint Aurora. You can also see the red and green bands in other shots. This video has Milky Way, Aurora, Meteor and Moon lit night timelapse.  This was shot entirely at night.  If it looks like daytime, it is actually the moon lighting up the landscape.

This was shot with Canon DSLR’s as stills, and consists of over 33,000 stills shot in RAW format, at the highest resolution possible, on each camera.

Music on the Video

Featuring two original scores by Simon Wilkinson http://www.thebluemask.com  and also some from his Royalty Free Collections.  This does not have Bear McCreary’s music on it, his music is on this video.

Order Prints and Gallery Wraps

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South Dakota residents must pay 4% sales tax.

All downloads are for home or personal use only.   May not be incorporated into a production, altered or uploaded to other web sites.  For those uses contact.

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The Temporal Distortion feature is 23 minutes of night timelapse featuring the following segments

Milky Way Segment 8+ minutes

Aurora Segment – 2+ minutes

Desert (Colorado/Utah) – 2+ minutes

Moon Light – 6 minutes

Deer Lapse – 1.5 minutes

Fall Skies – 2+ minutes

Behind the Scenes (timelapse of timelapses)- 1 minute

You will see the same scenes as the online Temporal Distortion video. But this was a completely different edit, with the shots seen at full length, and you will see a bunch of new ones.

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The Aurora were shot in central South Dakota in September 2011 and near Madison, Wisconsin on October 25, 2011.

Most of the video was shot near the White River in central South Dakota in September and October 2011, but there are other shots from Arches National Park in Utah, and Canyon of the Ancients area of Colorado during June 2011.

Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 60D
Canon 16-35, Tokina 11-16

Shot in RAW format. Manual mode, Exposure was 30 seconds on most Milky Way shots, 15-30 seconds on Aurora. ISO 1600 – 6400 F2.8.

Thanks to Dynamic Perception for their support, and for making the Stage Zero Dolly, which I used on most of the shots.

I used a Kessler Crane pocket dolly and KC Lite Crane on a few shots as well.

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson

Music – Simon Wilkinson

Additional Photography – River Halverson

Production Assistants – River Halverson and Kelly McIlhone

Opening title by Gus Winkelman // Winkelmedia LLC  // Contact Guswinkelman@gmail.com for creative solutions

Available in 4K Ultra HD for licensing.

Contact for licensing footage, or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com
Follow:
Google + https://plus.google.com/115274420552571826637/posts

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dakotalapse

Twitter http://www.twitter.com/dakotalapse

Still frames of some additional shots on the extended cut.

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4K, Aurora, Meteor, Milky Way, Motion Control, Timelapse

Temporal Distortion

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Temporal Distortion

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Featuring an original score by Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, Eureka, etc) Bear wrote about composing Temporal Distortion here. Thanks to Bear for taking the time to do this!

Download an MP3 of Bear McCreary’s Temporal Distortion on Amazon or on Itunes

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There is a 23 minute long extended cut, available for digital download here.

The extended cut is 23+ minutes of Milky Way, Aurora and other night timelapse, it has two original scores by Simon Wilkinson, as well as some from his Royalty Free collection.

________________________________________________________________

What you see is real, but you can’t see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of 20-30 second exposures edited together over many hours to produce the timelapse like taking . This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other Phenonmena in a way you wouldn’t normally see them.
In the opening “Dakotalapse” title shot, you see bands of red and green moving across the sky. After asking several Astronomers, they are possible noctilucent clouds, airglow or faint Aurora. I never got a definite answer to what it is. You can also see the red and green bands in other shots.

Order Prints and Gallery Wraps

At :53 and 2:17 seconds into the video you see a Meteor with a Persistent Train. Which is ionizing gases, which lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here.
There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one wasn’t backlit by the moon like the first, and moves out of the frame quickly.

Watch for two Deer at 1:27 (look for a quick flash in lower left)

Most of the video was shot near the White River in central South Dakota in September and October 2011, but there are other shots from Arches National Park in Utah, and Canyon of the Ancients area of Colorado during June 2011. The Aurora were shot in central South Dakota in September 2011 and near Madison, Wisconsin on October 25, 2011.

Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 60D
Canon 16-35, Tokina 11-16

Shot in RAW format. Manual mode, Exposure was 30 seconds on most Milky Way shots, 15-30 seconds on Aurora. ISO 1600 – 6400 F2.8.

Thanks to Dynamic Perception for their support, and for making the Stage Zero Dolly, which I used on most of the shots.

Production Assistants – River Halverson and Kelly McIlhone

Opening title by Gus Winkelman // Winkelmedia LLC // Contact Guswinkelman@gmail for creative solutions

Contact for licensing footage, or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com
Follow:
Google + https://plus.google.com/115274420552571826637/posts

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dakotalapse

Twitter http://www.twitter.com/dakotalapse

 

Behind the scenes of Temporal Distortion from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

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Aurora, Still Photos, Timelapse

Aurora at Storm Level


On 10-24-2011 the forecast was for storm level Aurora displays. My son and I went out that night west of Madison, WI to shoot some timelapse and take stills of them.

At one point they were so bright, they lit up the ground, it will be hard to edit the timelapse because they were almost over exposed at that point.

Some stills are now available for prints on my Zenfolio page.

Also seen on the Huffington Post, CNN, ABC and CBS network news channels.

The clip above is from the extended cut of Temporal Distortion

Music is Reflections by Simon Wilkinson at http://www.thebluemask.com

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Photos by Randy Halverson and River Halverson

Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 60D and Canon T2i with 20 second exposures
Timelapse was shot on a Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly and will be seen in my next timelapse, coming out this winter.

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Milky Way, Motion Control, Still Photos, Timelapse

ISS and Milky Way with 3 cameras

 

On 10-16-2011 I caught the International Space Station, rising next to the Milky Way, on 3 cameras that were shooting timelapse. The moon rose shortly after it passed. The timelapse above is slowed down when the ISS passes.

Phil Plait also has an interesting article on it here.

This timelapse, and the others, are on the extended cut of Temporal Distortion.

The first camera was setup on a small lake with calm winds.

ISS reflecting on lake
ISS reflecting on lake

One mile south of there, I had 2 more cameras in the valley of the White River. They were both on Dynamic Perception dollies, doing low to the ground shots.

Second camera with ISS and Milky Way
Second camera with ISS and Milky Way

The 3rd Camera was about 100 yards south east from the second.

ISS and Milky Way from 3rd Camera
ISS and Milky Way from 3rd Camera
Meteor, Milky Way, Motion Control, Still Photos, Timelapse

Meteor Persistent Train

 

 

 

Bad Astronomer on the Meteor and persistent train

While shooting a Moon set with the Milky Way timelapse near the White River in South Dakota. I caught a meteor with a persistent train. It lasted for 68 frames of the timelapse then moved out of frame to the left. In real time it was over a half an hour. It takes a real bright meteor to show up this well in a frame. The timelapse looks real cool, that will be on my next video. Click the images to view full size. The first image was taken at 9:05 pm on October 1.

See a slowed down timelapse of this on Temporal Distortion

You can see the start of it on the left of the flash.

2011 Meteor with persistent train
2011 Meteor with persistent train

The Persistent train lasted over a half an hour, then moved to the left out of the frame. It is the orange cloud where the meteor was.

Persistent train from meteor
Persistent train from meteor
4K, Motion Control, Timelapse

Tempest Milky Way

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Tempest Milky Way

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Tempest Milky Way won Best Overall and Audience Choice at the 2011 Chronos Film Festival

Download an extended cut of this video here, with almost 1 minute of extra footage. 5$ See stills below.

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Order prints and gallery wraps on Zenfolio

Stills from footage on the extended cut.

One of the challenges in making this video, was trying to get good storm and star shots. The opportunity doesn’t come along very often, the storm has to be moving the right speed and the lightning can overexpose the long exposures. I had several opportunities this summer to get storm and star shots. With good . In one instance, within a minute of picking up the camera and dolly, 70mph winds hit. One storm was perfect, it came straight towards the setup, then died right before it reached it.

At the 1:57 mark a Whitetail buck came in to check out the setup. It was caught on 20 frames, and was there for about 10 minutes. It was only 50 yards from the camera, dolly and light.

At the 3:24 mark, a meteor reflects on the water of the small lake, see still below in Photos. There are also quite a few other meteors in the timelapse.

Canon 5D Mark II for a few shots, Canon 60D and T2i
Canon 16-35, Tokina 11-16

Exposure on most shots was 20-30 seconds, ISO 1600 or 3200 F2.8.

Simon Wilkinson at thebluemask.com created the music and sound for it.

Download the MP3 on his site http://www.thebluemask.com/shop/tempest/?tid=tempestmilkyway

Available in 4K Ultra HD for licensing.

Contact for licensing or anything else
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com
Follow:
Google + https://plus.google.com/115274420552571826637/posts

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dakotalapse

Twitter http://www.twitter.com/dakotalapse

Still frames from Tempest Milky Way

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4K, Motion Control, Timelapse

Plains Milky Way

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Plains Milky Way

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During the month of May, I shot Milky Way timelapse in central South Dakota when I had the time, and the weather cooperated. The biggest challenge was cloudy nights and the wind. There were very few nights, when I could shoot, that were perfectly clear, and often the wind was blowing 25mph +. That made it hard to get the shots I wanted. I kept most of the shots low to the ground, so the wind wouldn’t catch the setup and cause camera shake, or blow it over. I used a Stage Zero Dolly on the dolly shots and a “Milapse” mount on the panning ones.

This was all shot at night. If you see stars and it looks like daylight, it is actually moon light. 20+ second exposures make it look like daylight.

Canon EOS 60D and
Canon T2i
Tokina 11-16mm
Tamron AF 17-50mm

Sigma 20mm F1.8

 

Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly

Shot in RAW format, the Milky Way shots were 30 seconds exposure F2.8 or F1.8 with 2 second interval between shots, for 3-4 hours run time. ISO 1600, the opening shot was ISO 3200.

Ten seconds of the video is about 2 hours 20 minutes in real time.

Simon Wilkinson from thebluemask.com created the soundtrack “Exodus” for the video

Available in 4K Ultra HD for licensing.

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