here’s a little christmas time lapse video i recorded last year: for my mom’s birthday (shortly before christmas), my aunt hand-crocheted a full set of christmas ornaments. we decorated the tree while mom was gone, and then led her into the room when she returned. mom was blown away!
soundtrack: christmas time by franco castagnotto
growing up with a ubiquity of historic buildings and castles nearby, i never really felt that they were that special. that is, until friends from around the world asked about them and were very excited to see them up close.
i recently took a dji phantom for a flight around the nearby castle ruins in thaur, which date back to the late 12th century. as it turns out, the ruins had quite a vivid history comprising nobility, illegitimate children, the church, and lots of plight. the aerial view is especially interesting when compared to the below etching from 1699 on wikipedia.
not too long ago, we came across a small patch of squirting cucumbers (ecballium elaterium) in spain, and wanted to see their rather spectacular mode of seed propagation in action:
using hygroballochory, the species can expel its seeds into distances of up to 12 meters.
footage was recorded with a gopro hero 3 black at 120 fps, 720p. clips are in real-time, 4x slow motion, and (last sequence) 8x slow motion (i.e.15 fps), respectively.
earlier today: dusk is slowly creeping in over my home town, as the sun descends behind the northern range.
aerial panorama recorded with a dji phantom 2 vision+.
japanese maple (acer palmatum) leaves in the trauttmannsdorff castle gardens (merano, italy).
the problem: i have a long-term time lapse videos that contains not just daylight footage, but also very dark footage captured during night. the camera used – the brinno tlc200 pro – actually has a setting to stop recording at night, but this only takes effect after several dark frames, resulting in a video that lacks fluency.
manual removal of these night frames is only an option for videos covering a few days, but not for long-term footage.
there is a way, however, to drop night frames automatically using free, open-source software. here’s how: [more...]
for the past few months, i’ve been wearing meru zip-off pants when outdoors and/or traveling. the manufacturer promises that the fabric used, called armadillo (65% polyester, 35% cotton), is “virtually mosquito proof” and i’ve been wondering how much this promise really holds in the wild.
on a recent field trip to what can only be described as “mosquito land”, i noticed that many mozzies were actually trying to bite through the pants, but eventually gave up. here’s a short video that shows one of these mosquitos trying to get through the fabric, and failing miserably:
isn’t it fascinating how bendy these probosces are?
