on saturday, i went by a huge field of stinging nettles, and i noticed that the peacock caterpillars (inachis io, tagpfauenauge) had already left their community and spread up, so each one would have their own plant.
this is usually a sign that it won’t take long until pupation, which i thought makes a great time lapse subject.

i collected a total of 14 caterpillars, plenty of their feeding plant (=stinging nettle, urtica dioica), and went home to set up a terrarium that would fit their needs.

it took me some time to get what i needed: there should be all but one spot where they *wanted* to pupate, because time-lapse recordings require very fixed settings. eventually, i came up with a way: i let there be only one horizontal element where they could hang themselves up, and shaded that part of the terrarium.
soon, the first one settled down, and i could set up the gear.

by the way: don’t assume that slippery glass would stop them from going anywhere – they just spread a thin carpet of silk-strands and go where *they* want.

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i’ve done a new time-lapse project on frog spawn, because i spotted some in my pond.
the first post about this can be found here.

[skip all of that and download the video]
 

the phase i wanted to capture, was from the egg until slacking.
it would be too hard to record a pollywog’s growth in time-lapse – too much effort and clearly not ethical.
you’d have to give them tiny living space so they wouldn’t jet around all the time, or even slow them down somehow. there would have to be a special (=unnatural) way of feeding. water cleanness and oxygen problems would arise, and of course plants etc. would give them unwanted hiding places…
and i don’t presume to do that. (the environmentalist is shining through again ;-))

anyway, i did some internet research and found out the duration of my project would be about 2 weeks. in springlike-pond-climates, of course. it turns out, at room-temperature those little creatures leave their gelatinous eggs in less than 2 days!

 
the eggs would float around a lot, so i needed to fixate them somehow.
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i’ve just started a new project.
my pond has been ice-free for about a week, and i’ve already found frog spawn on the ground.

my f717 is still in spain with my older brother, the f505 he gave me in return doesn’t have a socket for the jg-rc2, so i decided to use my old webcam (dlink dsc-350) and a program i just discovered two days ago: ConquerCam.

i’m telling you because there’s a neat-o function in ConquerCam: automatic upload of the latest image.
you can see the current progress, up-to-date and live 24/7, here. [link removed, since project is completed]
(i don’t have time to look for a script that clears the image from the cache every 5 minutes, so i’m linking directly. otherwise there would be some refreshing-problems…)

[more...]

ok, this is an older file, but it may be interesting anyway…

it was recorded in the night of january 31st and shows ME :grin:
more precicely, it shows my sleeping behavior from 00:30 to 06:30.

sleeping behavior (download video)

date: starting time: interval: total time: camera: shutter speed: camera mode:	2005-02-01 00:18 45 seconds 6 hours Sony Cybershot DSC-F717 auto nightshot
video data:	mpeg4/xvid – one pass: quality – 15 fps – qual: 85% (get the codec | help)
video length: speedup: file size:	33 sec. x 675 (1 second in the video equals 11,25 minutes in real-time) 13,1 MB

the file is hosted on a free-webspace account. on the one hand it has no traffic limitation, but on the other hand there are frequent downtimes/server overloads. so if the link doesn’t work, just try again after a minute or two.

i took the pictures in a 15-second-interval, but the video would have turned out 100 seconds long with a filesize of over 30MB. and that’s just not suitable for sharing on the internet…

 
i must say, since i’m the one shown in the video, i find it truly hilarious! can’t even say why, but i find it funny how much i exercise while i should be resting ;-)
besides: i find it interesting how i get more and more active towards morning hours…

my head is already bubbling with new ideas for time-lapse projects!

last week, a huge part of my life was made up by …cress. that’s right – lepidium sativum.

when i was talking about recording flowers opening etc., my little brother anton had the idea to record cress growing.
it’s perfect, because it develops from the seed to a 3 cm (~1 inch) high plant within just 4 to 5 days.
on the other hand, that would mean that i had to find a place with a nearby window that is completely unused (by people) over days – and it turned out to be my room.
i’m using my room only in the brief period from 5 to midnight, working 8 to 5 and sleeping 0 to 7…

(skip all of that and proceed to the files)

so i bought a pack of cress seeds on sunday and immediately built up the setting: [more...]

i think i’m slowly getting the hang of making time-lapse videos.

there’s just so many variables to consider: once you’ve made sure there are no “tiny unwanted details” (a chimney-top, reflections when photographing through a window, …) in your picture, you need to set the shutter speed (especially in overnight projects) estimate the speed of the motive (which is typically very slow, but still), the length of the movie you want to get, … and you get the wanted interval.
it doesn’t really sound that bad, but if you overlook one tiny thing, hours of efforts are wasted and the whole video is cruft.
(just like in my previous set of little projects, which i didn’t publish here…)
on the other hand, if you want it to be perfect, the whole thing is over already – there are no more clouds, or it’s too late to have lots of cars on the street you’re recording, …
(wow, there’s more content in brackets than outside… :neutral:)

the below file is in .avi-format, you’ll need the latest xvid-codec to play-back. i recommend using ffdshow (direct link) to view them correctly.
see “more” / “blah blah” for video details.

smooth clouds, nightfall (download video)

[more...]

after some time playing around with the new radio remote control for my sony dsc-f717 (jg-rc2), i’m ready to post some time-lapse results.

i feel like there’s a whole new dimension opening up for exploring and documenting.
it’s usually taking a lot of “don’t touch”-time to record time-lapse images, so i’m kind of limited by my own need to take other pictures. but still, i’m already thinking of other themes and subjects to do – gonna be fun!

the following files are still little projects i did for finding the correct settings.
they’re in .avi-format, you’ll need the latest xvid-codec to play them. (i recommend using ffdshow – direct link, it’s a bundle of all codecs…)
see “more” / “blah blah” for video details.

clouds

night

moon

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