It's fun to use D300 shooting timelapse video. So I am not craving D90 or 5D2's video. Enclosed are two video clips I shot with D300:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thornhill/3468421121/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thornhill/3452082678/

To save card space, I shot in JPEG basic. Even though I get make video quality higher than 1080P. I share here only in 720p format.

Nice
Great vids, lovely music, very soothing

I love the second one on the sky, but the water flickers too much. I love when the plane goes by. So how do you put all those shots together to make a movie? I am new to Nikon and I have not even received my d300 yet.

Great stuff!

The water in the second video was very distracting... ND filter stacking (maybe a ND4) + the 3 stop ND Grad filter will slow your shutter speed down enough to get smoother water for the time lapse at the lake!

^you generally need to use a non-linear editing program like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or Sony Vegas, but I believe there are some less expensive and less complicated time-lapse video compositing programs available. I just use Apple Final Cut Pro to do mine at work.

Very cool! Drat, now I see hours and hours flying away as I go out and play with this function.

What was the music? Good stuff, and well-matched to visuals.

--Chris

I really enjoyed those. That is a lot of shutter actuations on your camera. Are these the first ones you've done?

Wow, Night at the Acropolis...and here I was thinking I was the only one who'd ever listened to that

Thanks for sharing - I look forward to putting that feature through the ringer

Gasitman wrote:
I love the second one on the sky, but the water flickers too much. I love when the plane goes by. So how do you put all those shots together to make a movie? I am new to Nikon and I have not even received my d300 yet.

Quicktime allows you to import a series of sequentially numbered/named photos and output as a movie. You can also do this is programs like After Effects.

It helps (speed wise) if you also crop/resize to the desired frame size first (i.e. 1920x1080 for full HD).

The other thing to remember is to keep your shutter speed as slow as possible (I use an 8 stop vari-ND filter - but would like more than 8 stops at times), and have the shutter open longer than it is closed. This helps to minimize the flicker from frame to frame as the exposure varies very slightly, and helps to smooth out water too.

Shoot full manual when ever possible.

Shooting in 14 bit RAW is a problem on the D300 because it can't usually keep up with my desired frame rate, so I usually have to turn it down to 12 bit compressed. Shooting JPEG is of course an option, but I bought some 16GB cards specifically for Time-Laps.

Chris S. wrote:
Very cool! Drat, now I see hours and hours flying away as I go out and play with this function.

What was the music? Good stuff, and well-matched to visuals.

--Chris


#1 was "One Man's Dream" by Yanni - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubTveCihjoQ

#2 was "Liebestraume no 3" composed by by Liszt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnhTzwCy96Y

Thanks, Dave.

After watching the 2 presentations, my heart rate went down by 30.......

Thank you all! I was just back from a trip to the Red Rock Circle.

jasoncallen wrote:
The water in the second video was very distracting... ND filter stacking (maybe a ND4) + the 3 stop ND Grad filter will slow your shutter speed down enough to get smoother water for the time lapse at the lake!

^you generally need to use a non-linear editing program like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or Sony Vegas, but I believe there are some less expensive and less complicated time-lapse video compositing programs available. I just use Apple Final Cut Pro to do mine at work.

It is the first time I shot timelapse. The normal shooting interval is 2~3 seconds. So to stack a 3-stop ND should be fine. But for the 2nd series I posted above, the lighting change is dramatic after the sunset. It is up to 1/2 second already. If I use a high stop ND, the shoot interval may not be kept.

Anyway, lesson learned. I will try to avoid water surface close to foreground if it's windy.

Really appreciate your comments and hints. I'd share two shots I took in my last trip:
Horseshoe Bend