The Blizzard of 2013 Time Lapse

[HurtinMinorKey]

https://vimeo.com/59278065

I did a time lapse of the effects of the blizzard at Lechmere Station in Cambridge, MA from 10am to 6pm.

This was done using relatively short exposures taken every 30 seconds. Normally i'd try and stick to a 180 degree shutter angle, but to do so in this situation would have blurred the scene because of the sheets of snow.

I used a 5D mkii shooting sraw on a 100mm 2.8L Macro. Iso ranging from 100-3200, F-stop: 11-7.1 . I exported the video from Lightroom 3 using custom slideshow preferences.

Feel free to offer constructive criticism (or even just S___ talk since i'm usually hypercritical of everything).

Note: you should download the original MP4 to get the preferred viewing experience.

 

[kennephoto]

Cool time lapse, but where's the blizzard? I wanted to see snow plows struggling but the roads were only wet I'm in Minnesota and I've seen reports of 6-10 inches of snow and ice maybe I should try a time lapse. How did you set everything up?

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Thanks for the feedback!. Regrettably the crazy snow didn't hit till the middle of the night, and they pretreated the roads to melt the early snowfall. In spite of this, i tried to capture the chaos of the scene.

Normally i'd use a different setup for a time lapse, but the conditions presented some novel challenges. For example, I had to hang halfway out of my window to wipe the condensation off the glass every 5 minutes. I also didn't have a timer, so i had to manually hit the shutter every 30 seconds ( i had a remote, but no automatic timer).

It was a fun project and i definitely learned a lot. Shooting in raw was essential, because the the footage required a lot of tweaking in post just to make sure everything didn't look like a grey blob.

 

[jdramirez]

No offense, but that was boring. Snow by itself makes a boring subject and snow falling is hard to capture the magic of.

Having said that... I kinda was hoping for action. It was just traffic and like gentrification (white taking over a formerly black area).

Though... if something did happen like a car accident... a story being told... that would have been more intriguing. I guess you can blame the drivers for not giving people something to look at.

 

[jdramirez]

http://www.amazon.com/NEEWER-LCD-Shutter-Release-Control/dp/B003QA0MWW/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1360470723&sr=8-16&keywords=wired+shutter+release+canon

I haven't done time lapse, but I bought this and it should work well with that. It's cheap but works great. I'm not sure if it is compatible with the 5d... though I think it is.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

No offense, but that was boring.

Lol, i think that's why i kept it so short! That being said, I like the transition of light. And, like i said, i think the exposure was pretty good given the hectic conditions. The dynamic lighting conditions and the bad weather made it a real challenge.

Coincidentally, i think i Amazoned that same timer (albeit forlornly) while i was doing the shoot. It's a definite must have (or something equivalent).

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

If possible, post some stills of the Snow tomorrow. How much did you get in Cambridge? I hope that you and your family are all safe, don't do anything foolish. I've seen two feet of snow in 12 hours in Seattle a few times, but not 40 inches!

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

The perspective doesn't really show it, but that's apparently 22 inches+ on the ground. As you can see, they did a good job plowing the street and the sidewalks.

 

[TexPhoto]

Did you take the video down? I get nothing.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

It's transcoding again, i wanted to upload the 1080p version. You can still down load the original 90MB while it is transcoding. I recommend this anyway because the compression takes its toll, especially in SD.

 

[Rofflesaurrr]

I was just checking the weather for tomorrow and I stumbled upon this video. It's a much different perspective, but it turned out pretty good I think...

http://www.weather.com/video/time-lapse-watch-the-snow-rise-34231

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

I saw this too. I really like the end (seeing the snow creep up the lens). But this is essentially a closeup (as are most time laps in snow, and for good reason). It's a lot harder to shoot stuff in the distance during the snow with a time lapse because all of the snow in between you and the subject is effectively running interference.

 

[bycostello]

excellent...

 

[FatDaddyJones]

cool

 

[Jesse]

I think I'll go with shit-talking. No time-lapse where the camera gets moved that much will ever be taken seriously. Good luck next time.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

I think I'll go with S___-talking. No time-lapse where the camera gets moved that much will ever be taken seriously. Good luck next time.

That's good, because I hope i never create art that gets "taken seriously". That sounds dreadful.

But I did try and minimize the camera movement. As i said before, conditions were far from ideal. In the end i tell myself it makes it look like film jumping around in the projector gate .

https://vimeo.com/59278065

 

[FatDaddyJones]

Don't listen to all the rude and obnoxious posts (which seem to be a large percentage of what you find on this forum). You video took a lot of effort in adverse conditions and turned out well. My only advice would be to try shortening the interval between shots for moving subjects such as traffic so the overall video appears smoother. I, for one, enjoyed your video. Thanks for posting it.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Don't listen to all the rude and obnoxious posts (which seem to be a large percentage of what you find on this forum).

To be fair, I kinda asked for it.

You video took a lot of effort in adverse conditions and turned out well. My only advice would be to try shortening the interval between shots for moving subjects such as traffic so the overall video appears smoother. I, for one, enjoyed your video. Thanks for posting it.

Thanks, and this is good advice. I struggled with trying to get the interval right. I wanted a short clip that covered a lot of time, so i had to make a compromise. I think if i could do it over again, i would have cut the interval to every 12 secs, but with longer exposures (i was at 1/50 for much of the time).

But i kinda like the jumpiness too, and to some extent it was intentional. I'm a big fan of stop animation, so i kind of like the look of time lapses that don't try too hard to be video. Does that make sense?

 

[FatDaddyJones]

But i kinda like the jumpiness too, and to some extent it was intentional. I'm a big fan of stop animation, so i kind of like the look of time lapses that don't try too hard to be video. Does that make sense?

If that's the look you're shooting for, it looks great.

 

[RS2021]

Nice. Doesn't look like much snow accumulation within the time frame though. I was thinking people would be walking on narrow paths on the sidewalk.