First timelapse vid - Northern Lights

I went to photograph the Northern Lights in Feb, in the far north of Sweden. I went with the intention of shooting stills, but came back with so many stills that I thought I'd have a go at a timelapse video. So here it is -

https://vimeo.com/61566851

The trip also gave me a deep respect for the abilities of the K5, which handled the adverse conditions with contemptuous ease, only losing one bar on the battery meter and never missing a beat after multiple night sessions of 3 hours out on a frozen lake at -30.

Paul

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K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro

Couldn't help notice the face in the shot ( lower centre ) at 0:10s to 0:12s

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[i]Bodies: 1x K-5IIs, 2x K-5, Sony TX-5, Nokia 808
Lenses: Pentax DA 10-17mm ED(IF) Fish Eye, Pentax DA 14mm f/2.8, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8, Pentax-A 28mm f/2.8, Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.2, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8, Sigma 135-400mm APO DG, and more ..
Flash: AF-540FGZ, Vivitar 283

Good effort Paul, hope to get to see these some day. I personally prefer your stills though.

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Fletcher8.

That was very enjoyable and the music an excellent choice. I'd be inclined to leave the shots up for longer and use much longer dissolves between them to get rid of that jerkiness. Use the phrasing of the music to motivate the edits.

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Ken
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -

Well I thought it was great and the music is perfect!
cheers
bb2

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K5, K20D, Bigma, Sigma EX 105, Sigma EX 10-20, Sigma EX 28-70 F2.8, Sigma Ex 1.4TC,
Pentax 135 F3.5, Pentax 30mm F2.8 , Pentax 50mm F1.7, Pentax 55mm F1.8,
Super Taks: 35mm F3.5, 50mm F1.4, 135mm F3.5, 200mm F4
Vivitar TX 200mm F3.5,Vivitar (Komine)135mm f2.8, Vivitar 2X TC, Vivitar T4 400mm F6.3
Tamron SP 35-80,80-210 F3.8, Helios 44M, Mir 1B 37mm F2.8, Jupiter 9 85mm F2, Chinon 28mm F2.8, 3M-5A 500mm F8 etc etc

Nice..

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k-5, K-5ii,60-250 f4, 50 f1.4 af,17-70 f4, 100mm macro wr,siggy 10-20 siggy 100-300f4

Thanks for feedback guys. There's a definite conflict between settings for stills and settings for video. For stills you want best quality so ISO not more than 1600, at f2.8 you're looking at 4-10 sec depending on brightness, to get a histogram that's not totally biased to the left. For timelapse you want shortest shutter speed poss, so up the ISO, and/or push it in post, put up with the noise (you're going to downsize the pixel dimensions anyway) and get shortest shutter speed you can, to smooth out the movement. And resolve more detail in the auroral curtains. Decisions decisions...

The videos I really like are those ones where they've used a slow motion dolly, but no way I could afford one, or indeed get it within the luggage allowance.

Paul

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K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro

Enjoyable "video". Thanks for sharing

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Regards
Stan

PPG