Time lapse 2007

pbmaniac2000 · Post by **pbmaniac2000** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:17 pm

Ok so after brain storming even more i think i have come up for an idea for a project i want to do. We are normally camped around 4:30 and brave. We love this spot and have been there for a few years. I want to set up some sort of tower (40 or 50 feet up) and mount a time lapse camera up there. I normally arrive a few days early, and leave a few days late. This time lapse would run 24 hours a day. So you would be able to see almost all of bm being set up and tore down. I was also considering trying to team up with a camp to put one on the esplande around 3.

I would plan on coming back and then making the video into a super condensed format. I would probably try and do one "short" video of about 7-10 minutes for people just to watch. I would then like to make another one into a screen saver. I want that movie to be about an hour long. So you would always have a little bit of the playa around.

So here comes the fun question. I believe there are two types of time lapse camera. (correct me if i'm wrong.) One of them takes a single frame of photo every 10 or so seconds. I believe the pros of this is that you use a LOT less film, you also don't have to change film every 8 hours. The con of this is that the film looks kinda jerky. People are there one second and gone the next. So does anyone know any thing about this sort of time lapse. Anyone know where i can get this kind of camera?

This is the second type. You have a regular camcorder. You then record everything in real time. Then you use a video editing program to speed everything up. So now the pros you get very fluid video. You also dont miss anything. Now the cons. You have to change the film out a lot. When you do go to edit the film, it takes a lot of hard drive space. It also takes a lot of time to load onto the computer. It loads everything in real time. So what i need for this is a camera that is digital, but also has a long tape life. Meaning i can record for 5 or six hours without changing the tape.

So what is everyones opinion?

ibdave · Post by **ibdave** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:44 pm

PBM, Great idea, but its been done for a few years now.. Not sure if they were on the Playa last year but here's the website..

http://www.folding-time.com/ft03sonoma.html

pbmaniac2000 · Post by **pbmaniac2000** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:26 am

Thats not what i want to do though. They had short little clips of a couple of afternoons. I want something that goes on for the ENTIRE event.

CapSmashy · Post by **CapSmashy** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 7:28 am

Hmmm......

Another avenue of thought....

For your tower, design a mast system that only needs to support the weight of a high end video surveillance camera.

Run your video feed into a dedicated computer. A 600 gig hard drive will give you approx 11 days of S-VHS quality recording.

A good quality surveillance camera is about $400. Skip night vision so you can capture the night lights and such. A shuttle PC can be built for under $400 plus the cost of the big hardrive and video input card.

No tapes to change (playa dust plus moving/delicate camera mechanisms do not mix), tower would be much smaller and easier to assemble and transport, video feed (with a dedicated host of some sort) could be broadcast, etc.

jamiman · Post by **jamiman** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 8:09 pm

yes you should do this digitally.
all you need is a good webcam on yr tower with a feed to a good laptop.
find a video geek who can program MAX/MSP or some such signal mod
program to record one frame (or any number of sequential frames)
at whatever interval you want, at whatever resolution you want.
i suggest iPod size 320 x 240.

(thirty continuous frames every minute would be one second per minute). record directly to harddrive.

i'm sure theres 100 vidgeeks in any major city who could set this up for you, probably 1000 of them in the bay area. go for it.