Revenki's photos with the keyword: time lapse

The hardware immediately after it was completed. I'm still concerned about heat in the closed case, so I haven't put the cover piece over the blue breakout board yet and I may need to add a fan and some ventilation holes, but it all fits. Albeit barely. Also need to cut a small flap of velvet for a sun shade to wrap around the camera head.

Me waiting on the bridge over Jokulsa a Fjollum to close the gate behind the truck. Still from the road trip timelapse for 7/22/2010.

Signpost finally letting us know we were on the right route to Karanjukahr Dam. Still frame from the webcam timelapse.

Stopping to take pictures while driving out the north side of Snaefells Peninsula. Still from the webcam time lapse.

Another shot of a white rainbow from the beach near Husavik, this one from the time lapse frames. This is actually not the same white rainbow that we saw a short time later down on the beach . Which means we saw a bizarre natural phenomenon for the first time, twice in the same day.

A test assembly of the in-work motion control dolly. Not everything is bolted down tightly yet, this was just to see if it would all go together, and when it did, if it would run. And run it did. Took a little more power to drive the carriage than I thought it would, but the motor shield on the Arduino didn't even get noticeably above room temperature (unlike the other one whose bridge I burned out with no load on the motor -- oops). The Delrin coupling seems to be a tiny bit off-centered, but it's just a fit-up problem -- close enough to proceed with finishing the assorted aluminum bits and wiring up the limit switches.

The Igus slide for my time-lapse/video dolly project arrived yesterday...

The windshield-mounted time lapse webcam in action. The velvet sunshade is looking a little scruffy thanks to having to be moved from the dead Land Rover to the replacement Explorer, but it served its intended purpose well enough. View the resulting timelapses here.

For belt and suspenders reasons, I added a patch of black velvet around the camera as a removable sunshade. Once in place on the window, the velvet will be secured to the glass with some patches of gaffer tape. View the resulting timelapses here.

The business end of the windshield webcam, with the velvet sunshade and circular polarizer filter in place. It's really impressive just how black that black velvet looks in photographs. Wow. I later extended the matte black paint to all the lens-facing surfaces of the filter (everything here but the knurl). View the resulting timelapses here.

I bought two filters, a decent CP and a cheap UV -- both of which had to be ordered online, since suddenly none of the electronics or camera stores in Denver carry 30mm filters. This is apparently a recent development, as I swear I saw them in stores as recently as a couple months ago when I started planning this project. The glass in the UV filter was not desired, so I applied masking tape over the whole thing, stood it on a stack of quarters (so that the glass was in contact with the quarters and the ring was unsupported - so as not to put any load on the ring that might distort it), and broke the glass out with a hammer and nail set. The glass crushed into a mess of dust and sand-sized particles (which I did not expect), but came out as clean and easy as I could have hoped for, with no damage or distortion to the ring. View the resulting timelapses here.

The circular polarizer filter (30mm), the webcam with filter ring attached and lens cap in place, and a patch of velvet for a sun shade. I was a little peeved that the lens cap does not fit the circular polarizer (no outer thread on the filter). Now I have to carry the filter separately in my bag. Total weight: 1 lb for the camera rig, lens cap, and sunshade, 2 oz for the polarizer and case, and about half an ounce for the cloth bag the folded up rig slips into for carrying. View the resulting timelapses here.

The filter ring installation, after application of a coat of flat black modeling paint to minimize internal reflections behind the circular polarizer. Before painting, a bright sun-dog-like ring appeared whenever the camera was pointed at a light source. I later touched up the thin sliver of unpainted silver around the lens with more matte black paint. View the resulting timelapses here.

After application of an internal and external fillet of Loc-Tite 50-minute marine epoxy, using a bamboo skewer for mixing and application. Note the blue tape used to protect the lens from contamination. View the resulting timelapses here.

The filter ring fit over the spherical trim ring around the lens, and so was somewhat self aligning although it did want to slide a bit. Lacking any solid reference features, I aligned it parallel to the face of the lens as best I could by eyeball, then applied a few drops of cyanoacrilite glue to lock it into place for the epoxy. And yes, the rig is mounted to the front of my microwave. View the resulting timelapses here.

A few months back I bought a lightweight compact tripod (Slik Mini-Ultra II, I think it is) for hiking use. Then discovered that I had more use for it for mounting a camcorder than a still camera. The standard ball head was fine for fixed shots with the camcorder, but useless for less boring pan-tilt shots. I didn't see any pan-tilt heads that I liked that weighed less than the tripod itself, unfortunately, so resigned myself to adding a "steering" handle to the head as a compromise. The head as shown is topped with a Manfrotto quick release adapter plate (for compatibility with my other tripods). Between the Slik quick release shoe and the Manfrotto plate is the resulting mounting feature for an improvised handle. The mounting feature is simply one loop of a standard door hinge, still connected to the bulk of the hinge leaf. The leaf itself was cut down to match the profile of the Manfrotto plate (notice the silver line just below the thumb lock). I removed the screw from the Slik shoe and replaced it with a standard 1/4-20 bolt (with a bit of the head filed down to reduce its profile to fit the Slick QR plate), which passes through one of the original holes in the hinge leaf. Another hole in the leaf was enlarged slightly, to fit the bolt head of the thumb lock, which protruded about 1/8" from the bottom surface of the Manfrotto plate. The displacement between these two holes conveniently set the tube at about a 20deg angle to the boreline of a mounted camera. I have not yet made a handle for the rig, as (and here's the punchline) when I went to Amazon to order the filters for the elsewhere-described webcam modifications, I discovered that I had already put in my shopping cart Slik's pan-head equivalent of this ball-head...and forgotten all about it. This means I don't actually know if this hack works, because I haven't had reason to finish and test it.

The finished product, ready to be installed in the car. All told, it took about an hour to fumble around and get this to go together. View the resulting timelapses here.

A closeup view of the mounted camera in its intended orientation. Since software settings will readily flip the image on this webcam, there's no reason it can't be flipped over the other way. The original mount on the camera is opened up just for visibility - that little counterweight leg folds down neatly over the steel nut. Unfortunately, however, I couldn't disassemble that part of the original mount in order to take the counterweight off. View the resulting timelapses here.