Hi this is John Tisbury. I'm at Rhyll in North Wales. I'm sitting at Rhyll
harbour and I'm gonna shoot some time-lapse. I'll talk you through what I'm
doing, my setup and what gear I'm using and obviously once I've developed it
then I'll show you the time-lapse as well. This is the third one I've done
this week, well ever really, with this equipment. I'm using the iFootage Mini
Shark, which is a motorized device on a slider.
I'll show you all that in a second. I've had a few goes at this and learnt things along the way and
everything has not worked out smoothly or straight-forward and as with most things
when you're new to doing something you sort of learn as you go along.
I've done this setup the other day on Monday actually, Bank Holiday Monday
and whilst it came out okay I missed the tide! The tide had already come
in I was wanting it to be a low tide and then catch that the boats in the mud and
then moving around as the tide came in and made them all float and bob about
but I was too late! So here plenty of time today the tide is
still going out so hasn't quite turned yet so it's due to turn in about half an
hour, 45 minutes something like that. I'm all set up, raring to go so hooray!
In terms of the gear as I say I've using the iFootage the Shark Mini, Mini
Shark, Shark Mini. Which is quite fitting really being at the coast. With that...
I bought it as a kit. Let's take you over there and show you.
What we have here is the motorised slider at the bottom here. You can use
this either manually or fit this little motorized unit onto it, it just clips in.
Above it is the 2 axis X2 Mini which is awesome little bit kit. And then on
top I've got a Nikon D810 which has got a 50mm lens on it.
On front of the lens I've got a 10 stop neutral density filter and
the benefit of the ND filter is it allows me to slow the shutter speed down
so I can do 0.5 or 1 second on bright days nice and easily. So I get
a nice bit of motion in the stills rather than being all very static and
very sharp and crisp and when they run into video they don't look so nice.
Looks very staccato and not very smooth and film like. So the setup that
I've got I've got it resting one end...
on the ball of the railings here, then runs along and is supported by supported by Manfrotto tripod at the end
here with a video head on it. I've got a four track setup here. The nice thing
with this iFootage Shark Mini as you can buy as many tracks as you like.
it comes with 2 in the kit and I bought 2 extra ones, but you can add as
many as you like really there are no limits so you can have up to 16,
20, as many as you like. It's all programmed via the smartphone. The smartphone
has a little app which allows you to plug in the parameters and you can plug
in the the speed of the slider from left to right, how far it goes along the
slider, also the pan and the tilt. You plug all that in programming in you get
real live preview of that, you can then save that path if you like use it again,
and job done really. You just set it going very straightforward very simple.
I'm also running external power as well on these devices so I've got the mini
USBs running here down to an Anker power-pack down here.
I can also run my phone off that as well so it allows me to ensure don't run
out of battery which can be one of the the downsides with time-lapse.
Because I'm running for about two and a half - three hours here, it's very easy to
run out of battery power on those devices. So running the cables from the
power-back stops that from happening, which is nice. Right enough of me
rambling I will go and see how the tides going see if we're coming in or going out.
The tide has come in and I've started recording and then it started
raining and it's been raining ever since really, it's spitting and the trouble is that
even with an umbrella I can't keep the rain off the lens so it's sort of
abandoned the set-up. Which is really annoying because I waited for about two
hours for the tide to come in and
obviously when it started to come in, it then started to rain. I've got about
80 frames and it's then just trying to keep the lens clean between each shot
was just proving him almost impossible and even with a lens hood on, an umbrella
over the top I just couldn't keep the rain off the lens. So I've call it a day
and come back another day to to capture this. So it won't elude me, just not today.
So yeah shame really because the tide is
now coming in quite swiftly and the boats are now starting to float.
So here I am, my third attempt at trying to do my time-lapse at the harbor area I was all
set up yesterday and it was all going very well, until it started raining and it was
raining so much there was just the lens on the camera was just getting doused
with water. In between frames I was trying to clean it with a rag but I was
off sort of fighting a losing battle and holding an umbrella up at the same time
to try and stop the gear getting wet so in the end I gave up and called it a day!
Back again here today and actually today is a nicer day. Just turn you
around so you can have a look and see what we're looking at.
Currently running on frame 730 we've got 3,000 frames to run and we've been
running for about 36 minutes and we've got 1 hour 50 minutes left.
The tide's coming in really, really quickly. It's quite surprising standing here, just
watching the tide come in. It's relentless but it is quite surprising
how quickly it starts to cover all of the sand area and the boats that were
once high and dry are now underwater, and the others that are still in the
middle section. Let me show you...
...over there on the sandbank now just starting to get water on them. Whereas before they
were miles away from the water. So yeah they go, so we're hoping that this is the third and
final attempt at the harbor time-lapse. You'll soon know because if
you see the sequence at the end of this I've done it.
Whereas if you see me again, with another tale of calamity, you'll know it didn't
quite finish as according to plan. Signing off for now, see you in a bit.