Motion!

[Tom Lowe]

I finally got a chance to try out my new Mumford moco stepper-motor panning head. I shot at my favorite spot at White Tank, Joshua Tree last night and the night before. I only had a few hours of moonlight to work with, so these are really just tests.

Canon 350D, f/4, ISO 800, 10mm, 35s, 6s intevals, with .075 degrees revolution per frame. In other words, 400 frames equals 30 degrees of panning motion.

75MB H.264 MOV

http://www.timescapes.org/motion720.mov

BTW, if anyone is working on any cool projects that could benefit from timelapse work, let me know and I'd love to come out and shoot for you this summer - for free. Only thing I ask is that it's a legit project that will be seen by people - MTV, Discovery Channel, a feature film, major-label music vid, etc. :)

[Andrew Benz]

Tom, that was fV<king, unbelievably beautiful.

It looked like a shot out of Chronos... but cleaner.

Bravo!

Andrew

[Tom Lowe]

Careful, Andrew..... don't dare compare my measly work to His Exalted Excellency -- His Holiness Ron Fricke, may His name be remembered for a thousand generations! :)

[Andrew Benz]

Careful, Andrew..... don't dare compare my measly work to His Exalted Excellency -- His Holiness Ron Fricke, may His name be remembered for a thousand generations! :)

I knew that would get your attention!:)

Outstanding work though, Tom.

So, how do you like the Mumford head? I had the url bookmarked from your mention of it back in March. Looks like a great portable system. How is it in the field/ ease of use issues?

Thanks again Tom for sharing. I am still up for getting together later this summer when I get my deal in... Dueling timelapses could be very cool! Oh, I now have access to a couple great Canon DSLRs through my friend... so the elements are there. I hope we can work it out.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Shawn Nelson]

Holy shit!!! Wow, absolutely amazing. Freaking cool!

[Corrado Silveri]

Wow!
:w00t:

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Omg.... beautiful!

[Ken K]

Unbelievable, Tom. That looks absolutely amazing. I checked out your demo reel too... I'm just blown away. And totally jealous! I LOVE timelapse. :love:

[Tom Lowe]

I knew that would get your attention!:)

Outstanding work though, Tom.

So, how do you like the Mumford head? I had the url bookmarked from your mention of it back in March. Looks like a great portable system. How is it in the field/ ease of use issues?

Thanks again Tom for sharing. I am still up for getting together later this summer when I get my deal in... Dueling timelapses could be very cool! Oh, I now have access to a couple great Canon DSLRs through my friend... so the elements are there. I hope we can work it out.

Cheers,

Andrew


Yeah, the Mumford system is easy to use. Of course, it takes more time to set up in the field than simply throwing a DSLR onto a static tripod, but the system itself could not be any simpler. My next goal is to add a dolly axis (another rotary stepper) to the rig. One of the guys on this forum, Larry Gebhardt, has built a rig similar to the one I have in mind, so I'm hoping to pick his brain about it.

As far as shooting later this summer, one thing I was thinking about is how we might match the live-action RED footage with the DSLR timelapse at night. The sensor size is roughly the same on a crop-factor Canon DSLR and the RED. Next you would have to match the lenses somewhat. Then, I'm thinking you might need to make some kind of custom base plate for the DSLR so its lens is exactly the same distance and height from the axis of the moco head, so that you can match the comps perfectly in post. In other words, it would stick the DSLR out about 5 inches or whatever to match the length of the RED. Some type of sliding plate so you can measure and adjust it on the fly, perhaps?

[C.H.Haskell]

TOM, man you keep delivering the goods...this is fantastic work, your certainly mastering this craft, got to work together one day. Cheers.

[Rudi Herbert]

Hey Tom,

I would wanna use you for something I have in mind for next year, a comp of time lapse and RED footage, but I want the time lapse background to be shot, sacrilege!, daytime. Which means you're probably not interested :-) Good work anyway.

[Tom Lowe]

Rudi, in that case, just do it all RED - very easy! Shoot both elements on RED and it should be super easy to comp. If you're in Cali and want to use my panning head, just let me know. It will work with RED. I think it holds about 30 lbs.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Awesome, Tom!

This is why I want my Mirus.... Help me CVB, you're my only hope. The Mirus should also be killer for comps -- shoot the live action, recording the head motions, then shoot the timelapse later, replaying the head motions scaled to fit the timelapse duration. Shouldn't be too difficult to align a DSLR to match up with a RED on the moco head. Better yet, I'm still hoping that RED will eventually have longer exposure and more intervalometer functions.

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

My mom is going to buy your first Baraka-like DVD Tom. She loves this stuff!

Hell, I'll buy It too. Who am I fooling? haha

:)

PS: Why some exposure variations in the first shot?

[Curran Giddens]

Tom, I'd spend money on your stuff too. Keep up the good work!

I also can't wait to try some RED/Mirus timelapse....

[Mark Thorpe]

My cap remains doffed. Great work. I was expecting the sun to rise fully through that sequence but you were pushed for night time eh? Outstanding my friend.

Cheers,
Mark.

[Tom Lowe]

Mark I wish you had been able to make it out there. It was beautiful weather. I even brought along my extra AC adapter and intervalometer in case you called and were within driving distance. :)

[Mark Thorpe]

Maybe next time mate.

Cheers,
Mark

[Jason Wingrove]

So tom, you just camp at night under the stars and just sit and watch for hours and hours. Sounds like a wonderful shoot actually. Good for the soul for a change.
jas

[Larry Gebhardt]

Hey Tom

Absolutely stunning stuff. I especially like the timing of the shot of Arch Rock, where it's dark, then the moonlight first hits the rock, then the Milky Way reveals above the Arch...then daylight...beautiful! ...a dance of different light. The pan really makes it work, with the shot moving toward the light.

I imagine the bit of flicker at the head of the first one is from the moonlight hitting the lens before it fully reveals? (Skims along the edge of the rocks?).

You can pick my brain anytime...in fact I am in LA shooting some commercials, one of which we will shoot in OC (Irvine) on the 12th, tech scouting tomorrow...maybe meet for a beer after the scout? I may be driving down with the director though, but if not then, sometime.

I would like to see your Mumford rig, and in particular, can you program different ratios of speeds in for later comping shots with different intrervals?

The advantage of using the Mumford rotary table pulling a dolly (say on a rail rig like mine, as opposed to pulling with my servo motor) would be the repeatability of the move...again for comping shots of different intervals, if speed ratios are easlily programmed.

Anyway, let's talk when you have a chance...I'll PM you for your number again...(I left it in Atlanta).

Larry

[Tom Lowe]

Thanks, Larry! Yeah, I'm thinking that flicker right before the moon comes up has something to do with the moon peeking its head up around the rocks or whatever. The only other remote possibilities are passing cars on the road a few hundred meters away (at 2:00am), or me in my tent about 200 meters away with my little reading headlamp on, reading a book. Sounds crazy, but I have actually caused flickering in a moonless star shot just by sitting about 30 feet away from the camera listening to my iPod. The little LCD screen on an iPod throws off enough light to register on the rocks and foreground in a 90-second exposure!... haha.

I PM'd you about meeting up. That would be awesome.

tom

[Jaime Vallés]

Spectacular, Tom! Ditto to everything everyone else has said on this thread.

[Tom Lowe]

Here was my latest motion timelapse.... unfortunately I had a fuse blow on one of my DC power connectors at around 2AM, so it's really only half a timelapse.. about 6 seconds...

http://www.vimeo.com/1204672

[Peter Savage]

Hi Tom, I must say you create some stunning shots... and I am please to know that you use the Mumford panning head. I got one a few months back and began experimenting while waiting for my Red to arrive... which has finally happened. Did you ever get the Mumford hooked up to a Red? If so do you know what the wiring is for the cable by any chance? I'm guessing it's a make it yourself situation...
Thanks for your help.
peter

[Vigen Vartanov]

Nice job .Very nice , and stabile motion . For me static Time Laps is dead technology . Now peoples wants more motion in every shoot.
Can you please share some on set pics.
Thanks.

[Pawel Achtel]

Yeah, the pan motion adds heaps to it. These look perfect to me. Good work!

Tom, can I take your offer and get you on my next shoot in remote Australia? :) hehehe

[Tom Lowe]

Sure, just send me a plane ticket and I'm there! :wink:

heh, this is a really old thread zamman dug up. no, i haven't tried to sync the mumford to the red yet. i might try it next month out in the field.

[Peter Savage]

Tom, that's great I hope it goes well and do let us see the results... sometimes it requires a little digging to get to something interesting ;–)

peter

[Pawel Achtel]

Sure, just send me a plane ticket and I'm there! :wink:


Hehehe, I may take you on that. :)