No action in this movie for the first 10 – 12 seconds, keep watching!

This is my first attempt at a time lapse movie. I used the Pentax K5 over a period of 10 hours and delayed the shots by 2.5 minutes. In total I got 240 shots. The jpegs were batch processed through Photoshop to reduce their size. Then run through a nifty piece of free Mac software called Time Lapse Assembler. To finish it off I opened it in iMovie to add a freeze frame of 3 seconds at the end, otherwise the video stops rather abruptly.

I believe the plant to be an Oxalis Triangulis otherwise known as the False Shamrock, native to Brazil.

Anyone got any good ideas for other time lapse videos? Clouds, traffic and busy towns would be easy enough to do but what about rotting meat?

I had tried doing the same using Photoshop Elements 10′s ‘Exposure’ wizard but it wasn’t able to merge all 5 shots (taken without a tripod). As a friend suggested, I might have been able to get the same effect using the camera’s bulb setting and no need for post processing.

The image was rendered using Luminance HDR. Available for free for Mac and PC at: http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/.

Don’t ask me how to use the software; I just experimented with its settings until I got a decent result.  The best thing to do is to render small images,  because they are quicker to produce, until you are happy with the result.  Then change the size to the biggest available and wait for it to render.

This shot was taken on Friday 24th February after a busy day at the PHP UK Conference 2012.  Thanks to Hasan Khan and Chris Kilhams for their company, advice and patience on this photographic night stroll around London.

 And an alternative shot created by using Photoshop Elements 10.

I used HDR software called Luminance to merge 3 bracketed images and it has produced an image of some impact…

Beehive HDR

This shot of the waxing gibbous phase of the moon was taken using a Helios telescope and a carefully aligned Pentax K10D SLR pointed at the telescope lens.  It required numerous adjustments and the photo does not do justice to the crips, clean image via the telescope.

I managed to get this shot of the moon by using an old Tamron 210mm lens with a doubler and a Pentax K10D.

It also required putting the camera on a tripod and using the 2 and 12 second timer to give the camera a chance to stop wobbling after clicking the shutter button.

It was pretty cloudy and I wonder if this made it hard to focus or just the shear distance.

The four peacock-like eye patterns on its wings have evolved as a defence mechanism against predators.

For more photos / information about hoverflies try The Dead Head Fly or Wikipedia – Hoverfly.

The Dead Head Fly (Myathropa florea), like many similar species sports similar markings to bees and wasps.  This is of obvious evolutionary benefit to the fly as many potential predators will not attempt to devour them.  It belongs to the family Syrphidae meaning Hoverflies.

A hoverfly can be identified by a false or spurious vein in its wings (Vena spuria).  In the case of the Dead Head Fly, it gets its name from the marking on its thorax which can resemble a human face or death mask.  They feed on pollen and nectar and appear on various plants including Hogweed and Cow Parsely between May and October.  This one is most likely a female because of the distance between the eyes.  Male hoverflies’ eyes are generally larger.

The 'Death Head' markings on the thorax.

The false vein or Vena spuria common to hoverflies

This photo was taken on the banks of Fishers Creek, Hayling Island, July 2011.  For more information about hoverflies, try Wikipedia – Hoverfly.