Technical query - Stop frame animation...

In a little over a week I will be photographing the journey from Derbyshire, England to Le Mans in France. Using a suction mount, keeping the camera in the same place and a timer remote, I'll be taking shots every 'x' seconds and dumping them into a timeline in a video editing package and making a movie from it, laid up and edited between other stuff from the trip.

A thread I started asking about the PP side of it is here for background info.

So. When driving hundreds of miles, entering tunnels, ferries etc, the exposure's gonna change. So I can either set the exposure and leave it fixed, meaning the inside section of the van we're in will remain constant but the road/sky won't, or I can set the metering to spot metering for instance, point it at the road which will be somewhere near 18% grey(ish) meaning the road should remain somewhere near constant and the van's internal exposure will change, or I can just leave it on 'P' and trust the camera. So I'm asking for opinions on how I should set the camera up, A, B or C. Or D if any of you can offer other solutions...

Unfortunately I'm not really in a position to test it before we go so I'm trying to visualise it in my mind and just go for it.

Position the camera so that you are not shooting the vehicle's interior but just the dashboard and the outside scene through the windshield and you should have far less variation. If doing it this way, I would expose for the exterior scenes.

I hope you understand the American terms for the car parts. An American "windshield" is "windscreen" in real English, but I don't know the translation for "dashboard".

manipula,
Well your vehicles interior will also probably change in lighting if outside is. ex you go in a tunnel I am pretty sure it will be darker in your vehicle also, right? If you don't want to have to adjust your camera as you are driving then I suggest Av mode and set the aperture to get the DOF you want and the camera will guess what shutter speed. However if you want to really show the variable lighting that is seen then maybe putting it in M and leaving it on one setting would be better. Of course you can do it manual and adjust per scene but keep your eyes on the road!
It really boils down to what you want!
Sounds interesting, hope you show your results after your trip, enjoy it

I want to include the edges of the van/motorhome we're in as it will give the view of the road reference points, and bearing in mind that I'll have to crop about 10% off each side of the frame to make it the same physical aspect ratio as the video, I suspect I'll have to include a lot of interior when framing up and shooting.

Ultimately though it's the view of the road I'm after, the drive into Le Mans is one of the great road trips to do. Had a big discussion about it with the guys I'm going with (all photographers) last night and we arrived (we think) at metering it for the road, like spot metering and letting the camera sort the rest of the exposures.

I'll be sure to post up the results when they're done, though it may be a while! And Skip, your translations are bang on. For reference, I'm taking inspiration from this clip on Youtube:- Clicky (Pause it and let it buffer before you watch it if need be, you need to see it run smoothly to appreciate it).

Meanwhile if anyone else does have further comments or opinions on this to share, I'm here til Fri next week!

Dave, this sounds like an interesting project. I hope my observations are all things you've taken into account, but just on the off-chance that I've thought of something you haven't:

1. If you're planning to spot meter off the road, then you need to make sure the centre of the camera is pointed at the road. Always. Even going uphill and downhill. You might want to go and play with camera setup to make sure you can achieve that.

2. Which exposure mode? Av, Tv, P? I'm sure there are pros and cons to each.

3. You're going to need a very stable camera support to ensure that all the frames are registered the same; otherwise you'll have a nightmare aligning the frames in PP or you'll need to find some software to do it. Is your suction mount up to the task?

4. Have you a plan for what to do wehen the CF card is full? (a) Need to look at camera from time to time so you know that it's about to fill up. (b) Need to be able to repalce camera on mount in exactly the same position.

5. Presumably you'll be using a grip. Even so, is battery power an issue?

6. One shot every 'x' seconds. Have you decided what 'x' is yet? Is it going to be a constant (which you could achieve with a programmable timer) or variable? If constant, you need to have 'x' small enough so that viewers can see the scenery changing smoothly; x=10 might be the way to go. (But that's 3-4,000 shots, based on a journey time of say 10-12 hours.) Alternatively you could vary x: take shots more frequently in towns and less frequently on the motorway. But that might be quite disconcerting for the viewer as they wouldn't get a sense of whether you're going fast or slow.

7. Manual focus or autofocus? I guess MF would be safer.

Have you done any trials? If I were you, I would. Make sure your setup works properly before you set off for Le Mans.

Good luck! I look forward to seeing the end product.

Good points Stewart, most of which I've agonised over repeatedly already. The pointing at the road I won't know til we get the van (day before we leave) and shouldn't be affected greatly by going up and down hill as obviously the camera will move with the vehicle and it's pretty difficult to get tarmac to vanish out of view completely...

Currently going for P mode and manual focusing at the moment, but despite previously saying I wouldn't get chance to do a trial run, I may get opportunity to do a quick test run, my timer remote turned up today. Works a treat. Regarding the mounting, the suction cup is VERY strong (held an XM2 camcorder safely on several ninja runs over the Snake Pass in hot hatches etc without movement for instance (1 hrs filming at a go)) but I do have a backup involving webbing straps and a tripod, and either will be mounted using the hex plates in the Manfrotto system so should allow me to place the camera accurately if removed. Tests have revealed I can get away with the small jpeg setting on my 5D and maintain sufficient resolution to make the video, which will equate to LOTS of files on the 4Gb cards I have. Batteries may be different but I do have eight batteries and can keep checking...

I'm bricking it about cocking this up, but think I have thought of anything that I can. Hope so!

Dave, yesterday I was in a Mercedes taxi, one of those big E-classes with the 'gunsight' logo/badge standing proud at the end of the bonnet, and for some reason I found myself thinking of your project. It must have been the way that the 'gunsight' was in a fixed position from my point of view as the road streamed past...

Anyway it occurred to me that metering is going to be very difficult for you. Firstly, if you want to spot-meter off the road, then you have to ensure that the centre of the frame is on the road. From my observations yesterday that means you'll probably have to aim it at a point just above the end of the bonnet, because any higher and you'll find yourself metering off the bumper of the car in front (nice and reflective!) as soon as you get into any traffic. But that means that nearly 50% of the frame is taken up by the interior of the car and the bonnet. I'm not sure if what's what you really want.

Also, I noticed that the colour of the road varies enormously. Quite a lot of tarmac is dark-ish grey (maybe 1 stop down from 18%?), but some is almost black, and some bits of road are beige/grey concrete which looks lighter than 18%. You could dial in EC whenever the road surface changes. Or... you might want to think about manual exposure. You'd probably want to change the exposure from time to time as the light varied, but that might be easier than compensating for changes in the road surface if you're doing any sort of auto exposure.

Hope this helps...

First off I'm flattered the project came into your head lol!

And secondly, you're correct. Erm...

Leaning towards Program mode and letting the camera sort itself out currently... Tests await hopefully.

manipula wrote in post #3323092
First off I'm flattered the project came into your head lol!

It's just jealousy. I'd love to do something like this. Next best thing, help someone else do it.

I would manually meter for the road during the day and leave it set. when you're in tunnels and such, let the camera see what you see...ie with the headlights. This way when your eyes see dark, the camera sees dark. When your eyes see daylight, your camera sees daylight. When you're only seeing the road lit by headlamps, the camera only sees the road lit by headlamps. "Artificial daylight" by setting proper exposure for nighttime would sorta kill the effect, IMHO.

One thought - instead of using reflected-light metering, think of using a handheld meter in incident mode to determine the available light for the general scene in front of you. Hold the meter outside the automobile and point the dome up at the sky. You might find that you want to use a slightly different setting than the meter tells you because one normally aims an incident meter at the camera and not at the sky. However, what you would get is a good reference for how bright the sky light is.

Make minor adjustments to the camera as the light source changes. Most motion pictures that I have thought about while watching don't appear to have rapidly changing exposure settings going on. For example, if you drive from direct sunlight into shade, the images should show that rather than suddenly change the mood and make the shade look like it was in direct sunlight.

The last two comments are very valid, however during a 12-14hr journey that meter setting from outside the van for ambient light will change numerous times surely?

manipula wrote in post #3324871
The last two comments are very valid, however during a 12-14hr journey that meter setting from outside the van for ambient light will change numerous times surely?

I don't think the light level changes would be that drastic unless you had radical and fast weather changes or were going from a wide-open countryside into a dense forest, for example. Even then I would want to vary the exposure slowly over several shots rather than making the video have exposure jumps in it.

You wouldn't have to get out of the car to take incident readings like I suggested. You could just hold the meter out the window while still rolling and take a reading with the dome pointed upward.

Once again, very true. I've spent most of this evening sorting and packing, but did set up the tripod looking out of our bedroom window to record sunset over the streets at the back of us. 1min gaps between shots. It's only a 5 sec clip but it worked well in this case just leaving it in 'P', the apertures and exposures changed between f/18 and f/2.8 and 1/2500 down to 3secs...

Unfortunately a web upload kills the point of it, and I don't have time to mess. I may get chance to nip out in my car and try something on Thurs, we'll see, things are very hectic! lol!

cdifoto wrote in post #3323246
I would manually meter for the road during the day and leave it set. when you're in tunnels and such, let the camera see what you see...ie with the headlights. This way when your eyes see dark, the camera sees dark. When your eyes see daylight, your camera sees daylight. When you're only seeing the road lit by headlamps, the camera only sees the road lit by headlamps. "Artificial daylight" by setting proper exposure for nighttime would sorta kill the effect, IMHO.

I 100% agree with this suggestion. Time lapse videos I have seen where the exposure is not set have this bright/dark/bright/dar​k flickering look that is disturbing to my eye. I think it would be pretty cool to watch the light of the day progress in the video as the time lapses.

BTW: A really great idea you have here. Please share your results when you are done. Since your source images will be high resolution, it would be great if you made a high def video. A 1200P divx would be amazing.