Archived entries for Time Lapse Process

Time Lapse Units

Each of the time lapse units is constructed with a weatherproof box which holds a camera, and a timing mechanism which is programmed to take a photograph every 15 min to an hour depending on the selected subject.  On top of each unit is a solar panel which ensures any camera can remain on its subject for months to years.  The cameras shoot day and night and are programed to capture 6MP photographs.  While this is well beyond the needs of any high definition film making today, the images are meant to stand the advances in technology so they may be used  in future.

Time Lapse Unit at Work

Time Lapse Unit at Work

Editing the Footage

At this point, I have footage from about a dozen different plants.  Each has about 10,000 images. The cameras are programmed to take a picture every 15 minutes for plants and once every hour for trees (i.e. grapefruit).  All of the footage is downloaded and copied to 3 separate hard drives for what they call in the engineering world, “redundancy“.  After going through all the footage and removing the photos taken during the night, I upload them into Final Cut Pro, a video editing program.  That is when the fun begins, if you like tedious, slow tasks that someone professional could do in a 1/10 of the time.  Nonetheless, I go through all of the footage and adjust for any camera movement that happened during the 4-7 months of each plants life.  It is actually quite gratifying, it is like a secret world has been revealed of these vegetables lives and you discover all the small details that go unnoticed even from a farmer that has been growing each of the plants for years.

squash ground view

squash ground view

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