A Better Way to do Timelapses and Hyperlapses

For the uninitiated, a "hyperlapse" is a timelapse where the camera moves. I will just use the term timelapse since from a photography and videography perspective, they have the same challenges.

The usual way to create a timelapse is to take still photographs at a particular interval and then put these frames into a video format which will compress the time. For example, if a photo is taken every five seconds and then those frames are put into a video at 30 frames per second, 5 * 30 or 150 seconds, which is two and a half minutes, will be shown in one second. An hour of real time will be shown in 24 seconds of video time.

The problem with this is what videographers call the "shutter angle". Photographers talk about the "shutter time" such as 1/60th of a second. This is used to freeze or not freeze motion as well as one of the three variables a photographer has to play with to get the desired exposure. The other two being aperture and ISO.

Videographers talk about "shutter angle" however which relates to the percentage of time the shutter is open compared to the time that a single frame of the video is displayed. The reason "angle" is used rather than percentage has to do with how original film based equipment worked which I won't get into here. The other bit of history that is important is original films shown in theaters were shot at 24 frames per second and the shutter angle was always set to 180º out of a theoritical maxium of 360º. This implies that the shutter was open for half of the time. The other half of the time was consumed by moving the film to the next frame. These particular settings are often accused of being "cinematic" which has a lot of "love" by videographers. From what I gather, some of this is valid and some of it isn't. For me personally, I generally can not perceive nor appreciate the subtleties that the videographers talk about except in a few extreme cases. Part of what follows is experimental in the sense that I wanted to see if I could perceive any differences and part of it is to solve some general problems I have with timelapses.

Disclaimer: I don't consider myself a videographer and I actually don't even consider myself a photpgraher.

So lets finally get to the point of this post... When single frames that are usually exposed at a normal shutter speed of 1/60th or 1/2000th of a second (aka 1/60s) are bundled together into a video what today generally runs at 30 or 60 frames per second (fps) the effective shutter angle becomes absurdly small. In our original example where an image is captured every 5 seconds, the shutter is effectively 1.2º (360º * 1/60s / 5s). The result of this (which I can actually see myself) is a very jittery video. If you watch carefully at high speed football replies you will see the same effect. It is subtle but it does actually affect the emotional perceptions the viewer has.

One way to solve this is to use a very long exposure when the still images are taken. This generally requires the use of filters and it gets a little bit complicated but it is doable without too much effort but it is an extra obstacle that needs to be considered.

The real problem is the characteristics of the resulting timelapse are set in stone at the time the timelapse is taken. The amount of real time the timelapse will cover and the length in time of the resulting video needs to be determined ahead of time. Both of these are nearly impossible to determine ahead of time. A sunrise timelapse might start 30 minutes before the official time of sunrise but the clouds may be extremely interesting for another 15 minutes after -- or maybe not. And then the mood of the video might be best at a minute of run time or perhaps three minutes or maybe 15 minutes. The way the events unfold determines if the timelapse can hold a person's attention for longer or shorter times and this can't really be determined ahead of time.

The way to solve these problems is to not shoot still images originally but shoot a video instead. In the following example, I shot the video at 60 frames per second (60 fps) with a shutter of 1/60 or 360º. Modern digital cameras can achieve this. The footage was taken from a DJI Mavic 4 Pro drone. To be precise, the video is not at 60 fps but is actually at the NTSC's 59.94 fps according to ffmpeg (which I will subsequently describe).

ffmpeg is an open source tool that can process videos in countless different ways. It is actually a suite of tools but I'll just use ffmpeg to reference them unless I am providing a specific command with its arguments.

With ffmpeg, a sequence of frames can be merged and frames can be skipped. For example, if the original footage is shot at 60 fps for 30 minutes and the desire is for the timelapse to be just two and a half minutes long, that implies that 12 frames of the original footage is packed into one frame of the resulting timelapse. How to do this?

Here, most any shutter angle can be achieved. One frame can be put into the final video and then 11 frames skipped resulting in an effective shutter angle of 30º. Or 12 frames can be merged and no frames skipped resulting in an effective shutter angle of 360º. Or 6 frames can be merged with 6 frames being skipped resulting in a 180º shutter angle. Note as well that the "divide by 12" can be changed so the length of the resulting timelapse can be very short of just a few seconds or up to 15 minutes. The divisor must be an integer (2, 3, 4, ... 10, 11, ...) but that is the only constraint.

With the help of Claude, I wrote tl.sh which can produce a timelapse from a video allowing the user to specify the resulting length of the output video and the effective shutter angle. Currently the output frame rate matches the input's frame rate but I plan to make that change soon. I have used the script on a 35 minute piece of DJI footage that I reduced down to 2 minutes and 50 seconds or a 12 to 1 reduction in time. The original footage as well as timelapse videos at 0º (really 30º), 90º, 180º, and 360º have been produced as a sample and put into the Storm Clouds Timelaps Playlist on YouTube. Also, I pulled out and exploded the first frame of the timelapses showing a passing car and the effects of the merging of 1, 3, 6, and 12 frames.

I may come back and edit this a bit more but for now, I think this is fairly complete.

You must learn to not walk before you can learn to not crawl

Part 1:

The above thought came from my son. I share with him a lot of my struggles and this came to him. It seemed like a sign from God.

My feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and actions currently are not aligned. They are scattered. What I feel doesn't seem logical. Many of my thoughts are counter to my beliefs. And, I try to keep my actions sane and within bounds even while the other three attributes flutter around in the wind.

I often start my prayers with an admission to God how I feel and my current struggles even though He already knows all about them. In this instance I had a long list of things I was confused about: how I should treat, act, or react to various individuals, what I should be doing or not doing, what my feelings are trying to tell me, what various events, what I call "signs from God", were trying to indicate. I was resentful of this confusion. I should not feel this way I chastised.

Something reminded me that many biblical scriptures tell me to "be in the present", "trust God", and "follow His will". Since all of these are somewhat vague, feeling "confused" might be quite understandable. The feeling is uncomfortable to me because I'm not use to it; it is foreign to me. Thus, I might be exactly where I am suppose to be.

This is when my son replied with "You must learn to not walk before you can learn to not crawl".

Part 2:

As happens often, I woke up last night around 3 and didn't ever really go back to sleep. The following is what occurred to me during that time.

Part of my recent issues are that I feel like from 2008 to 2018 where lost and this feeling of a decade of my life "wasted" is part of why I feel envy and jealousy of others. In my value system, from 2000 to 2007 were productive. I assumed that it is because of all of the major trips I took during that time: Costa Rica in 2003, Tanzania in 2004, Bangladesh in 2005, and Antarctica in 2007. 2006 was when I did a lot of work writing some code trying to start a company. (All are earthly bound, egocentric accomplishments.)

But, it could also be that I feel those years were productive because I started my spiritual journey in 2000, I was in AA and many other 12 step programs, went to two counselors, and read a ton of self help, psychological, and spiritual type books. I look at that period of time as a very high growth and productive period of my life.

But from 2008 - 2018 I had no such memories. But as I lay there, slowly memories started to trickle back in.

The first is the 2008 economic down turn which cut my pay drastically. Until around 2014, I was living paycheck to paycheck more or less. The 2006 business adventure had left me $1M in debt. The 2008 down turn caused the banks to reevaluate credit standings so I could not refinance the debt. I would spend most of each weekend paying bills and carefully threading my way out of my financial quagmire.

During the 2007 trip, we were stuck on a boat for days at a time. I learned a new computer language used mostly to create web sites. In the 2008-2018 period, I used that to create four tools which helped me and my teammates in the work we did. They were each very key aids in our work. I also worked further on another tool whose origins go all the way back to 1985 but during the 2008-2018 period it reached new heights that I still can't really believe.

Thus, my earthly accomplishments are not as empty as I first perceived. And there is more.

I was rather depressed during this time but I still saw one of my counselors as a friend. We would meet once a week to talk and share. It still felt like counseling to me but to him I believe he felt it was friendship.

During this depression, I tried to force my way out of it by taking a road trip in 2016 but I drove into a dust storm on the first day and got congested. I spent most of the time in hotel rooms. I can describe horrific scenes during this illness and managed to struggle back home and recuperate for a week before returning to work. But I still wasn't healthy.

I was only about 75% healthy at best. I felt weak and sickly until the July 4th weekend in 2018 where I finally ended up in the hospital for a week to ten days with Sepsis. Again... I can describe absolutely horrific scenes from this time.

The other memory I have during this time is with my sleeping habits. This habit started in 2000 but I came to recognize it and value it most during the 2008-2018 time period.

Much like now, I would consistently wake up around 3 a.m. but unlike recently I would enjoy the time. Meditation is trying to control the mind to not think or to focus on your breathing or a mantra. What I did instead was the exact opposite. I would allow my mind to go play. It would scamper around childlike from thought to thought, memory to memory, some good, some bad.

Meanwhile, "I" would be watching how each of these mental activities affected my feelings. If something didn't match up, I was able to call halt to the play. Back up the "tape", and reply it asking "what is causing me to feel this way?". My counselor strongly discouraged asking "why". "Why" is too vague. "What" (as precisely as you can possibly determine) "is causing this feeling?" Doing this activity allowed me to discover many somewhat hidden issues I still had within myself.

All this to say that by the time the alarm clock went off in the morning, I had determined that from 2008-2018 I was still growing spiritually even though I didn't recognize it at first. Much of spiritual growth is about humility and becoming humble. I view depression as being part of that process. Depression is giving up false self images for more accurate real images. They still may not be 100% accurate. Indeed, I doubt we ever achieve such. But they are more accurate, more honest, more sincere.

I also view the anxiety I have had over the past six years in the same way. For me, the anxiety has been far harder than the depression but I feel confident that I have been growing the whole time. Admitting in a far more honest way how dependent I am upon God for even the tiniest things in life.

God bless you all

Word Power

Excerpt From
The Language of Letting Go
Melody Beattie
September 3

I know I’m controlling, but so is my husband. Possibly more controlling than I am. Each time I set out to leave him, each time I started to walk away, he knew exactly what to say to pull me back in. And he knew I’d respond. He knew how to say exactly what I needed to hear to keep me where he wanted me. He knew what he was doing, and he knew what I would do. I know, because after we began recovering, he told me so. —ANONYMOUS

Some of us are so vulnerable to words.

A well-timed “I love you.” A chosen moment for “I’m sorry.” An excuse delivered in the right tone of voice. A pat on the head. A dozen roses. A kiss. A greeting card. A few words that promise love that has yet to be delivered can spin us into denial. Sometimes, it can keep us denying that we are being lied to, mistreated, or abused.

There are those who deliberately set out to sway us, to control and manipulate us through cheap talk! They know, they fully understand our vulnerability to a few well-timed words! Break through your naiveté. They know what they’re doing. They understand their impact on us!

We do not have to give such power to words, even though the words may be just what we want and need to hear, even though they sound so good, even though the words seem to stop the pain.

Sooner or later, we will come to realize that if behavior doesn’t match a person’s words, we are allowing ourselves to be controlled, manipulated, deceived. Sooner or later, we will come to realize that talk is cheap, unless the person’s behavior matches it.

We can come to demand congruency in the behavior and the words of those around us. We can learn to not be manipulated, or swayed, by cheap talk.

We cannot control what others do, but we can choose our own behaviors and our own course of action. We do not have to let cheap, well-timed talk control us—even if the words we hear are exactly what we want to hear to stop our pain.

Today, I will let go of my vulnerability to words. God, help me trust myself to know the truth, even when I am being deceived. Help me cherish those relationships where there is congruity. Help me believe I deserve congruity and truth in the behavior and the words of those I care about.

Denial

Excerpt From
The Language of Letting Go
Melody Beattie
August 31

I’ve been recovering many years. I’ve used denial many times. It has been a defense, a survival device, a coping behavior, and, at times, almost my undoing. It has been both a friend and an enemy.

When I was a child, I used denial to protect myself and my family. I protected myself from seeing things too painful to see and feelings too overwhelming to feel. Denial got me safely through many traumatic situations, when I had no other resources for survival.

The negative aspect of using denial was that I lost touch with myself and my feelings. I became able to participate in harmful situations without even knowing I was hurting. I was able to tolerate a great deal of pain and abuse without the foggiest notion it was abnormal.

I learned to participate in my own abuse.

Denial protected me from pain, but it also rendered me blind to my feelings, my needs, and myself. It was like a thick blanket that covered and smothered me.

Eventually I began to recover. I had a glimpse of awareness about my pain, my feelings, my behaviors. I began to see myself, and the world, as we were. There was so much denial from my past that had the blanket been entirely ripped from me, I would have died from the shock of exposure. I needed to embrace insights, remembrances, awareness, and healing gently, gradually.

Life participated in this process with me. It is a gentle teacher. As I recovered, I was brought to the incidents and people I needed in order to remind me of what I was still denying, to tell me where I required more healing from my past, as I could handle these insights.

I still use, and break through, denial—as needed. When the winds of change blow through, upsetting a familiar structure and preparing me for the new, I pick up my blanket and hide, for a while. Sometimes, when someone I love has a problem, I hide under the blanket, momentarily. Memories emerge of things denied, memories that need to be remembered, felt, and accepted so I can continue to become healed—strong and healthy.

Sometimes, I feel ashamed about how long it takes me to struggle through to acceptance of reality. I feel embarrassed when I find myself again clouded by the fog of denial.

Then something happens, and I see that I am moving forward. The experience was necessary, connected, not at all a mistake, but an important part of healing.

It’s an exciting process, this journey called recovery, but I understand I may sometimes use denial to help me get through the rough spots. I’m also aware that denial is a friend, and an enemy. I’m on the alert for danger signs: those cloudy, confused feelings . . . sluggish energy . . . feeling compulsive . . . running too fast or hard . . . avoiding support mechanisms.

I’ve gained a healthy respect for our need to use denial as a blanket to wrap ourselves in when we become too cold. It isn’t my job to run around ripping people’s blankets off or shaming others for using the blanket. Shaming makes them colder, makes them wrap themselves more tightly in the blanket. Yanking their blanket away is dangerous. They could die of exposure, the same way I could have.

I’ve learned the best thing I can do around people who are wrapped in this blanket is to make them feel warm and safe. The warmer and safer they feel, the more able they are to drop their blanket. I don’t have to support or encourage their denial. I can be direct. If others are in denial about a particular thing, and their activity is harmful to me, I don’t have to be around them. I can wish them well and take care of myself. You see, if I stand too long around someone who is harming me, I will inevitably pick up my blanket again.

I tend to be attracted to warm people. When I’m around warm people, I don’t need to use my blanket. I’ve gained respect for creating warm environments, where blankets are not needed, or at least not needed for long. I’ve gained trust in the way people heal from and deal with life.

God, help me be open to and trust the process that is healing me from all I have denied from my past. Help me strive for awareness and acceptance, but also help me practice gentleness and compassion for myself—and others—for those times I have used denial.

Walking the red trail at Wilco Park

I came up with this idea and, at the time, I thought it would be really cool. It turned out pretty much like I assumed but at this point, I am somewhat dubious about the concept.

The idea is to display this on your big screen t.v., sit back, listen to the gentle music, and take a virtual walk down a trail. But, is anyone really going to want to do that for a half hour? I guess we'll see.

The trail is marked as the red trail at "Wilco Park" whose official name is Southwest Williamson County Regional Park located in Leadner.

I will am interested in feedback on this. I hope you enjoy it.

Take care and God bless

More Flowers at Devine Lake Park and a few critters as well

Different lens ... Yeah! 😀 So I was able to get a decent image of the "Large Milkweed Bug" and the dragonfly.

I don't have much to add. I hope you enjoy the images and have a glorious day!

Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery

As a change of pace, I decided to go shoot flowers today. "The Pond Place", as I call it, has a lot of flowers around it and before it opens it is a nice quiet place to photograph flowers and the critters that visit. To really capture the critters though, I need (you guessed it) a different lens. So, that will be a project in a few days most likely.

I did capture a butterfly that Google says is a Cloud Skipper using its extremely long proboscis to get pollen.

I hope you enjoy the images.