I had planned on flying over the top of the Sugar Creek Timber near my home yesterday but the wind was kicked up over 15 MPH and I could feel some extra gusting at ground level.  But I wanted to fly and it was a Saturday.  So I waited  until the wind was around 12 MpH (about 5 PM) but I could still feel the occasional gusting at ground level so instead of doing the timber flyover I decided to just fly off my driveway and see if I could get some time lapse footage since I have never tried it.

I flew out over the corn field and put the bird in atti mode to check the wind (17 MPH) from the East and then switched back to P-GPS and turned the camera to the Northeast because I thought it would be neat to see the Interstate traffic as well as the cloud movement in the time lapse.  I set the height at 140' (next time It needs to be higher maybe 250 ft so the foreground does not appear to move as much).  I set the camera to fire every 5 seconds.   Then I started the process by pressing the button on the RC.   


I tried to use my GoPro Studion to process the folder with the images into a time lapse video but I could not get it to work.  The video just came out blank.  But I also had VideoPad so I used it to create the time lapse and it seemed to work well.  Here it is.  Nothing special as the conditions were not perfect and I was too low.  It is only 7 seconds long (I wasted too much time in Atti checking the wind before I started).


Here is the result:  My Time Lapse Video

And after stabilizing with Premier Pro  Thanks @Kit

I see what you mean by being choppy!  But cool non the less.  Where in the world is it that you live?  

noticon75 Posted at 2015-9-27 09:26
I see what you mean by being choppy!  But cool non the less.  Where in the world is it that you live ...

Central Illinois.  That is Interstate 55.   It would have also been better with a little less cloud cover as the ground was mostly in shade instead of the other way around so you would see the clouds moving in the shadows.   Just get it set up and press the button.  Then wait as long as you can before clicking the button again to stop the process and land the bird.   Just standing around watching the battery level is the hardest part.

wao... attempt tripod in the air... so you can record 17.5 mins ? if i calucurate based on 30fps for edit.   

nabesarawak Posted at 2015-9-27 09:58
wao... attempt tripod in the air... so you can record 17.5 mins ? if i calucurate based on 30fps for ...

Only 73 photos in this time lapse sequence.  One every 5 seconds.  But during playback to make the sequence I had to use 10 FPS as that was as low as VideoPad would let me go.  So 7.3 Seconds is how it turned out.  I only had about 6 minutes to do the time lapse after I wasted some time in Atti figuring out the wind speed and direction.   I should have came back after I figured out the wind speed and put another battery in and then performed the time lapse.  But this was just a test to see how it would work.

Sir Edward K Posted at 2015-9-27 23:15
Only 73 photos in this time lapse sequence.  One every 5 seconds.  But during playback to make the  ...

No wonder.... I see 10fps... Lets try again..  looking forward to see your timelapse in the air. Good luck.

VERY interesting!    I do like the cloud shadows zipping along the ground, the traffic popping in and out  looks  SCIFI ish.

Way cool. I want to do this with the morning fog.., 3 batteries.., and a fixed waypoint to return to. Quickly change batteries and get back up. Try and get almost an hour footage.

Sir: You can use motion tracking to stabilise the footage in Premiere or final cut.
There are some very easy video tutorials on the web for premiere, and Final Cut has some great built-in (online) tutorials.
Just pick a few pixels you'd like to remain steady.., and the program does the rest. You'll just have to fix a few frames manually sometimes, but very easy.
I'm not very happy with the still images from my P3P. Terrible quality.
I'm wondering whether it's just better to shoot at 4k, and choose individual frames for a photo. The quality seems much much better.
Well.., providing I am not after a particular affect only a still image can create (I.e. 30sec shutter speed).

Kit Walker Posted at 2015-9-27 15:26
Way cool. I want to do this with the morning fog.., 3 batteries.., and a fixed waypoint to return to ...

You are reading my thoughts about using waypoints.   I would probably set 2 and have it hover at the end then pick my focus point with the camera center overlay turned on.  I have three batteries also and it should not be too bad as long as you can get the bird down and back up fairly quick.   

Thanks for the tips about motion tracking.  I will have to read up on that.   I have created time lapse with My Gopro camera by filming in 4k and having the software use every so many frames and it came out very well at an outdoor birthday party.  So I will have to try that sometime as well.  I am sure it will work.  But right now I have a hard time working with the 4K videos I am going to have to build me a new PC with nice video card and 4K monitor to help me with Editing 4K videos.   I never run out of things to try.

Sir Edward K Posted at 2015-9-28 06:57
You are reading my thoughts about using waypoints.   I would probably set 2 and have it hover at th ...

I figured you'd be thinking that way already
I need to build a decent PC too. Maybe 2 graphics cards....

Forgot to mention that image stabilisation will reduce the overall resolution, just because it needs to delete the edges that aren't being used. That's what made me think 4k would be good.., because you could just pick and choose where you want your 1080 footage to be on a large
4096 screen (if that makes sense).

As much as I love Final Cut.., I do really like After Effects too.
Here's some vids for AE.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kc7wPh6dKfs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QxL8EvgXJj8

Kit Walker Posted at 2015-9-27 16:36
I figured you'd be thinking that way already  
I need to build a decent PC too. Maybe 2 graphics ...

I started playing around with this a bit to see what I could do with the motion tracker / stabilizer using Premier Pro and I could not get it and I think I would need to use After Effects in order to do what I want.   So I would need to get Premier Pro and After Effects to use this all the time?   Wish it would work in Premier Pro.  I hate the monthly rent instead of just owning the software.  Everything is going this way now.

Sir Edward K Posted at 2015-9-29 05:01
I started playing around with this a bit to see what I could do with the motion tracker / stabiliz ...

Yes. I do remember using a simpler built in version a while ago. Came with one of the newer versions.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs6-cr ... n-premiere-pro-cs6/-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u_JJne6o5g0

Kit Walker Posted at 2015-9-28 15:45
Yes. I do remember using a simpler built in version a while ago. Came with one of the newer version ...

Fantastic!  Thanks for your help.  I just learned a heck of a lot in a couple hours messing with some nested layers in order to apply the warp and the speed.   I think it made it look a lot better.   Higher next time and a little less wind (it was about 17 MPH plus the gusts).

Here is version after the warp.  (I used position, scale and rotation).
Time Lapse after stabilizing with Premiere Pro