Timelapse video of Phrag Ainsworthii

[Achamore]

I shot this sequence in January 2012 over 7.5 days, with the shots taken every 90 seconds. You'll see that it is also rotating. I had a turntable specially made that turns very very slowly, pausing for certain brief intervals, then making very slight movements, so I could shoot while it was not turning and get good clear shots. This is the first one I made that combined rotation and timelapse. Hope you like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBOWxFtVlEA&feature=youtu.be

Two stills from the sequence of shots:

 

[My Green Pets]

Outstanding!

I'd like to know about this turntable. I've been looking for some kind of rotating display table for making 360° video clips / gif's of flowers.

 

[eggshells]

Thanks for sharing. Any instructions on the turntable?

 

[Achamore]

Turntable

I'll have to dig out that info. They aren't cheap, about £1,200. But they would work well for 360 views of blooms. I did a few of those with it.

Outstanding!

I'd like to know about this turntable. I've been looking for some kind of rotating display table for making 360° video clips / gif's of flowers.

 

[eggshells]

Wow! 1200 euros. I think will make a one with Lazy Susan bearings.

 

[eaborne]

Fantastic!

 

[mrhappyrotter]

How did you get the flower to wilt before falling off the spike? Usually they just show up on the floor looking perfectly healthy and vibrant, very odd to see one clinging to the spike for so long.

 

[SlipperFan]

Very cool.

 

[abax]

It's magic...a lot of work kind of magic. That's wonderful
Don. I was also captivated by the flower slowly dying and
being replaced by a new flower. As happyrotter said, I
usually find old blooms lying on the bench in fine fettle.

 

[Ozpaph]

very interesting and great technology.
could you edit out that cable that passes by?

 

[Achamore]

I have no idea why the older bloom didn't do the usual thing and drop when it looked fine. Maybe its because the room where the shooting took place was devoid of all drafts? The room has to be completely blacked out so the only light is from the artificial lights I set up.

That's not a cable going around, its another bloom spike. I didn't want to cut it before the shoot, as it was still producing blooms. I knew it would be a slight irritant in the video, but I couldn't bring myself to cut it... Sorry! And editing it out would entail so many hours, I just couldn't face even trying. This sequence has just under 7,000 photos in it, and I would have to remove that spike from about a third. Anyone care to carefully edit 2,000+ photos for me..??

 

[Achamore]

I ended up only paying about £750 for the turntable, as I persuaded them to charge me cost for this prototype. But they told me it would normally sell for roughly £1,200. It was made by an engineer who works part time for a major British turntable company. They more commonly build the turntables you might see a car sitting on at Heathrow, slowly rotating; or a mannequin in a shop, rotating on one of their turntables.

I wasn't entirely happy with this prototype, for a couple of reasons. The main one is that, as you can see in the TL video, the rotation is not completely uniform and smooth. There were places in the turning circle when it would slow down. Of course this would be almost impossible to see with the naked eye in realtime. The video is showing time passing about a thousand times faster than in reality. The engineer was surprised to hear my report of this fault, but clearly the parameters of their normal work were much rougher than the very fine parameters I would have liked to have seen.

The other big challenge, and not their fault, is that you have to have a base robust enough to take weights sitting off center. Most orchids don't grow with the bloom spikes appearing right in the middle and going straight up! So you have to position the pot very carefully in just the right spot so that the bloom or bud you are trying to shoot stays in the center, revolving but not moving from side to side. And the heavier the plant / pot the more challenging it becomes. My turntable is 46cm diameter (18").

 

[Achamore]

Have left a message with the engineer who built the turntable, and will let you know what he says once I speak with him.

 

[cnycharles]

How did you get the flower to wilt before falling off the spike? Usually they just show up on the floor looking perfectly healthy and vibrant, very odd to see one clinging to the spike for so long.

You see, our enterprising friend has just helped us make a discovery that phrag flowers would fall off normally if it weren't for those darned pixies who love causing such a stir by snipping fresh flowers . Since they didn't know that the camera wasn't on all the time they didn't dare expose themselves to the outside world and the flower dried up normally


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Achamore]

Just had a long chat with the engineer who made the turntable. A new one should not be as expensive as I first mentioned, as the company I approached can simply be left out on this, and anyone who would like to discuss getting a turntable could deal direct with Stuart himself, so no middleman putting a markup on top of his costs.

He knows the weaknesses of the one he made for me, and knows how to resolve those. I wish I could think of buying his new version, it would rekindle my interest in the timelapse work..! But there's no chance of me getting back to that at this point, as my wife and I are up to our eyeballs with a new venture (making ice cream with the milk from her cows). But I am sure that a new version turntable from Stuart would be pretty darned wonderful.

 

[SlipperFan]

You see, our enterprising friend has just helped us make a discovery that phrag flowers would fall off normally if it weren't for those darned pixies who love causing such a stir by snipping fresh flowers . Since they didn't know that the camera wasn't on all the time they didn't dare expose themselves to the outside world and the flower dried up normally


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

:rollhappy: Darn pixels!