When Recording Clouds...
 

...What is the trick? I have been thinking and thinking for a few days, and I just can't find a good way to do it!

I am trying to capture clouds disappearing/appearing.

As far as gear goes, I have an Elura 100, one battery, and one tape for the shoot, nothing more as of yet.

The sooner I get information the better (the rain is about to come back). Thank you very much for taking your time to read/reply.
~Gabriel

A technique that I've used goes like this:

Set up the camera on a nice piece of sky. Hit record and walk away for an hour (or however long your tape is).

Now, set up a batch capture list that will add five minutes of video, skip five minutes and record the next five.

But the five minutes segments on your timeline and put a one minute dissolve between 'em.

Pick and choose places you like and speed 'em up or use 'em as is.

What you are referring to is time lapse photography whereby one or more frames are taken every few seconds or minutes. Some cameras have this feature built in. If yours does not, use the advice Andy gave you or, use a firewire capture to a laptop using software as the time lapse recorder.

-gb-

Also, if you shoot into the wind I think you get a better chance of watching the clouds grow or fade away then if the clouds are moving across your field of vision. It looks cooler too. :)

Let me see if I can find some footage I shot this weekend of the clouds coming at me and I'll post a link.

Good point, Kevin. But remember, winds aloft are often from a different direction than what you experience at ground level. You might have to observe the clouds a bit to determine direction, or learn to read aviation forecasts.

-gb-

I usually watch the clouds in relation to an object on the ground like a tree etc to see which way they are moving.

Here's a little QuickTime file of some clouds I recorded this weekend for UWOL#2
I tried to upload it to the site but after about 1o minutes waiting for this 1/2 meg file to upload I gave up.

So, here's the link:
http://www.iowafilmmaker.com/Clouds.mov

Ok, thank you guys! I'll try and play around with these ideas.

Yeah, I plan on doing this for the UWOL#2 also.

Thats good footage, thanks for shearing that.

Should I worry about zoom? I only have a 20X on my Elura. Should I rush to the store to get a telephoto lens for it? Also, do I need any filters? Like an ND or Circular Polarizer?

Thanks for the help guys!
~Gabriel

Gabriel,
That clip I posted was as wide as the HVX would go. So, no real need for allot of zoom.

If you go wide and use a polarizer you'll get varying degrees of polarization. So, some of your scene will be very dark blue and other parts lighter as it is less polarized.

The clip I posted is just the plain old regular HVX lens with no filters.
Even with nothing on, you can still see part of the sky is darker.

Thats great! Thanks alot Kevin.
Now its time to go sit in the sun and wait for the clouds to come (I never thought I would say that).....

Thanks guys!
~Gabriel

Gabrial,

I shoot clouds and sunsets any time they look good. I shoot at regular fame rate. I then just compress the clip in post (really easy to do). I have taken as much as an hour of footage and compressed it into minutes and it looks just fine.

Thats sounds really neat Dale, thanks.

I have yet to find that "ahhh" moment, so I am still waiting for it to come.

Thanks for the info!
~Gabriel

Gabriel,

To get the really good sets you have to be out shooting all the time so your are actually out there when the majic happens. I am out 5 or6 evenings a week from sept 1 till february 28. then in spring I only go out two or three evenings a week. From Last spet1 til feb 27 I spent 107 afternoons til dusk. I do not shoot every day but we are out looking. I keep a journal so I know that is dead accurate. this winter did not have the skies that we saw last year. Northern lights were weak this year too, interesting. for sunsets May and then sept, Oct seem to give me the best skies.

I will look through my log book and see if I can post a clip on this thread.

Absolutely use a polarizer! It's an amazing filter for getting clouds on tape. Get a circular polarizer and spin it and you will see a huge difference in the color and the detail.

What do you use all that footage for??