As I have mentioned before, timelapse movies fascinate me and one of my latest projects was about recording the life (and death) of an (Orange Ton) Asiatic Lily in the summer of 2021.
The allure of a timelapse movie, or even a hyperlapse one, is unbeatable, particularly if they are related to landscape and time. The sun rises, the clouds soar past, it rains, it snows, the wind gushes and the sun sets. It goes on and on until you stop the camera. It is looking at life, the passage of time in fast motion.
My Tryst with Timelapse
For a while I have tried to do timelapse. Initially, I tried to take photos of changing landscape everyday and then stitch but it did not work out as I expected it to.
Then came the camera/action cams with timelapse features. A few weeks ago, I had created and posted a video on the life and times of a zinnia plant, which I had recorded in the summer. It was not the best production, and I realized a trail cam is a different kind of beast for a timelapse movie.
Trail cameras certainly work better in low light conditions but for whatever reason I saw that the lens was moving.
The Time-Lapse Movie on the Life of an Asiatic Lily
While I was recording the zinnia, I also set up another camera, this time an action cam, to record the annual dance of the orange and red ton Asiatic lilies in my front yard. Every year, around June they start budding, then blooming before succumbing to the next stage in their path - shriveling and dying. And then start all over again the next year.
After more than a month of recording I went through the video clips.
Visually it was half beautiful. The blooming was indeed so fascinating, no doubt about it. But when the petals shriveled and finally fell to the ground, it just happened in a blitz second. If the blooming was magical, the shriveling was anticlimactic.
And I had my usual problem - the flicker or the jitter - of the plant that can be a sore to the eye. I tried various settings but managed to make it smoother only so much.
Hopefully, next year I will have come up with better settings.
