Time Lapse Photography Over a Year... Forth (Rail) Bridge

captures.in.time

captures.in.time

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Hi all

As some of you know I work on the Forth (Rail) Bridge for the maintenance contractor.

Our client is interested in carrying out a time lapse photograph of our progress over a year... for archive purposeses.

We thought one photograph per week would be enough to capture a nice jump in progress and then run it as a movie one after the other.

What would be the best way to carry out this task??? Could we simply set up a camera on a tripod on the road bridge once a week and take a photo... same spot, same set up height, same settings, focus infinity, f11???

In reality this would be time consuming for staff to do on the bridge and would prob become a bit of a weekly chore that would get forgotten...

Does anyone know of any companies in the central scotland area who may offer this service... or if we where to do this ourselves do you have any tips on best practice?

M
 
I don't really have much advice but I think you should jump at the chance of taking some shots at work! :)
 
I'd be tempted to set up a CCTV camera and DVR (but thats just because i'm surrounded by them at work) and set it to record at the same time each day (or possibly 4 or 5 times a day to make sure there were enough frames).

Its easier if its fully automated but then you run into security problems with the gear.
 
Theres loads to factor in here even before a price
First the camera would have to be hidden away from thieves and the workers otherwise you would end up with a million portraits of "full moon from contractors or no camera" so a higher position is advised and not a tripod as you will never get the same spot again, secondly as to not disturb the setup maybe an external power source to the camera and third a cover for the camera as its going to be out in all conditions so sides rear and above covered then you can factor in the cost of the camera and lens as it will not be any old camera it will be a camera used daily so whilst its doing this the tog wont be doing anymore shooting unless they are using a spare body/lens then theres the actual time the tog has to retreive the shots and process.......it all adds up to a hell of a lot and into thousands of pounds in real terms
 
Something like a wireless/networked cctv camera - that way you could setup the camera and capture the images remotely onto a PC?

Setting up the tripod each time is going to mean you get lots of movement in your end video.
 
Work out how long you want the 'movie' to run for and how many images per second this will give the total number of images required, then divide by 365 days.

So, a 3 minute movie is 360 seconds, 4 images per second = 1440 images

1440/365 = 3.94....so on that basis 1 image every 6 hours.
 
If you only took one shot every week your film would last less than 2 seconds at 30 frames per second. Even one a day would only last 12 seconds.

I think that to make it work you should look for 3 daylight shot every day which would be 122 shots in the year and would play for 40 seconds. You could set a camera to shoot every 8 hours, but you'd then have shots taken in the dark which wouldn't look so good, so some adjustments would have to be made. I'd suggest just after dawn, at noon and just before sundown.

As for who could do this for you, I've no idea, but many DSLRs have a time lapse feature so you could do it yourself. You would have to house it in a weather proof box and I'd say that it would have to be checked daily at least.
 
A lot of the Ixus range also hve an intervalometer. Have you thought of getting in touch with Canon to see if they want to sponsor it - after all it sounds like a pretty major maintenence task and would be good publicity for them.
 
I saw a thing on tv where they where checking how fast the polar ice caps where melting, they had D3x's setup inside a steel box with solar panels to keep it powered, and i think they said the camera had had time lapse software in the firmware, On another note i have no idea where you could get this but thought i would give you the heads up.
 
A lot there to think about... certainly more than I thought in terms of amount of photos but i've never done anything like that before...

Anyone know of any companies within central scotland area who do this... It's far more than we could take on at a site level!
 
If you're determined to use a DSLR then you can get a power cord to avoid using batteries and then add an intervalometer in the form of a grip or remote with one built in.
Or use the OnOne iPhone remote which can also do timelapse.
 
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