Around the World in 80 Days

For some reason, I thought that the balloon ride at the Wild Animal Park would be a good subject for a time-lapse video. It was a tethered helium balloon that had a cage suspended beneath it for passengers to ride in. I thought the gentle swaying of the balloon at the top of its cable would look like a wild, E Ticket attraction when the action got sped up.

I never got the chance to make that video. They took the balloon ride away "for maintenance."

Now, there is no longer a "Wild Animal Park." It is now called the "San Diego Zoo Safari Park." And they have recently opened a new balloon attraction!

So, today I burned a vacation day (I have reached my maximum accrual) and dragged my camera, tripod and intervalometer to the Safari Park.

I recorded two ascents of the balloon. For the first ascent, I set up on the wooden walkway by the very popular lion exhibit. The walkway isn't the most stable surface to set up a camera. When people walked by, the camera would shake. When strollers went by, the camera would really shake. But, somehow the shaking isn't noticeable in the video.

I moved to solid ground for the second ascent.

As I was shooting the first segment, a large colony of vultures was circling in the distance. They show up at around 0:18 into the video. They're below the balloon, to the right of the cable.

As I was shooting the second segment, a very pretty sun dog appeared in the clouds. It appears to the left of the balloon as it is rising (at around 0:41).

In addition to those features, I was lucky to have nice, wispy clouds adding to the action. And there are the park visitors wandering around.

Whether the balloon itself is an interesting subject, well, that's up to you to decide. There was almost no breeze so there wasn't much swaying at the top of the rise.

Watching in HD is best!

Update: I went back and got a third ascent and replaced the video.



Now, I just need to clean my lens. Those spots are annoying.

Days and Clouds

I got a new tool for making my time-lapse videos!

I had wanted to add motion to my time-lapse videos but thought equipment to move the camera slowly while my intervalometer snapped pictures would be out of my reach.

A month ago, the Astronomy Picture of the Day was the video Namibian Nights (click on that link and watch the video before going further). (Go ahead, this will be here when you get back.) The video seems to have been created as a bit of advertising for the video's creator's tour business. It's very impressive. And pretty.

The video's description of on Vimeo gave me the name of the dolly they used for the motion. Googling it, I found the dolly and found that I could afford it. After watching their instructional videos, I decided that I probably could actually use the thing.

It's a Stage Zero Dolly from Dynamic Perception.

A really nice thing about this dolly is that the controller of the dolly's motion is also the intervalometer that triggers the camera. It is very flexible. It will be great for my nighttime videos. I can't wait till I get an opportunity to try that out.

The day after it was delivered I took it to the Oceanside Pier where I had made some earlier videos. This new video has a segment where we watch people walk up and down the pier. Today, Jerry and I went up Palomar Mountain to get some videos featuring another round of clouds.

It was a very windy day. For the first bit on the mountain I had the dolly's track on two tripods. I had a very difficult time getting it all set up. As I was getting one tripod set up, the other would collapse. Repeatedly. Part of the problem is that the tripods are made for lightweight cameras. The dolly plus the camera is a bit heavier that the tripods were built for. Then, once things were finally going, the wind came up and jostled the setup.

Note to self: get sturdier tripods.
Note two: before striking out for a nighttime shoot, get more practice setting things up. Night is not the time to learn how to assemble complicated instruments.

Here is my first video that uses my new doodad.

Here's a picture of the dolly carrying the camera up the track capturing one of the video's segments. I used only one of the tripods for this segment. The lower end's legs are sitting on a rock.

Wherever I go with it people ask what it is. I'm sure in addition to the size of the contraption that the pretty blue track gets people's attention.