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.