The common misconception about LA is that it’s sunny and temperate all year around, with majestic sunsets every evening. While these days are normally plentiful, the are periods during the year, mostly May and June, where the Marine Layer drifts in for weeks at a time blocking the sun with a dull hazy greyness. 2010 was one of the worst. We experienced “May Grey” and “June Gloom” all year, it seemed.

For this reason this video went from a simple timelapse to test to an epic that crossed several months. I kept my camera and Satechi intervalometer at the ready for evenings that burned the sky with gradients if red and gold, mixed with wispy clouds.

My timelapse package consists of my Canon 7D, Satechi intervalometer, old Bogen Tripod, slider, and ipod. (the iPod is used to keep the boredom at bay while I wanted for my setup to catch the action, which can take prolonged periods.)

At first I would set the shutter to whatever was a convenient setting to give me a clean exposure with plenty of Depth-of-Field. While I was reasonably pleased with the results, but it was not a smooth as the incredible work posted on Vimeo. My first mistake was not going full manual. You have to set up the camera on full manual to keep it either hunting for exposure, shutter speed and focus. Make sure you lens is on manual focus and the camera settings are on “Manual” so the camera takes in a consistent shot and let’s nature set the exposure. After all, the exposure changes are what timelapse is all about.

I try to keep the ISO settings around 160 to reduce grain, although this is less of problem on the newer camera’s like the Canon 7D and 5D.

This changes got my timelapse to look legit, but it when I discovered the secretes to dragging the shutter, my timelapse imagery moved to a whole different level. “Dragging the Shutter” is a photography term that means simply the exposure time is fired in relation to the shutter speed.

In motion picture film cameras the angle of the shutter can be adjusted to control motion blur. The Shutter angles controls the amount of time the film is exposed during each frame of the recording interval. Every frame is exposed for 1/24th of a second. But really only half the time it’s exposed to light (1/48th of a second). The other half the film is behind the shutter. Adjusting the shutter angle on a film camera (if its design allows) can add or reduce the amount of motion blur by changing the amount of time that the film frame is actually exposed to light. A “Tight” shutter create a stuttering effect, like the battle scenes from Saving Private Ryan, Where as a “Loose” shutter allows one frame to blue into the other creating a smooth action.

How does this translate to still photography?  Timelapse is created by sequencing a series of still images into a cohesive motion picture. The goal is to mimic the control of the cinema shutter angle through exposure compensation. Long exposures will approximate the effects of a “normal” shutter angle, providing a smooth transition from one frame to another when the sequence it built in post-production.

The “real world” translation of all of this is to simply shoot a slow shutter speed to get smooth movement. I found my polarizer worked well enough to allow me to slow the shutter to a 60th for a 1 second interval.

This video is composed of shots over the course of several months. As my skills improved I dropped previous sequences for new ones. I did leave some with a slight stutter because the range of movement looked interesting and added variety to the piece.  Ultimately, I completed the project and composed the finished video. It’s been well received on Vimeo which is cool and make the long wait times worth it.

My settings follow below:

• Manual focus
  50mm prime lens
  24-105 Zoom
  Single shot setting
  Manual ISO
  Manual Aperture.
  Large JPEG, only because I want cropping capability for 1080p.
  Standard picture style [try landscape next time]
  Auto light optimizer disabled
  1 second for fast moving clouds.
  1/60th of a second to slightly drag the shutter on a 1 second interval.

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I used my two Chimera sofboxes as dual keys and a gridded 4020 has the back light. On the side I setup up a single remote strobe and umbrella to grab some shots using the Canon 7D’s remote ETTL flash capability.

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