Time lapse of bud growth/opening

[Seapy]

Not quite sure where to put this, there doesn't seem to be a 'photography' section.

I have a small bay tree, Laurus nobilis, it has just started to burst it's leader bud, first growth of the year.  I am anticipating it will burst and grow a little stem.  I would like to photograph this and make a time-lapse sequence/movie.

It's a very slow process, may take a month or even more.  Has any one any tips for this.  I am expecting to use my D300S and Nikkor micro 55mm f/2.8 lens.  The camera has time-lapse built in.  750 exposures begin to make a useful time lapse, so that's a start but what about battery life and leaving the camera on for weeks?  I don't have an AC PSU for the D300.

Also do I continue through the night or just during the daylight hours.  Have done time lapse before I was thinking of one image per hour?  That would be about 31 days and nights at 24 exposures/day.

[michel]

Hi Robert,

if it can help, I made a time lapse with my Df, 720 photos, one every 30 seconds. The battery lasts almost 8 hours using the time-lapse built in.
But I had to stay near th camera, waiting it ends. Even the place was fine, waiting so long was really boring

[Seapy]

Hi Michel,

Sorry I ignored you... I hadn't realised I had a reply!  I will set notifications.

OK, I have had a go, far from ideal conditions, my kitchen window sill right next to the sink.

Using my D300S and Nikkor micro 55mm f/2.8, @ f/5/6, ISO800, in aperture priority, making an exposure every hour with the built in intervalometer.  First night I got no images because I put the kitchen light out, it made about 125 exposures which according to my calculator was just over 5 days.  That was on one fully charged battery.

I have an AC adaptor but it doesn't fit the D300S. 

I need the D300S for a few days so the experiment will have to pause. I reviewed the exposures just now and it's very interesting.  The leaves appear to be move with the light but perhaps more interesting is the slight growth of a second shoot and the soil activity, something appears to be burrowing in the soil and ejecting piles of apparently excreted, digested soil?  There also seem to be lots of small white mites or similar trundling around like tiny ants.  So for very little effort I seem to have created a small window on the nature in my kitchen.

Eventually I intend to create a small studio so I can do this properly and create little movies of plants growing.  I think an AC power supply will be my next purchase.

I wound a piece of 6mm copper pipe around the base of the pot in which the Bay is growing to deter the slugs from gaining access.

I haven't had time to put an image up, will try to do so tomorrow but am trying to get away to Scotland again tomorrow.  I am hoping for some star trails behind The Quiraing, on Skye.

[richardHaw]

used to do this for my previous job but not a pro.

you will want to set your AWB off and set the exposure to manual.

if you have an external power source, use it.

i find that a picture every 5min was optimal for our purpose.

we shot in jpeg.

wind can be a problem as well as people walking in and out of the studio because of their shadows or lighting from the door they came through

it was a wooden building so even the vibration from people walking around can cause the setup to move a bit we kept everything as well controlled as possible so we simulated sunlight using a lamp with a gel filter.

[richardHaw]

one more thing, the first time we did this we didn't take into account the flickering of the lamp. it's invisible to our eyes but it registered when you play the video, very minor differences but it shows. a slower shutter speed was used to help alleviate this.

there is also a plugin that we used for After Effects for this. its not free but its cheap. it will help with AE and AWB issues. its very good. there are lots of software these days that fix these things in a smart way. things that we had to manually clean up a decade ago

[Seapy]

Thank you Richard, useful info.

I have been using NEF's for no other reason than that was what the camera was already set to and I was just dipping my elbow in the water.  Normally for time lapse I switch to JPEG, smaller files, uses less battery and less storage both in camera and on computer.

I will definitely try manual exposure, I had been pondering that but with no proper lighting yet, I wanted some exposure latitude.  Maybe auto ISO would help to accommodate lighting fluctuations.  Perhaps some fluctuation is desirable, defining night from day adds scale, provided the image is well defined darkening should't be an issue.

Manual WB is something I hadn't thought of, makes sense although it's easily adjustable that's a task I don't need!  The lighting will vary throughout the day and with the weather too, mixing in artificial lighting won't help...

I have been wondering about trying a small flash but not got there yet.

I can see this lasting months rather than days.  An AC power supply will be essential.  I may get a D200 dedicated for this task.  I don't really want the D300S tied up indefinitely, my 14 year old son is becoming frustrated by the D3300 and is yearning towards the D300S, he is starting to learn the old MF lenses and likes them for still life and flowers etc.

During the five days of the experiment the shoot has probably only grown 3mm or so, however the activity in the soil is fascinating, I want to see more of that, so shorter intervals will help there.

The leaf bud burst, unfurling and growing will probably be the main interest but until I have seen some processed clips I won't know what I can get.

I usually use Photoshop to create the time-lapse video clips.

[ColinM]

I'd love to hear how this goes.
I suspect that it will be worth trying more than one approach.

Meanwhile, through the magic of coincidences, someone sent me this video today

https://www.facebook.com/officialgoodful/videos/2279790005424786/

[Seapy]

A little update...

Having needed the D300 for my Skye trip I had to dismantle the time lapse setup.  Today I have set it up again, correcting some of the shortcomings of the previous setup.

I have installed a cheap LED flood lamp above the camera which I will leave on overnight but may leave on during the day to provide frontal lighting; the natural light is from behind the plant.

I have set the camera to record JPEGs  and I have increased the intervalometer frequency from hourly to every ten minutes. I have turned the camera from landscape to portrait so I can include the soil activity, the growing bud and the lower leaves.  Seems to be working OK.

The battery consumption seems greater, so I plan to change the battery daily, last time with hourly exposures it lasted five days and nights.

If this works OK, I plan to get an AC power supply, replacing the battery is a pain because it moves the camera and it means I have to re-set the intervalometer whenever the camera is switched off.

Rather annoying the D3 AC power supply won't power the D300S.

[Frank Fremerey]

AC power supply for the D300s is 17 UK Sterling on amazon.co.uk or equivalent specialized battery shop. No reason not to buy one

[Seapy]

AC power supply for the D300s is 17 UK Sterling on amazon.co.uk or equivalent specialized battery shop. No reason not to buy one

LOL!  Thanks Frank. Found them for £15 on eBay, free shipping... If you saw my bank balance you would see my predicament... for now.    Just have to keep changing the batteries for now, zero cost.

On a cheerier note, I checked the images this morning and it looks good, 95 images so far,  the exposure seems OK although there might be an issue when the sun shines through the window.  I might have to drop the ISO, or add some shading like a mesh curtain perhaps.

[Seapy]

A photo of my current setup, it could change, I am trying to think of some solid mount which wouldn't be susceptible to being nudged, given the setup is in my kitchen right next to my sink.  I am thinking of a wall mounted bracket of some sort.  Maybe also a complete change of room, I have a small greenhouse which would be even more suitable but it's full of 'stuff' at the moment.

This afternoon will see the sun flooding in through the window and may swamp the exposure.  Need to consider how I deal with that.  Not sure I have sufficient range with the shutter speed.