The most incredible time-lapse video I’ve ever seen | Hacker News Reader

The most incredible time-lapse video I’ve ever seen

danoah.com

76 pointsdeusclovis38 comments

It's an interesting genre, the time-lapse while pan in HD with hyperbolic music. But I'm just burned out on them. Something about these videos just seems overwhelmingly self important and cheesy.

Agreed.

I was convinced it was going to end up being a commercial for some new car.

Everyone would be much better off watching Koyaanisqatsi for time-lapse pan with good music and less self-importance: http://www.hulu.com/watch/27800

Unfortunately Hulu is so over-saturated with advertisements you have to be willing to put up with ads throughout the whole presentation, and heaven forbid you try to jump through to see what lies in store.. (79 seconds remaining)

Jesus, if there's one movie that ought to be seen without commercial interruption, that's it. The whole thing is about condemning the commercial interruption of the biosphere. Koyaanisqatsi on Hulu a bit like seeing advertisements for bacon during "Babe".

Oh wow, I agree. The commercials on it are surreal.

To me, these types of videos feel artificial, like a Thomas Kinkade painting[1]. I have been in the high Sierras and the Himalayas at night and the sky never looks that way.

Same goes for the use of HDR with dawn or dusk clouds.

[1] http://s831.us/17Gp81H

>In layman’s terms… he used a camera. Not a camcorder. A DSLR camera. And he put each individual picture together on a computer to make it into a video.

That's... exactly how time-lapses are usually done. Not sure where the amazement comes from exactly.

So what he gets is closer to what you would get with real cinematography gear than you do with even pro-sumer type camcorders which code to a particular video format.

Unlike others I'm not raging anti-HDR, my eyes tend to see in HDR and so these images can look more "real" to me than images which have more limited dynamic range.

I do however really dislike the motion compensation TVs that make movies look like video. That suggests making an impressionist painting look like a polaroid is a "good" thing when part of the art is the look. Why I don't get the same negativity about HDR I don't know.

I don't have a favorite movie or a favorite book or favorite band. But I have a favorite time scaled video. It shows an owl. Make sure the quality is set to 1080p and you are in fullscreen mode, or you'll miss half the action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji_x8RU4zIo&NR=1

It's just an animal doing what it's doing, no post processing or dramatic cuts. Yet, watching all the details of what's happening in the short sequence amazes me every time I watch it. It's also the only thing I ever had on my screen that made my cat show a reaction (she treats it like a wall otherwise).

edit: Had conflated time lapse and slow motion. Fixed the text and will never come to Hackernews while having my mind filled with other work again. Ever.

While the owl is neat, slow motion is basically the opposite of time lapse

I'd call it more of a dual than an opposite. They're both showing you things you cannot see with the "naked eye" due to time limitations.

Other nice ones:

http://vimeo.com/22439234

http://vimeo.com/51454212 (founder of ReadItLater/Pocket)

Along the same lines (same choice of backing track too in fact): "View from the ISS at Night": https://vimeo.com/45878034

Adore the first one about Mt Teide!

http://vimeo.com/40234826

For me, this is by far the most awe-inspiring.

Amazing the waves at the saturn´s rings.

https://vimeo.com/24410924 is also quite amazing.

If you like this then you should check out Baraka, this film has a few shots that were inspired by it. The follow up - Samsara - is also excellent.

Back in 1985, Ron Fricke, the same director of Baraka (1992) and Samsara (2011), created the most impressive time-lapse film ever made till then. It was called Chronos and it's available online [1]. It's very interesting to watch how the moving pictures match the soundtrack to capture the essence of Time [2].

[1] http://youtu.be/1K9N9flhOx4

[2] http://youtu.be/1K9N9flhOx4?t=25m24s

Indeed, the first thought after seeing that stone arc was "Baraka".

The author writes: "If you can, watch in in HD. This one needs to be watched in HD."

There's a regional TV, furniture, and appliance store here in Madison that has an LG 84" 4K TV on display (resolution - 3840 X 2160P) and they're using this loop, along with some similar indoor shots of big shopping mall atriums and cities at night as their demo.

If you can view it on a 4K TV, that's the way to watch it, not just HD.

I asked the salesman what's driving the TV, because I didn't think BluRay had the bandwidth to do it. They said they were running the demo loop off a hard drive, and they didn't have any other content that specifically used the full 4K resolution. (He tried to sell me that the upconversion would make my existing 1080P devices look better.) Their price was $16,999 for the TV, and they told me they had actually sold one. Way beyond what I can afford, but I left wanting one.

There are cheaper 4K TVs out there

Seiki SE50UY04 50" = $1,200

Sony XBR 55X900A 55" = $5K

Sony XBR 65X900A 65" = $7K

LG 84LM9600 84" = $10K

Does Vimeo even have an ultra HD mode? It looks decent on my desktop monitor (2560x1600), but I'm fairly certain Vimeo was just streaming me 1080.

I was just thinking it would be cool to turn your desktop into a slow moving time lapse (extends throughout the day), many of the shots in the film would make a nice wallpaper.

I have too many side projects ATM, someone go build this!

While I was watching I couldn't tell (on some parts) how it was different from just filming. I understand there are probably differences with quality but beyond that? Not saying it wasn't good just might not be my thing.

You have a combination of very long time between shots (eg the people walking on the beach), and very long shots (eg the flowing river, where each individual shot probably is ~20-30 seconds). Most of this is impossible to shoot as regular video.

That was maybe what confused me. For some reason I thought they were all still shots but then there was motion. Thanks, I wasn't even considering things like exposure time.

Time-lapses are very cool, but this one is pretty generic and has lots of the flaws people spend a lot of time trying to avoid in theirs. It has some very disconcerting focus changes and unreal looking edges, as well as some very uncanny stark lines.

http://vimeo.com/24253126 ocean sky at night