Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Dubai hyper-lapse video (updated)

A "hyper-lapse" video is a time-lapse video which is done with a camera which is moving (beyond a few feet on a track). It's all the rage now, partly because Instagram has released an app to make them pretty easily (Microsoft has made software which evens out all the dramatic raggedness of camera "shake" which a first-person moving video tends to have. Pretty durn advanced software.)
Update: I have now tried Instagram's app, and I'm not impressed at all. It seems to simply make a speeded-up video, with no processing at all to enhance quality, unlike the Microsoft app's amazing stabilization, which uses bits of frames to expand other frames so as to avoid a severe cropping. The result I got from the Instagram app was extremely jerky and pretty useless.




It's certainly a strong effect, but will it be a lasting art form? I think it will be limited exactly because it easily becomes too strong, just like fish-eye pictures, or star-filters (which makes highlights into stars). But I think it will be a good way to illustrate a special trip like skiing, climbing, scuba-diving, and so on.

2 comments:

Bruce W. said...

Interesting technology. But like other Cinema technologies (talkies, color, digital video, computer graphics, etc,)I think it will take time for it to transition into "art."

OK, I'll admit I'm an old guy, but I can still find B&W movies with limited or no special effects compelling.

It is the skill of the artist, not the technology that makes the quality of the product.

Technology is a tool, not an end product.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Absotively.

Though the barriers to entry have been lowered fantastically. Many good movies have now been made on budgets which could not even have purchased the required *film* some years ago.