Here is a recent HDR (High Dynamic Range) time lapse from our edit bay. To date, digital cameras still have problems simultaneously resolving details in bright and dark areas, and one solution for photography is to bracket the exposure of a composition and then merge the images with various software. It is not currently feasible to do this with video, but since time lapses are video created from stills, we can create HDR video.

To the left you can see examples of the three bracketed exposures, rendered into their own time lapses. To the right is the digitally merged version. The result is a time lapse with details in the dark areas (sagebrush) and details in the highlights (snow,clouds).

We could have made the entire piece lighter overall, but we chose simply to subtly bring out the details in the sagebrush and cottonwoods, while capping the IRE peaks.

This process is very time consuming, but the results are well worth it.

We’ll post more here later, so check back.

We used our Canon 7D on a jib arm while producing Crossroads. We packed it out to a sage grouse lek and grabbed some sunset lit jibs to use with our sunrise grouse content, also captured with the 7D. If the 7D has one thing going for it, it is that it’s built like a tank; it took nearly 30lbs to counter-balance it on a 10′ arm.

Below is a video excerpt to show you how that jib shot worked into the short grouse film.

The workflow for the 7D is a bit convoluted right now, but we like the image quality, ONLY if we can successfully work around the aliasing and the rolling shutter problems.

This week we shot an interview with the preeminent sage grouse ecologist, Dave Naugle, who was intimately involved with the recent hearings in DC which found the sage grouse is indeed warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately the listing was precluded, however, due to funding.

Our interview location was far from ideal. It was hard-walled confernece room overtaken by a single, massive (and @#$ing heavy!) table. I was pinned against the far wall and the acoustics were not great, but we worked around it. Our LED system lit the interview well enough given the situation. We ran two cameras, a JVC-GYHD series and the Canon 7D (not yet set up in this photo).

Here is a still image from the 7D of the interview. No spectacular depth achieved, but we did alright given the terrible venue.