From Day to Night

A quick (37 second) timelapse video out of my apartment window in Vancouver.

This was taken back in August and was testing the new bulb ramping mode in the Magic Lantern add-on firmware for certain Canon DSLRs. This makes the holy grail of timelapse sequences, a seamless transition from daytime to nighttime (or vice versa), finally possible with an ordinary DSLR.

I had real trouble getting my tripod set up to look through the small gap at the bottom of my window, so this is cropped quite heavily and is only 1280x720 resolution. It was a good test of the process though, and it helped me identify the correct settings to use (after my first couple of attempts weren't quite right). I never got around to uploading it as it was really just a test, but tonight I figured, why not.

Unfortunately, a complete version of Magic Lantern isn't yet available for the 5D Mark III, so I can no longer take timelapse shots like this. Hopefully a working version will be released soon.

Things to watch out for include the boats (of course), the tide going out (watch as the pontoons slowly drop down the poles), the lights on Grouse Mountain coming on, traffic going around Stanley Park, several broken sodium lamps (watch them pulse on and off) and, right at the end, Venus rising.
awesome. I did my first test time lapse of Victoria's inner harbour outside of my condo, I'm looking forward to my next. great idea to work across sunset, very dramatic.

did you have any condensation issues?
December 16th, 2012  
@cameronknowlton None, but it was August and the camera was only looking through the gap in a window, not actually outside. Outside on a high-humidity winter's day it might be a different matter, although I don't usually have any problems when I'm carrying the camera around on the tripod for a couple hours.
December 16th, 2012  
Fantastic time lapse.
December 16th, 2012  
That is SO cool. I can't get over how clear it is!
December 16th, 2012  
Very nice! Shout out when the complete version of magic lantern is available for the mark III... I'd love to try it out! Fav.
December 16th, 2012  
So cool, I've just watched it about 6 times, you have lovely views. I've got so much to learn but (assuming I could work out 'how') if I tried that out of a window here it would be terribly boring, I have no views.
December 16th, 2012  
That was fantastic Alexis. Now off to read about time lapse photography. Fav
December 16th, 2012  
Very cool, I do enjoy watching time lapses.
December 16th, 2012  
That's so cool. Tis indeed the holy grail. I've got a cheat sheet of how to do it manually, but never tried it in anger.
December 16th, 2012  
What a great capture! This was close to the view we had when we stayed in Vancouver in May-- fabulous to see this again. Love the time lapse-- something I will have to add to my bucket list :)
December 16th, 2012  
OMG, this is incredible. Def fav!! Awesome work and results.
December 16th, 2012  
Awesome!
December 17th, 2012  
Nice! Do you have an iphone? If so, you can do timelapse on that with an app. How long were you shooting for to get this?
December 17th, 2012  
Cool.INteresting how there seemed to be more water traffic after dark.
December 28th, 2012  
SO cool!!
January 25th, 2013  
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