Sunday, December 9, 2012

Canon T4i Night Flying Time-Lapse


"Why would you want to do that?"
This was the question posed to me by a flight attendant when I told her
that I was shooting a time-lapse out the window of my most recent
commercial flight. Uhhhhh ...... cause it's cool?

I get that all the time.  If your reading this I'm guessing you get it.
I don't sit still very well, if I have a camera I will be shooting.
On my most recent night flight home, on a new 737-900, I noticed
that the paneling under the window was quite smooth, so would it
support a suction cup holding my Canon T4i? Could I get the very
elusive night flying time-lapse?  Yes and no.
  It worked, but it also failed twice.
  
Here are the results, click here.

The camera was set to ISO 1600, with an EFS 10-22 lens.
I shot 6 second exposures @3.5 every two seconds.
The camera was mounted using a Fat Gecko suction cup. Sorry
no pictures of the set-up.  It was like trying to do surgery in a phone booth.
The hardest thing about trying to pull this off is light leaks, see below, the
way airliner windows are designed it makes it very hard.  I used my
navy blue action fleece to cover the top of the lens. There are several frames
where you can see light intrusion, interesting attempt but not really
ready for prime time.  Now if I had access to a private jet with clean windows 
I could probably dial this in, but until then you get what you can.

For more information about doing time-lapses with a CanonT4i and the 
intervalometer I use check out my previous post here.


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