The Most Amazing Time-lapse Video

This has got to be the most amazing time-lapse video I have ever seen. Not just because of the beautiful landscapes the camera is capturing but the way it is captured. Hats off to the guys at T-Recs.

Down below I’ll just guessing here on how the hell they did it. Meanwhile, take a look and share your theories in the comments. I’m thinking a little HDR magic is going on too.

So the sky shots must have been done on some sort of tower or a weather balloon with a stabilization and constellation tracking system. That’s pretty much the only thing that I can think of capable of making those shots so steady and so stunning.

The city shots have to have been done with a huge rolling crane on a track. Some of the shots are pretty basic but others change on both an X and Y plane. Tricky stuff! Especially in the middle of a city.

Finally, polarizing lenses to help make the sky dramatic and obviously a little HDR going on here. HDR = High Dynamic Range photography. They might be shooting with an awesome sensor in raw (Nikon D3X/S, Canon 5DMKII or maybe even a Red sensor) and composing a tone mapped image by post processing three exposures from a single shot. Alternately they could be shooting three or more shots right after the other and doing a standard tone map.

Either way, it’s the first time that I’ve seen HDR video look good and certainly the first time I’ve seen an HDR time-lapse video this awesome. I cannot wait to go through their other works.

Do you agree with me or am I way off base?

So much for a debate! Did a little digging and turns out I was totally right, at least about the raw video/photo part and the camera.

Check out this other video they did. Equally as beautiful but done with a totally different visual style and intention. Not the best acting and not a fan of the fisheye lens (even though I used to own that very lens) but as an education film. Pretty sharp.

For this they used:

  • Canon EOS 7D
  • Canon EF-S 15-85mm
  • Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye
  • Sigma 30mm 1.4
  • Kessler Crane Cineslider, Revolution Head, Oracle Controller
  • Glidecam HD-1000
  • Zacuto Z-Finder
  • Ikan V5600 Fieldmonitor

16 thoughts on “The Most Amazing Time-lapse Video

  1. Wow man! The music is a little overly-epic 😉 But the locations were perfect to show off their process. Great stuff.

  2. Wow man! The music is a little overly-epic 😉 But the locations were perfect to show off their process. Great stuff.

  3. @jkretch Haha, yeah they definitely made the most of their Lord of the Rings inspired back track. IMAX quality video though I’d say. Definitely something you want to watch full screen.

  4. @jkretch Haha, yeah they definitely made the most of their Lord of the Rings inspired back track. IMAX quality video though I’d say. Definitely something you want to watch full screen.

  5. @justex07 look what you have me watching when I should be working lol 🙂

  6. @justex07 look what you have me watching when I should be working lol 🙂

  7. @thejustins86 hey, it’s pretty so it’s worth it. 🙂 def watch full screen!

  8. @thejustins86 hey, it’s pretty so it’s worth it. 🙂 def watch full screen!

  9. @thejustins86 felt almost 3D! Would love to have the skills/$$$ to create something like that.

  10. @thejustins86 felt almost 3D! Would love to have the skills/$$$ to create something like that.

  11. @kevinrj it’s a time lapse video of various scenes and landscapes in Europe.

  12. @kevinrj it’s a time lapse video of various scenes and landscapes in Europe.

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