Lunar Eclipse low on the horizon

[Delicate]

It's midnight the 15th of June 2011, turning into 16th. The moon has just recently rised above the horizon. A total Lunar Eclipse could be seen, but will the clouds clear up?

This is more like a set of video clips, or are there dynamic pictures showed here?

Anyway..., no video is used here, but 550 pictures in a sequence of 2min45.

The eclipse is speeded up 60x compared to reality.

This is not a scientific presentation, but the camera settings have been the same during the eclipse.

Shooten with Canon 7D, an old manually focused 400mm lens and a Sigma 10-20mm lens.

The image quality is not the issue here, the pictures are actually really poor, shooten at night with high ISO. Low contrast JPG's doesn't make the thing better.

Made with PTE 7b12.

The slide duration varies from 350ms to 2.4s

As a 1920x1080p project this is a little too speedy for an ordinary computer to handle as an executable file, therefor I did publish it as a 720p mp4 file. The executable file is 364 Mb in size because of the amount of pictures, but this videofile is just 63 Mb.

Fade in/out is used between slides.

I did use unsharp mask / "best for static" (70). The computer performance is not an issue when a mp4 file is published, and the sharpening as a last process make the jobb nicely (although sharpening also the noise).

This presentation is not the most representative what I have been doing with PTE, but I'm now in period of "picture sequences".

Please download at:

http://www.mediafire.com/?lq9gosvxrybsev7

I found that put on a memory stick and used on a modern flat-TV, the quality was actually the best (I suppose TV processes try to make the best out of muddy film material?).

Can be seen also at http://vimeo.com/26550320 (with a lose of quality), and on Facebook.

Regards,

Jan

[Paulcl]

Thats pretty amazing.

Well done

Paul

[Delicate]

Thanks Paul

[paulziets]

Jan,

That is really different and I like the effect. I have watched it several times and am still fascinated every time. Thank you for posting.

Regards,

Paul

[Delicate]

Paul

I like to experiment with natural looking 3D effects with PTE to keep the slides dynamic, but this one was purely stop motion and timelapse.

Thank you for watching,

Jan

[SheilaG]

Hi Jan,

That was great! I admire your patience, firstly in getting the shots and soundtrack you needed and then putting it all together.

I liked the way you added some extra interest and humour, with the typed messages, whilst we waited for the moon to re-appear.

The sequence of images showing the moon emerging and the clouds whisking across its face was brilliant. It reminds us of how insignificant mankind is in the greater scheme of things.

Sheila G

[Delicate]

Thank you Sheila for your comments.

My idea was to catch something of what happened that evening.

I and my nearest were at good time at the spot waiting for the eclipse.

We really waited for more than 3 hours attacked by the mosquitoes, waiting for the clouds to clear up.

I made a modest try to cover something of this without making it too boring.

I think it's really difficult to make a presentation, trying to keep the spectator watching the presentation to the final end.

There must appear some new effect or impact repeatedly.

Regards,

Jan

[coopernatural]

Jan,

Catching up on some AVs and downloaded this. Glad I did.

Super AV,very clever and original.I like it when an AV gives me ideas.

Well done,

Davy

[Delicate]

Thank you Davy for your response.

I'm myself an admirer of your AV-projects.

Regards,

Jan

[cgbraggjr]

Jan - a fascinating show! One more question: how did you keep the moon centered in your final output?

Thanks again!

-- chuck

[Delicate]

Thank you 'chuck'

Well, that was the hard part...

I shot the pictures with an ordinary tripod (without a motorized equatorial mount), by changing the cameras direction about every 45 second. When scaling the pictures down I used large margins, to be able to center the moon with PTE's grid. In other worlds, I centered every picture manually in PTE (this is quite easely done with PTE).

Some pictures fell parly outside the 16:9 aspect ratio. In those cases I did copy part of the pictures, and made PNG fragments with soft feathered edges to fill up the picture. If I would have redirect the camera more frequently, I would have avoided this part...

Thanks for asking,

Jan