Exploding planets are a staple of just about every popular science fiction television show or movie, but did you know that you don’t need your own special effects department to create these types of effects on your own? In fact, all you need is Photoshop. We recently decided to have fun with some video segments that were included with one of Ed Lopez’s tutorials.
When a star like our own reaches the end of its life, it begins to run out of hydrogen fuel in its core. Like a car running out of gas, it will begin to sputter, swelling to a size that could encompass every planet in our solar system out to Mars. When this happens, the sun will swallow the Earth and will spell certain doom for all life on our planet. This time-lapse video by Ed Lopez shows how he created a stunning illustration depicting the inhabitance of a dying world that must travel into the stars to find a new world to call home. In the process he will show how to create a star, a planet, and even a few spaceships along the way. This time-lapse was created by piecing together video segments from the original tutorial.
It seems like timelapse videos made from footage collected on the International Space Station are popping up left and right these days. Knate Myers decided to try his hand at making one and his results are one of my favorites thus far. All of the photographs used to make this timelapse were taken on a Nikon D3 and are available as public domain via the NASA website. Myers timelapse focus on footage taken at night and includes some phenomenal images of the Milky Way.
Photographer Dustin Farrell has created this breathtaking timelapse of the Earth, featuring images of landscapes taken from around the world.
The video features brilliant images of Iceland, the Grand Canyon, Utah, Canyonlands National Park and Southern California. To capture each shot, Farrell used a Canon 5D Mark 3 and a 5D2.
In an interview with Mashable Farrell says, ”The reason I enjoy shooting time lapse is because I can produce videos that are currently not possible with normal video and cinema cameras”. He goes on to explain ”My shot of the Milky Way at 2:33 is only possible with a camera that can shoot very long exposures. In the scene at 3:20, of the beach in Iceland, the contrast was far too much to be captured with a single exposure. A still camera gives me the option of combining multiple exposures to produce a more pleasing high dynamic range (HDR) image.”
Early leader for least corny, still cool holiday video: a timelapse shot through snowglobes of cities in Canada and England.
OK, sure, the "snowglobes" are just glass gloves, but it's still impressive, since the photographer says that the video is assembled from nothing but still photographs taken with a macro lens and a homemade tilt-shift dolly. Somehow this is one of the more Christmasy things we've come across without actually being all that Christmasy.
Victoria, Canada time-lapse photographer and public speaker Reid Gower of VideoSapien (creator of The Sagan Series) shot a collection of time-lapses over a six-month period of time that capture both beautiful scenes in nature and cities around the world and compiled them all into one stunning video titled Natural Phenomena. According to Reid (via reddit), he captured the final panoramic shot taken from the edge of space during an expedition to Alaska, in which he loaded a GoPro Hero 2 camera inside of a thermal lunchbox, added some hand warmers and a GPS, and then attached it all to a weather balloon.
SMvideoChan created this time-lapse video that captures Hurricane Sandy rolling in over New York City at 30s per frame. It starts around 1 PM on Sunday October 28 and ends around 2:30 PM on Tuesday October 30, 2012. Jalopnik reports that the camera was mounted on top of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud building.
Here's a wonderful tweak on the always reliable time lapse: splicing night shots and day shots into one single frame. Meaning, you'll sometimes see the buildings at night and the people in the day time or cars at night while the buildings are lit by the sun. It's a visual mind melter.
Created by Philip Stockton, the time lapse is stunning. He used a Canon 5D Mark III, 5D Mark II, and 7D to capture all the footage and spliced together the different shots with months of post production work. He says:
Call it vapid, call it fake, call it soul sucking. Go ahead. Complain about the traffic, complain about the people, complain about the smog. You can say whatever you want but the fact is this: Los Angeles is so very beautiful. Don't believe me? Watch this time lapse video of LA by Colin Rich which shows you all of Los Angeles, as it moves from day to night, in all its gorgeous glory.
This awesome time-lapse video lets you watch artist Chris Carlson create a fantastic 3D chalk art rendition of Mario on a sidewalk setting. There is certainly a lot more work and precision to it than some people may believe…
Cory Poole—science teacher at University Preparatory School in Redding, California, and Gizmodo reader—has composed this 60-second time lapse video made from 700 frames captured by a Coronado Solar Max 60 Double Stacked Hydrogen Alpha Solar Telescope. His words:
The pictures were shot in Redding California which was directly in the annular eclipse path. The filter on the telescope allows you to see the chromosphere which is a layer that contains solar prominences. The filter only allows light that is created when hydrogen atoms go from the 2nd excited state to the 1st excited state.
EarthCam created a time-lapse video of One World Trade Center being built from 2004-2012, showing the construction process in under two minutes. On April 30, 2012 One World Trade Center became the tallest building in New York City, surpassing the height of the Empire State Building.
Here’s a breathtaking perspective on the city of Dubai, created by UK filmmaker Richard Bentley. It took him two and a half weeks to capture the footage, shooting one to two sequences a day from various balconies and rooftops. He shot with a Canon 7D, and edited in Avid Media Composer. The final product is fascinating. The only problem I have with this video is that it reminds me that I have yet to see this city in person. That needs to change.
