Dave's Photo & Travelblogue

Las Vegas Nights

These are not the lights of Las Vegas, Nevada… but rather a different kind of lights in the tiny town of Las Vegas, Tenerife. I set up my Nikon D7000 and tried out some Milky Way star trail timelapse sequences. By pure chance, one of the nights happened to be the 2011 Geminids meteor shower! Lots of Sternschnuppe made it onto my 30s-exposure photos.

See how many shooting stars you can count. Can you find Venus, the Pleiades, and the Andromeda galaxy? I recommend 1080 full HD on Youtube to give your peepers the best resolution possible!

As I’ve been doing a lot of timelapse stuff lately, here are

Dave’s TOP 10 Night Timelapse Tips

• Make sure nothing annoying is moving in your photo, like trees that cover a large portion of the frame.
• Avoid super bright lights being in the shot, they can create lens flare at long exposure.
• Beware of battery life. Even my D7000 (one of the longest battery-life cameras) lasts under 400 shots at ISO 2000 and 30s exposure.
• If possible, choose a location without motion detector lights. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that in this video, so I minimized the amount of scenery that was hit by the light.
• Watch out for the moon. If it comes up during a night timelapse it will wash out all the stars.
• Use a steady tripod and put it somewhere it won’t be disturbed by wind gusts, pets, or other people while you (hopefully) sleep.
• Make sure to set a fixed (manual) focus, and don’t let the camera autofocus during the shoot. I use Live View on a bright star or very distant house light for the initial focus.
• Keep the aperture constant to avoid changes in depth of field during the shoot.
• Use manual exposure mode and fine-tune the ISO and shutter open time with some test shots. Of course you’ll want to set the widest aperture of your lens.
• Last but not least: Check the weather report and pick a day free of clouds! Forecast should be 0% chance of rain unless you want a wet camera.

Timelapse Sunsets in Greece

On a recent trip to Greece, I tried out timelapse photography on my Nikon D7000 D-SLR. With about 500 photos you can get a great 20 second sunset sequence in 24p! Taken in Athens and on Aegina island. Here’s a shot of the setup I used:

With my Intel-Atom-powered Asus Eee PC along, I was able to check out the results directly after each timelapse shoot. I used free software (Virtualdub with the deflicker plugin) to compile the single shots into a video. This quick feedback enabled me to fine-tune my techniques on the fly and get increasingly better timelapse videos each day.

I foresee a lot of changes in cameras during the next 5-10 years. Higher-end models will have (real, quality) HDR functions integrated. The sequential photo setting now used for timelapses will integrate the photos automatically into a video in the camera, including exposure adjustment to avoid flicker. This is going to need a more powerful, yet still low-power processor built into the camera.

Let’s see what happens as cameras + processors improve. One thing is for sure, technology isn’t slowing down yet!

Climbing Zugspitze: Germany’s highest mountain (Part 3)

In case you didn’t see Part 1 and Part 2, that’s because they were published quite a while ago. I’ve been busy with snowboarding, and decided that this final post & video about a summer hike would anyway fit better once spring arrived.

After crossing the Höllentalferner glacier, we continued climbing up the wall for a long time.

As we neared the top this beautiful view greeted us:

Here’s the Eibsee, which we could also see briefly from the train on the way down.

Now, for the final video. High-def views over the Höllental and everything beyond!

Watch “Climbing Zugspitze: Part 3” in HD on YouTube. A big thanks to Danny Galixy for letting me use some of his fantastic instrumental music for these three videos!

We made one slight error, in that we planned to hike back down. But the ascent went slower than expected with our acrophobic friend, so we took the train down instead. That would have been no problem, except that we’d left some sleeping bags and shoes at the hut, planning to pick them up on the way down.

So… after arriving back to the car in Hammersbach, Scott and I did a lightning-fast hike up the bottom section of the mountain. This time we chose to go via the Höllentalklamm, a gorge with a river, instead of the longer (but fee-free) Stangensteig. When I say lightning-fast, I mean the signpost said 2 1/2 hours, and we did it in 1:15. Our Smartwool shirts were soaked with sweat!

In the end I’m glad we did this bottom section twice, because the Höllentalklamm was gorgeous! You walk up narrow staircases cut into the rock, with splashing waterfalls and scenic views everywhere. I’d recommend if you are hiking up and down, to go up Höllentalklamm and down Stangensteig to take in both scenic routes.

For the full details about the hike, where to stay, where to rent gear, and all that – check out Part 1 of this series. The end of that post has all the hard facts listed in English for your Babelfish-free understanding. Part 2 of the Zugspitze series is all about the via ferrata sections (where you’re clipped to the steel cables on the cliffside) and the glacier.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and seeing what Zugspitze is like. Let me know if you have any questions I can answer about the hike or the mountain! I’m happy to help fellow English speakers figure this baby out, because almost all the information out there is in German (grin).

Snowboarding Helmetcam Update

I had a few questions come up about my video setup… so here it is, in all its simplicity. At first it was side mounted, but this hurt my neck after several hours, so now it’s on top.

Equipment:

• Nvertigo-X Skydiving camera helmet with chin cup
• Canon Vixia HF200
• Kenko KGW-05 wide adapter
• Manfrotto 323 quick-change adapter
• Newton cross ring sight with Schumacher rotating clamp
• Home-made neoprene “camera condom,” from an old wetsuit hood
• Piece of gaffer’s tape over the “mode” switch so it stays on video, can’t be bumped to photo mode (which screws everything up if you don’t notice it)
• Pattex glue for the neoprene (glues neoprene like nothing else, according to some friends who SCUBA)

Photos of the new Neoprene cover with side opening. I left an open area by the lens so the Instant AF sensor can still work.

I made this side opening cover after many pain-in-the-$%# moments on the slope, when I had to completely remove the (old) cover to use the viewscreen.

Settings:

• Highest quality setting, at 1920×1080 Full HD
• Shutter speed (Tv mode) 1/500 or higher (maybe 1/250 but then you get a bit more motion blur in the video)
• Optical stabilizer on, though it doesn’t help much when you are moving
• Virtualdub and Deshaker software used to stabilize clips
• Editing done with Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate Collection

Hope this helps some other camera-amateurs like myself! Next on my list (if I find time) is to make one of the home-made steadicams from PVC pipe, like you see in many YouTube tutorials. Not sure I’d put it on the helmet, but for handheld stuff, it might eliminate the need for the (slow, slight-quality-reducing) Deshaker step.

Snowboard Carving – Feb Craziness!

Alright, it’s finally time for a little taste of what’s possible with my final video setup! I just threw together a couple good carving clips from two trips, one in early Jan and one in early Feb.

Go to YouTube to watch the video in HD!

Thanks to the amazing carvers in the video: Peti, Lowcarver, and Alexey. They ride boards from Oxess, Virus, and Prior. I need to improve my technique to get those nice, laid-over turns, especially on the backside!

The first clip is at Zillertal Arena, the rest are at Hintertux glacier (both in Austria). Next week I’ll post a bit more about my Canon HF200 camera setup, so if you want to read about that, subscribe with the orange buttons on the left sidebar for RSS or email notification. Hope you enjoy the video!

Happy New Year from Munich!

For the first time, I went out to one of the bridges in Munich to see fireworks. This is NOT the same as fireworks in the US. Everyone buys big bottle rockets that are illegal in most states and shoots them off from their just-drained champagne bottles. Yes, thousands of drunk people shooting off big fireworks in a crowd. There were trams running over lit fireworks, ambulances driving by every five minutes, and the air was thick with the smell of pyrotechnics.

In a word: Awesome! (okay, except for the people IN the ambulances)

Location: Reichenbachbrücke. Shot with a Canon Powershot SD1000 pocket cam. I was there with Wingnut & Dylan. Tasty beer, great atmosphere, and most importantly, good friends. One of the best New Years’ celebrations ever…

Happy New Year, und einen guten Rutsch ins neues Jahr! I invite you to see what The Onion thinks of man’s love for setting things on fire. I am no exception… hehe.

Climbing Zugspitze: Germany’s highest mountain (Part 2)

If you are new to this post series, start with Part 1 of the Zugspitze hike.  All the details of how to get there are at the end of Part 1.

The first video saw us up the Stangensteig, passing over the Höllentalklamm, and reaching the Höllentalangerhütte for a nice Schweinsbraten (pork roast) with red cabbage and dumplings. The next morning we started early and reached the first stretch of via ferrata, where we clipped into steel cables and walked on pegs across the cliff. Kind of like this:

And of course there were these pesky ladders,

Then the Höllentalferner glacier itself!

I had skied on glaciers before, but in the winter they look like the rest of the ski slopes.  Never had I seen one in the end of summer, mixed with dirt and rocks, full of deep crevasses.

Enough photos for now, on with what you’ve all been waiting for: part 2 of the video! There will be at least one more part after this.  And again, thanks to Danny Galixy for the amazing music!

Watch “Climbing Zugspitze: Part 2″ in HD on YouTube.

A few more choice photos: Scott and Bunky walking up the glacier, taking in the view…

And a bit later, Scott being nonchalant… I think he clipped in for a total of fifteen minutes during several hours of via ferrata ascent. It must be those expensive mountaineering boots, perhaps they cannot slip.

That’s all for today.  The next (and final) post should be up sometime after the weekend.  Summit views and perhaps a bit of the train ride (we ran out of daylight, and our group’s acrophobic member wasn’t planning to hike down).

Part 3 is now posted! It took a bit longer than originally expected, but I hope it’s worth the wait!

Snowboarding Helmetcam

The helmet camera has been upgraded with insulating Neoprene and a stereo Rode Videomic! The microphone has a “dead kitten” windscreen (no, I’m not making that up) which will hopefully cut out most of the wind noise and give me usable sound while on the slopes.

Yes, I look like a total idiot wearing this thing. It looks like I have a Don King bobble-head stuck on top of the helmet, pointy gray hair aimed forward.

I'm not sure I ever looked more silly. Though hopefully no friends read this and feel the need to comment.

I have to say: Thanks to Mareike for the old wetsuit hoods that I sliced up to get this Neoprene! As she advised, Pattex Classic contact adhesive does an excellent job of bonding Neoprene. I also used it to glue the Velcro to the Neoprene (as the Velcro’s built-in adhesive tape wasn’t strong enough).

Front view of helmet camera setup

I mounted the Videomic (which has a standard flash accessory mount) by chopping up the top of an old camera, which I bought for €2 at Sauter camera shop in Munich.  I screwed the flash shoe of the old camera to the helmet, and used Loctite to make sure the screws stay tight.  To read more about the camera mounting bracket, please see my previous helmet camera post.

Angled view of helmet camera setup

Now I have to see how the Canon HF200 battery does at low temperatures. Fortunately I did leave room inside the Neoprene sleeve for a hand warmer pack… and I have some! Thanks, Mom… although I doubt this was the use you intended when you gave them to me, hehe.

If all goes well I’ll have a chance to test this at the Hintertuxer Gletscher ski area this weekend. That is, if the snow stops falling for long enough. Stay tuned!

Helmetcam Video: 140mph in a BMW M-Z3 Roadster

Here’s the latest test of the Canon HF200 helmet camera! We got almost to the M-Z3’s (electronically limited) top speed before reaching a slowdown area for a construction zone.

Here’s a link to watch the video in HD on YouTube.

By the way, for those who don’t know what “The Autobahn” is… it’s not a special, fancy racetrack in Germany. All highways here are Autobahns, and there are many sections with no speed limit. This video segment is completely legal! Yeah… come visit Germany and rent a car. Mu-hahaha!

The video was produced with Pinnacle Studio 12 (trial version), the only video editor I have yet to crash. I just might have to buy Pinnacle. Music: “Traffic Song” by Electric Bacon.

Oktoberfest 2009 Photos!

Alright folks, the drunken debauchery of Oktoberfest 2009 in München has come to a close… all that remains now are the memories, photos, and videos.  So, here they are!

If you’re looking for tips about visiting Munich for Oktoberfest 2010, check my primer for 2009… not much will change, though I may do another post as 2010 gets closer.

This year, I went with a group of friends on the first day and saw the parade of every tent’s beer carts arriving, pulled by BIG horses (and in the case of one tent, by an ox).

Bunky gets up close and personal with the Paulaner horses

Just before the end of the parade, we moved to Poschner’s, one of the smaller tents.  You can’t stay there all day and party, but you can eat a nice chicken or duck meal and have a couple Maß Wies’nbier.  Look at that crispy chicken skin… mmm!  My mouth is watering for Oktoberfest 2010 already.

First beer of Oktoberfest 2009 at Poschner's

Okay, enough of the tame stuff.  Here’s what you came to see: the Paulaner Winzerer Fähndl on the last day, rip roaring in the last hours of Oktoberfest 2009!  Not everyone here was drunk… I think there was one guy in the back without a beer.  First, a typical song from the Cologne region, Viva Colonia.  The band’s name, De Höhner, means “The Chickens” in the Kölsch dialect of German.

This song, Marmor, Stein und Eisen Bricht, is by Drafi Deutscher.  The chorus, which is repeated a lot, means “Marble, stone, and iron break, but not our love.”  This song has been stuck in my head for DAYS.  Please help me!!

Finally, a more known standard for the native-English-speaking crowd: Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.  You haven’t heard this song until you’ve heard the deep guitar melody sung by several thousand friendly, drunk revelers!

That’s all for 2009!  Maybe we’ll meet at Oktoberfest 2010.  Buy your tickets and make hotel reservations now!  I’m not kidding…