Just For Fun: Time Lapse Video, Clouds And More

Love Those Clouds

I love watching clouds. For me, there is something relaxing about watching clouds of all types. Now that I am back in Illinois with its flat land, watching clouds is easy. Just go to the edge of town and look across the farmland or prairie. In Illinois, my favorite types of clouds to watch when the weather is nice are Cumulus clouds and Stratocumulus, and finally, Orographic clouds.

Orographic clouds, Central Illinois CLG
Orographic clouds, Central Illinois CLG

When I lived in Colorado and Wyoming, I never tired of photographing Lenticular clouds and Mammatus clouds. I am not a meteorologist, so I do not know why these types of clouds seem to be much more prevalent in the western states compared to the midwestern states.

Title: “Cloud Eater” Location: Interstate 25, Wyoming CLG
Title: “Cloud Eater” Location: Interstate 25, Wyoming CLG

With this love of clouds, I now find myself taking little ten second time lapse videos of clouds for my personal enjoyment. Doing so is relaxing for me. I never tire of looking at my little time lapse cloud videos. Here is my latest time lapse video. The location is Evergreen Lake, just north of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Three hundred photos post processed in Lightroom. I created the time lapse video in Photoshop at thirty frames per second.. The camera was the Nikon Z7ii. Camera settings were: Shutter Speed; 1/60 sec, F-stop; F/11, ISO; 64. The lens used was Nikon’s Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/4 S and its focal length was 38mm. When uploading video it was degraded. It became darker. Sorry about that. It is actually a 4K video before uploading.

Regardless if you are a pro or an amateur, if you have the best photo equipment that you can buy or you are using a phone camera, photography should be fun. Enjoy shooting for yourself and don’t worry about what others think. When doing that, there is no such thing as a poor photo or video. If you enjoy the photo or video, then it is special.

Some random, selected photos featuring clouds.

Casper, Wyoming CLG
Casper, Wyoming CLG
Mammatus clouds, View From Timnath, Colorado CLG
Mammatus clouds, View From Timnath, Colorado CLG
Storm Cloud Over Colorado CLG
Storm Cloud Over Colorado CLG
Fog Rocky Mountain National Park CLG
Fog Rocky Mountain National Park CLG
Clouds Below, RMNP CLG
Clouds Below, RMNP CLG
Do you see the dog? Loveland Colorado CLG
Do you see the dog? Loveland Colorado CLG
Colorado, Clouds Below the Moon CLG
Colorado, Clouds Below the Moon CLG
RMNP, Clouds at Night CLG
RMNP, Clouds at Night CLG

Yes I love photographing clouds. Clouds for a landscape photographer are a must.

Enjoy the world around you. – CLG

A Photographer’s Rabbit Hole

When I first started writing, this blog post was going to be about new beginnings. I was going to explain how, over these last few years, I like so many people, had accepted complacency in my life. I stopped writing my blog, my photo business was in semi-retirement, I rarely saw friends, and after moving because of supply chain issues it was difficult to improve our new dwelling. Trying to purchase simple items such as a refrigerator and stove took months. Boy, trying to get the proper materials for needed home repairs was at time impossible.

I realized finally those days are behind us now. April’s and my life have now finally turned a new page. We got a new website, we actually have subjects to blog about that just might be interesting to others. We have traveled again, meeting up with old friends, and those house projects are actually getting completed. It is wonderful to feel alive.

On the day I wrote this, I was walking around in our yard and noticed that the tulips and daffodils we planted last fall were emerging from the ground. When I walked back into the house, I noticed the African violet that was placed in front of a window in our living room had bloomed.

Wow, pictures of the African violet blooming and flowers popping up in our front yard would be the perfect photo analogy to my post about new beginnings. And that is when I started going down the photographer’s rabbit hole of making something much more complicated than it need be.

All I really need to do was take a couple of pics of the African Violet and flowers coming out of the ground and it would have been perfect for the post. But of course, being a photographer, that would not happen.

First, I took the photos with my Nikon Z6 camera instead of a quick snapshots with my phone. Then viewing the African violet through the viewfinder, I knew it should be a close-up macro shot. So I changed out the lens for the Nikkor Z 105 macro lens. Okay, now I have to use a tripod. Well, that is nice, but the photo could be better. Change the depth of field to f11. That is looking good, but it still could be better.

So hey Craig, focus stacking would be perfect. So I did the focus stacking in camera. Went to my office and once seventy raw files were downloaded into Lightroom, I realized I had not gotten the whole flowers in focus. Delete all those photos and do photo stacking again. This time from two different angles. Back to the office. Upload files to Lightroom. Yeah, everything is in focus and I only need forty-eight photos.

Then a couple of quick edits. Again success. Once merged in Photoshop, I thought this will look like a nice snapshot.

Finally, I uploaded the files from Lightroom to Photoshop and waited and waited and waited. Finally, I can align all the photos. Again, wait and wait and wait. Will those little processing dots ever end? Photos are all aligned. Now I had to merge them. More processing dots. Ten minutes later, the photo is complete and yes, it looks like a nice snapshot. Merge all the files and finally my little photo is completed. Actually, there were two photos I created this way.

And here they are:African Violet, Focus Shifting, Photographer: C. L. GetchiusAfrican Violet, focus stacking, Craig Getchius

So, it took me over two hours to create two photos that two snapshots from my phone would have sufficed.

I am not complaining about all this wasted time. Doing this proves it is a new beginning. Tomorrow, April and I are venturing into the woods hoping to photograph an eagle or two. CLG

P.S. Our new website now has some galleries. The link is at the top of page.