Hectic Holidays

I decided that I would make a Christmas lights time lapse of Ljubljana for the end of the year. I wanted to do a time lapse from the end of the day ’till complete darkness. Unfortunately I thought of that a little to late, because I could do only up to three sequences a day, if I wanted to show gradually diminishing of daylight.

Planet Prešernov trg

Planet Prešeren's square

I started on Sunday (Dec 12). I placed the tripod with Nikon D200 a little before 4pm and set a timer to do a photo every 10 seconds. Than I waited until darkness fell around 5pm. This first sequence showed me that they turned on the lights every day at 4:15pm. Later I found out that when the weather is clear the lights turn on 20 minutes later and so I had to freeze longer the first time this happened.

Pogled na Prešernov trg s Tromostovja

360º panorama of Three bridges

After a week I started to use motor mount for horizontal panning. The head was struggling with the cold and some pans are not as smooth as I wanted. I shortened the time between photos from 5-6 to 2-3 to make slower and smoother pan. And so in nine days in spite of low temperatures and snow I got twelve sequences that ended in the final edit.

River Ljubljanica

How did I get to the movie files? I imported the images in Aperture, did a colour correction and exported them in full resolution. In shake I stabilised the footage where needed and did a white balance through time (images started in the daylight and ended in tungsten light) and did a 16:9 crop. I edited them in Final Cut Pro and did a music score in Soundtrack. If you want to know more about the process comment below and I’ll try to explain some more.

Looking the opposite direction

At the end let me wish you happy holidays and enjoy the movie Hectic Holidays!

Hectic Holidays from Peter Prevec on Vimeo.

If you liked the story, please consider helping me maintain this blog by purchasing your gear through my product links on the right. It will cost you nothing but will allow me to continue writing. Thank you!

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete tukaj.