Gone to See America 2013. On the Road: Green River to Sedona.
Early DIY Car Cam time-lapse video. Driving from Green River to Sedona. Eight hours travel time compressed to two minutes 44 seconds. Images captured with a Nikon One V2 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens mounted on a tripod sitting in my passenger seat. The 3934 images were processed with Photoshop CC and exported into a 720p 24p time-lapse video. Fast-forward to today, and I am about to mount a Garmin VIRB camera on my dashboard so I can do 360 degree time-lapse videos on future road trips.
There is a lot of yard work that needs to be completed before winter. I set up the Garmin VIRB-360 camera to record the day on the front of my Lawn Tractor. I’ve ordered a powered mounting bracket to mount the camera in my car. A lot easier than when I mounted a camera on a tripod sitting in the passenger seat for recording time-lapse videos of cross country road trips.
For something different, I decided to make a loaf of garlic bread. I set up a Garmin VIRB 360 camera to record the process. I am getting to like the Garmin camera better than the other 360 degree cameras I’m evaluating.
Garlic Bread Recipe: Sprouted Wheat Flour (1 1/2 cup); Bread Flour (1 1/2 cup); Flax Seed (1/4 cup); Chia Seed (2 Tbs); Poppy Seed (2 tbs); Celery Seed (2 tbs); Garlic powder (2 tbs); grated Parmesan cheese (2/3 cup); dry milk (1/3 cup); dried onion flakes (2 tbs); dried chives (2 tbs); flax oil (2 tbs); honey (1 tbs); egg (1 large); water (1 1/4 cup). Above ingredients added to Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for white bread (Rapid) and started. The bread maker warms the ingredients for 15 minutes before adding the yeast, then starts mixing the ingredients. After the first bit of mixing, there was still a bit of dry ingredients. I added an extra 1/4 cup of water. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool. The entire house smells of garlic — warding off any evil spirits.
Garmin VIRB camera. Garlic Bread, Little Planet Time-Lapse Video.
The extended Troll Family had its Autumn Mushroom Jamboree to celebrate a better than expected crop. They also were discussing their DNA Ancestry results: (77.2% Norwegian, 10.9% British & Irish, 10.2% Broadly Northwestern European, 0.7% German & French, 0.5% Eastern European, 0.2% Broadly European). Pretty much where the Vikings traveled.
Troll Family Autumn Mushroom Jamboree. Composite of 20 focus stacked images taken with a Fuji X-H1 camera with a 56 mm f/1.2 lens (ISO 200, 56 mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and Helicon Focus (Method B, R8, S4). (DAVID J MATHRE)
Evaluation of a Nikon KeyMission 360 camera including Night Sky video mode. Unlike the Garmin VIRB camera, the KeyMission camera does not have any external controls. It does have separate buttons for taking pictures or video recording. The camera and video settings are only available via the SnapBridge 360/170 app on Android or iOS devices. Communication between the app and camera is via BlueTooth or WiFi. The initial connection is via BlueTooth where the Camera Settings can be modified. Apparently, the BlueTooth in the camera is active, even when the camera is turned off. The app indicates that the KeyMission 360 camera is already paired. When Camera Settings is selected, it takes several minutes to connect. During this time, the camera is turned on. Camera settings include: Date & Time, Sound Settings; Auto Off (change to 5 minutes or you will go crazy when learning how to use this camera); LED brightness; Charge by Computer (set to auto); Image Comment; Copyright information; Location Data; Firmware Version; Network Menu; Shooting Options; Format Card; and Reset All.
The Shooting Options Menu includes: Movies; Still Images; and Shooting Options. Movie Mode Includes settings for : Standard movie; Superlapse movie (2x, 4x, 6x, 10x, 15x); Loop recording (5 min, 10 min, 30 min, 60 min); Time-lapse movie (AE lock only; 2 sec, 5 sec, 10 sec, and 30 sec); Night Sky (30 sec optimized for stars). Still images includes settings for: Image size (7744 x 3872 or 3872 x 1936); Self timer (2 sec or 10 sec). The images are JPG (no option for RAW images). That is too bad, I assumed Nikon would provide an option for saving RAW images. ARRG!!! Also, there is no option for interval shooting of still images. Double ARRG!!!
Finally, there is a Shooting options menu (that I assume applies to both movies and still images). It includes settings for: Underwater mode (yes/no); Active D-Lighting (yes/no); White balance (auto, daylight, incandescent, fluorescent, and cloudy); Color options (standard, vivid, and monochrome); Exposure compensation (+2.0 to -2.0 in 1/3 stop increments); and Restore default settings. So I set the Active-D lighting on, White balance auto, and selected Vivid in the color options.
If you want to do remote photography from the app, it needs to switch to WiFi mode. This takes a long, long time. It removes whatever WiFi source you are connected to and sets up a direct connection to the camera. This is why setting the auto off to 5 minutes is important. I often didn’t make a connection, and/or it took several times before the device and camera would connect. The manual makes some comment about problems when there are a lot of other WiFi devices nearby. Again ARGG!!! I wouldn’t trust the remote photography (Live View) for a mission critical shoot. But it is nice to have when composing a still image.
After it got dark outside, I set the KeyMission camera up on my back patio set up in Night Sky video mode. The camera takes take 300 30 second exposures (~2.5 hours) and then in the camera combines the front and back images into a 10 second 360 degree panorama time-lapse video (1080p, 30p). Video viewing apps that are 360 aware allow the viewer to pan and tilt the image to see all directions around the camera. For this video, I was only interested in seeing the sky. The video viewing and editing program from Nikon (KeyMission 360/170 Utility) didn’t allow me to do this. I did find that the Insta360 Studio program did allow me to edit the video from the KeyMission camera.
KeyMission 360 Night Sky Time-lapse Video.
For comparison, I also set up a Nikon D810a camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 200, 10 mm, f/8, 120 sec) to take a series of night sky images. These were processed with Capture One Pro, and then used to create a time-lapse video and a composite star trails image. There appear to be a multitude of internal reflections in the 8-15 mm fisheye lens once the moon becomes visible.
Nikon D810a Night Sky Time-lapse Video.
Night Sky Star Trails Image. Composite of 211 images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 8-15 mm telephoto lens (200 ISO, 10 mm, f/8, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)
