Joe Turic Photography

Tripods and ball heads and intervalometers, oh my!

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I recently wrote about a time lapse that I shot while travelling through Europe.  I wanted to talk a little about the gear I use on a day to day basis, and more specifically, the gear and tools I used to make this time lapse happen. If you’re a gear head, you’ll want to read the next few bits.

Tripods.  Camera stabilization is essential.  My first time in Paris I didn’t have any kind of stabilization.  I remember being down at Concorde and trying to place my camera on top of my backpack and remembering how cool I thought it was to get the big ferris wheel spinning at night.  But, none of the shots were usable because I didn’t have any real stabilization.  Fast forward a couple of years and I get a Gorilla Pod SLR Zoom.  This was an excellent entry into the world of “I have some kind of tripod thing that I can take with me on trips and isn’t too big and can let me take some kind of long exposure or let me get into my own shot”.  Fast forward another couple years and I’ve gone through a heavy aluminum tripod and a pan/tilt head and arrived at a lighter carbon fiber model and a ball head.  Here’s the tripod I currently use, the Manfrotto 190CXPRO4.

This tripod is super light, has a center column that can readjust to horizontal on the fly, and paired with the right ball head is very portable.  I’m not much a fan of pan/tilt heads for photography and tripods.  I owned and used a nice Manfrotto one for a while, but it never felt right.  Since then I’ve always used ball heads.  A couple years ago I got the Manfrotto 488RC2.  This was and is an excellent ball head, albeit a little heavy.

So, I’m headed to Paris.  I know I want to take a tripod, or Gorilla Pod, or both.  Always trying to cut weight and make things more portable, I picked up a new ball head, the Manfrotto 496RC2.  For the price, this is a great little ball head.

I also picked up a new Gorilla Pod, the Focus.  This Gorilla Pod is much beefier than my old one, and can really handle heavy lenses with no problem.  Here it is next to the Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod and also paired with the 496RC2.

From the picture above you should be able to see where this is going.  Now I have a very mobile set up.  I keep the Manfrotto RC2 plate always attached to my camera, and I switch the light 496RC2 head from Gorilla Pod to tripod depending on need.  In this specific case, I carried the tripod all around Paris, since that was my “home base”, and brought the Gorilla Pod with me on the train in order to be more mobile.  In each instance I was able to throw the ball head on the “stabilizer of choice” and easily snap my camera on and off.

I picked this bag up about a year ago.  It’s the Clik Elite Probody Sport, and, while you can’t like everything about a bag, this one is pretty great.  That pocket that you see on the side, right below the Clik logo, if where I can stick the full size tripod or Gorilla Pod and use the bungee up top to secure it tightly to the bag.

I used it to bring a camera (Canon 40D digital SLR), 2 lenses (Canon 17-40mm f/4L and the Canon 50mm f/1.4), the 496RC2 ball head, camera filters, the Gorilla Pod Focus as well as a change of clothes, toiletries, a journal AND a Kindle (Kindles are awesome, get one) along with me on the train for a couple of days.  Not bad.  I used a lens slot to stash the ball head.

Oh, one more thing.  The intervalometer.  This is an essential piece of equipment.  It allows you to do something like, “in 10 seconds begin taking 1 picture every 3 seconds until you take 77 pictures”.  In my case, I generally said, “In 10 seconds begin taking 1 picture every 4 seconds until I tell you to stop”.  Yes, the function should be built into the camera, but…well, it’s not :).  You can get one here.

So, now all the pieces are in place.  Now it’s just a matter of standing/sitting/walking around one spot for 20, 30, 60 minutes while you take a time lapse.  A spot where you can sit and drink some wine always helps. 🙂

Just some math, shooting one picture every 5 seconds for 40 minutes will give you 480 pictures.  Each of the 12 time lapses in the video was between 20 and 60 minutes.  I literally shot thousands of pictures in RAW, edited and cropped to 1920×1080 pixels in Adobe Lightroom 4, put them together in Quicktime 7 and then edited them down to a 3 minute video of my trip using Final Cut Pro 6 (yea, I use old tools).

Leave some comments or feel free to ask questions about the gear or techniques, I would love to help.

Euro Time Lapse

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As photographers, we’ve all been in this situation.  Go to any new [big] city, or even a new part of a city that you’ve been to, and the photography is like magic.  There’s so much to shoot.  Even if it’s just all the normal touristy shots, you’re shooting them.  It’s your shot of the Eiffel Tower.  It’s your shot of Times Square.  It’s your shot of xyz monument in xyz city.

I’ve been to Paris more than a few times, so it’s a challenge, photography-wise to figure out what to shoot.  Do I get another shot of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night?  Another shot of Sacré Couer on a bluebird day?  Often times I have to really hold back, take a deep breath and remind myself that I already have this exact shot sitting at home, and I should try to seek out a new angle or way to shoot the same thing…or just move on to another area that I’ve never been to before.

Before heading over for this trip, I grabbed a couple new 16 gig CF cards.  This was mostly because we were taking short trips out to Brussels and Amsterdam and I wanted to be prepared if, for some reason, I was going to take thousands of pictures (when in Paris, I usually offload my CF cards each day).  The notion of taking a series of time lapses through the trip hadn’t occurred to me until the first few days in Paris.  Initially, my thought was, “wouldn’t it be great if I could go sit at a cafe, discretely set up my tripod and have my camera fire off one shot every 5 seconds to catch Parisian life go by…while I drank lots of wine?”.  I never got to do exactly that, but over the course of a week and half, I took 12 separate time lapses that are all edited into the video below.  View it in HD at 720p, or, if you have the time wait the 1080p to load in, you should, the clarity is stunning.

Curious about the gear I used to make this time lapse?  Check back tomorrow where I’ll talk about it in depth.

UPDATE: The gear post is live!  Check it out!

Third Time’s a Charm

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24 hours was a perfect amount of time to spend in Brussels.  After a day and night of strong beer, we walked from out hotel to the train station and caught the 9 am to Amsterdam.   We didn’t eat anything that morning, so we were feeling pretty hungry by the time we pulled into Centraal Station, around 11 am.  This was my third time in Amsterdam, and each time I’ve made sure to got to Gandhi, probably one of the best Indian restaurants I’ve ever eaten at.  Unfortunately, it didn’t open until noon.  We doubled back and headed to Barney’s, a spot that I had been to five years ago on my first trip to Amsterdam.  It’s a coffeeshop and bar, but also known for its big English breakfasts.  We scored a perfect spot in the front window where, looking right at a bakery, we could take in a slice of Dutch life while feeding our faces (it was also a perfect spot for me to set up for a few more time lapse shots :)).

The bikes in Amsterdam have always impressed me.  It’s not uncommon to see something like the one above, even with multiple kids in it.  They’re never really “new” looking either, and mostly single speed.  Amsterdam is a flat  city, with the canal bridges providing the only (extremely small) elevation rise, so gears aren’t much of a need.

With our stomachs full, we set out to find out hotel and some Heineken.  Luckily we were staying right next to Leidseplein, so bars and spots to hang out were right around the corner.  We were supposed to do a bike tour, but the weather won out.  Oh well, that meant more Heineken and Amstel :).  We got some fries (which are a must in Amsterdam, I had curry ketchup, mayonaise and onions on mine) and after a much needed nap, ditched the cameras and headed out for the night, hitting up a number of spots where we could sit right on the canals in the Red Light District and enjoy Amstel before having a great Thai dinner at Bird Thai Restaurant.  Some walking and sight seeing later, we found ourselves back near our hotel and Leidseplein for a night cap.

Near Leidseplein, on the way to the Rijksmuseum

Woke the next morning and headed to the Rijksmuseum.  I had been here once five years ago, but it was under construction and a number of the galleries were closed, this time I got to see it in its entirety.  The Rembrandt’s are simply amazing, as well as so much else at Rijksmuseum.

Messed around with some neat time lapse stuff at the I amsterdam sign and then caught a train back into the city center.  Here’s a shot out of the back of the train.

Found an amazing little hole in the wall for lunch that served us a bunch different types of smoked fish (herring, smoked salmon, smoked eel, smoked mackerel among others) along with some tasty mayonaises and crusty bread.  With our bellies full once more, we set off for some more picture taking.  I sat in Dam Square to do a bit of time lapse work, and Eddy and Bryan scattered off for an hour.

These (presumably) Dutch kids seemed excited to be part of my time lapse

More photography, more Heineken and finally dinner at Gandhi (where the owner said he recognized me, which is he probably says to everyone, but still made me feel nice :)).  3 times to Amsterdam and 3 times eating at Gandhi!   I’m not kidding when I say this place is top notch.  Caught the 7 pm train and were back in Paris by 10:30.  Four solid days in Paris laid ahead of us.  So much to do and so little time!

Euro Time Lapse coming soon!