Today I want to show you the process of a growing seedling: I just looked around my kitchen and decided to try to grow this lentils (Lens culinaris), speeding up the process to compress the movement that the seedling does during a week in barely 2 minutes.
You can enjoy the video first, or continue reading for the technical issues:
The setting:
Light: Since I live in Tromsø, I thought that I could use the midnight sun as a light source, and expected to have a nice effect on the light intensity and color. Therefore, I placed the seedlings close to the window.
Seeds: I used a lentil (Lens culinaris) to serve a double purpose: first of all, to show the beauty of the process, which looks really slow but, properly sped up, is just wonderful. And second, to try to show that there are amazing things to do at home, perfect for rainy days, or just for fun.
Camera settings: Even if there are intervalometers in the market for this purpose, I used Magic Lantern (www.magiclantern.fm), a custom firmware for Canon SLR cameras. If you are interested on this issues, I recommend reading all the disclaimers and known issues before trying it.
Using the built-in intervalometer function, I set the camera to take one picture every three minutes non-stop.
And, of course, I set the camera on a tripod to have as much stability as possible.
Regarding the camera settings, I used the Aperture priority mode (Av mode for Canon cameras) with f=22 for a maximum depth of field, ISO 500 (to avoid too long exposure times during the midnight sun "night" period) and locked the white balance to "sunny" (on a hindsight, that was not a good idea…). Then, I only needed the lentils to start growing.
Starting the project:
Before taking the pictures, I put the lentils in cotton pads and moistened them. Once moist, I let them near the window overnight to start the process. The morning after, I started taking the pictures non-stop for a week.
Mounting the time-lapse:
I explained some basics about time lapse in a previous post. This time, I established the frame-rate to 20 frames per second. The idea is to make the calculations simple: one second in the video equals one second in real time. The video is approximately 2 minutes long, which means that the process took 5 days, even if it was one week long: there are some gaps in the video due to battery limitations, That is one of the issues I will explain now:
The issues:
Light: I used natural light, trusting on the midnight sun. That was not the best idea; the light quality varies a lot and very quickly, making the white balance and the exposures of each frame too different and, therefore, gives some flickering on the video. I should have used an external light source, such as a lamp, and then establish a manual exposure with a fixed color balance, since the light would be the same all the time.
Batteries: I used a battery grip, so I would be able to change the batteries without moving the camera. I had several batteries that were used for this project: but I miscalculated the duration of the batteries, and lost some frames of the sequence. Furthermore, changing the batteries moved the camera enough to give a bit of shake to some frames. I will need to find other solutions for the next time.
Did you like it? Got any question about this? You can let me know by leaving a comment here, sending a mail or contacting me via my Facebook page (and like it too!)
I also accept ideas, if you want to see some other household seed growing, or other processes, let me know and I will try it!
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