I believe this was my first ever time lapse that I tried, I have one more photo from it to share from it, following right after the video.
Hiking NC Mountains – Grandfather Mountain from Dmitrii on Vimeo.
and here is the last photo from this time lapse. If you want to see high resolution image, just click on it to open it from my photo gallery.
A few weeks ago I shared this short time lapse, in case you missed it, here it is.
Hiking NC Mountains – Grandfather Mountain from Dmitrii on Vimeo.
This is the photo you see at a 40 second time spot in the above video. If you look at the higher resolution photo (click on the one below) you’ll be able to see a high rise on the top of the mountain. It is Sugar Mountain, with one of the few NC ski resorts. Somehow back in seventieth they got approval to build this apartment monstrosity. A real eye sore on the beautiful mountain landscape. Of course the entire valley beneath is fully developed as well, there are a few country clubs down there with super expensive houses, just not as visible.
D800 has built in function to make time lapse movies. It allows to to choose the frequency of each capture and total length of the capture sequence. At the end of the time lapse, camera will combine all captures into time lapsed movie, with 24 frames/sec. The good side of this is that you don’t have to do a lot, frame it, set aperture, ISO and choose the time lapse function in settings. Push the button and wait. 10 minutes of 1 capture per every 5 seconds will produce 4 seconds of the movie. 25 minutes will make 10 seconds. One major downside to it is inability to modify the quality of the captures before they are merged into the final clip. If some parts are over exposed or under exposed they will be shown like that in the movie. There is a way to take a lot of captures without making actual movie and process them via 3rd party software, like LR, but I have to tried it yet.
So I’ve been playing a bit with time lapse on my D800. Here is the first movie. If you have problem watching it from inside this blog, you can see direct via this link.
And this is one of the photos you saw in the above video.
Depending on which route you take it might take you between 45 minutes to 3 hours of hiking to get to this spot. It leads you to one of the highest spots in this part of the mountains. If you take my current route you have to clime at least 5 different ladders, each 20 to 30 feet long. I just stepped off one of those ladders, edged my self on the side of the cliff to take this photo, before climbing another one. Up and up.
So where is this and what that mountain in front of me is known for?
As always, it is much better viewed in higher resolution, just click on it to get there.
The hike to and from McRae Peak is probably one of the best hikes in High Country in North Carolina. It is about one hour from the Grandfather Mountain, you have to clime up about five different wooden stairs and some of them are fairly scary. If you afraid of heights then it is probably not a hike for you. The McRae Peak is actually the stone on the right side of this photo. About 3-4 feet to the right is another wooden ladder, about 20 feet high and it allows you to clime up the peak.
It was extremely windy that day and we really didn’t spend much time on top of the rock, but on a nice day you have very nice 360 view around the high country. It is very popular place to bring your lunch snack and enjoy the view while munching on it.
