Inspired by the BBC Weatherman Walking TV program, specifically the episode set in the Snowdonia National Park, Liz and I decided to have a go at the same route on a nice Saturday, when it wasn't actually raining for once.
We cheated, and instead of setting off from Bethesda, we started at Ogwen Bank, at the tail end of the Nant Ffrancon valley, and made our way along the side of the Ogwen river, past the waste slate mountains of the Penrhyn quarry and out into the Nant Ffrancon valley itself.
It was a real Goldilocks sort of afternoon, with just the right amount of cloud to bring the scene to life as patches of sunlight and shadow raced each other up the valley and painted the slopes of the mountains either side in an ever changing tapestry of light and dark.
We got about a third of the way up the valley when I had to call a halt for half an hour to shoot the stills for the first part of this time lapse video. I wasn't going to let such transient beauty pass by without having a decent stab at recording it for future enjoyment.
When I'd finished we could have carried on with our walk up to the head of the valley at Llyn Ogwen, but I'd been well and truly bitten by the time lapse bug now, and was desperate to repeat the shoot from the other end of the valley before the clouds either disappeared or blocked up alltogether (more likely) and spoilt the light show.
So we walked back to the car and drove up to Llyn Ogwen (faster than walking), where I set up and shot the stills for the second half of this video, looking back down the Nant Ffrancon valley to where we'd just been previously.
There were a lot fewer clouds in the sky by then, and I was worried that I wouldn't get the lovely patches of shadow tracking across the landscape that I was after.
But it all came good in the end, and another half hour's worth of shooting stills resulted in a really lovely cloud movement effect that I'm really pleased with.
Joining the two clips together gives a great impression of the beauty of this part of Snowdonia, and maybe next time Liz and I will manage to do the whole BBC Weatherman Walking route without me getting distracted!
Filename - nant ffrancon timelapse 02.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens (1st sequence) - 24-105mm zoom @ 24mm
Lens (2nd sequence) - 17-40mm zoom @ 17mm
Exposure (1st sequence) - 1/160 sec @ f4, ISO100
Exposure (2nd sequence) - 1/320 sec @f4, ISO100
Capture interval - 2 secs
Location - Nant Ffrancon, Snowdonia, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p
Clip duration - 47 seconds
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