This timelapse video, comprising 420 stills shot over 70 minutes, shows some rough weather coming in over the Vale of Clwyd in North Wales.
I shot this sequence from the Pen Barras car park at the base of Moel Famau, overlooking the market town of Ruthin, very early on a winter's morning.
Coming from a still photography background, what I find refreshing about doing timelapse is that you can make an interesting video clip in conditions that you wouldn't dream of attempting still photography under.
This clip is a case in point - let me explain...
When I checked the weather forecast on the BBC website the previous evening it looked quite promising for a pre-dawn hike and photoshoot, maybe with some light painting thrown in for good measure. Clear skies, bright and cold was what was promised, so I duly got up at 4.15am (this was December!), loaded up the car with kit and headed on up to my favourite local climbing hill, Moel Famau.
However, when I got there, parked up and opened the car door for the first time I got a nasty shock as the door was nearly wrenched from my hand by the stiff westerly breeze which, together with an ambient temperature of 1degC, quickly changed my mind about venturing up anything remotely like an exposed hillside.
What to do?
I then noticed that that same westerly breeze was sending clouds scudding across the sky towards me, over the market town of Ruthin nestled in the Vale of Clwyd below. I also noticed that the moon was nicely placed over the town, and would travel left to right over the course of an hour or so.
With so much going on in the sky, and with the streetlights of Ruthin available as an anchor to the scene, I realised that all was not lost, and I could shoot stills for a timelapse sequence right from where I'd parked.
So I reset my trusty, much abused, Canon 5D from my default 'absolute top quality' landscape settings to my 'don't run out of memory' timelapse setting and set it running under the control of my Canon remote, shooting continous frames of 10 seconds duration.
The camera was placed on my Manfrotto tripod, close to the ground to lessen the buffeting of the wind, and I retired to the warm of my car where I could listen to the BBC world service and keep an eye on the sky.
After about 25 minutes my first battery gave up so I had to venture out to change it for a fresh one which I'd kept warm over my car's heater vent. Was that a hint of rain I felt as I was quickly changing the battery? Hopefully just a passing light shower.
I decided I'd call it a day at 6.30am and go to work, having shot stills for an hour and a half (my warmed up battery performed much better by the way), but at 6.10 it started to rain properly, and you can see the rain approaching over Ruthin towards the end of the video.
I decided to stick with it and test the rain resistance of my old 5D, but at 6.20 disaster struck as a extra strong gust of wind blew my tripod and camera off the two foot high wall where I'd placed it and onto the carpark just next to my car.
The camera was still manfully clicking away when I picked it up, so hopefully no serious damage has been done, but I haven't checked it over yet!
Anyhow, that was game over for this particular timelapse sequence.
Despite the difficulties I rather like this sequence, especially the part near the end where you can see the rain rushing towards the camera.
I'll have to try some more foul weather shooting - it's rather exciting!
Filename - ruthin timelapse 01.mp4
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom
Location - Ruthin, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.