Customer Trevor Walker shared an in-progress clip of a construction time lapse project he's working on in of a demolition and construction of an office and fabrication plant for a supplier of specialist equipment to the gas and oil industry. The construction project is taking place in Cramlington in Northumberland, England. He was approached to handle this project after completing a six month project for another fabrication plant for hydraulic equipment on the same industrial estate.
He’s using two Blink time lapse controllers and GoPro HERO4 Black cameras in homemade housings. One set-up has an AC power supply, while the other is battery powered.Part of his housing build customization includes building a neutral-density filter into his camera housings to provide a longer exposure noting that the slight blur of movement makes the time lapse footage a bit smoother.
Since this isn’t his first time lapse, Walker has learned quite a lot and has refined his set-up and process. The first thing he noted was that it’s helpful to have more than one Blink/GoPro set-ups.
“They save me a load of time because of the ability to schedule to coincide with the working hours of the site. It means I only need to change memory cards approximately one third of the frequency of my previous method which was to leave the cameras running 24/7. I reckon on this year long project that has saved me about 30 hours in site visits alone and probably a lot more in not having to sort the images into those recording work happening and those of an empty site.”
He also notes how important planning ahead and testing is within the process.
“I also run my set ups for at least a week in the studio before they go on site and then I like to get them on site as early as I can, again at least a week before the action starts. That gives me a chance to iron out any glitches that can happen and give me confidence that the kit is working effectively from day one.”
Using two cameras allows him to cut between a few different angles to make the finished video more visually interesting. But more importantly, if one camera stops working, the backup camera will continue to capture images to avoid any gaps in the progress.
The project has a couple of months to go, but we’ll be sure to check back in with Trevor and feature the final video once it’s been completed.
If you're interested in a construction time lapse pack for your next project, click here. Also, make sure to check out our tutorial on how to get started with time lapse, or you can get in touch with us by clicking below:
Trevor Walker is a self taught photographer. He bought his first professional camera in 1982 and worked semi-professionally to varying degrees since 1995 to supplement income from his day job. Walker started The Image Farm in 2007 and have worked in that full time ever since. They do all sorts of work including video and are licensed for drone flying. You can also check The Image Farm out on Facebook.
website iswww.theimagefarm.org and facebook is The Image Farm - Northumberland
