Get updates about my film and download my other 1080p videos: timescapes.org

Shot entirely in California this summer on my Canon 350D DSLR.

You can download the 720p version in the bottom right-hand corner from Vimeo, or download a 170MB 1080p H.264 MOV by saving the direct link below to your harddrive, then viewing. Keep in mind that it takes a powerful computer and a 1920x1080 screen to view it...

timescapes.org/reel-2-1080.mov

To learn more about digital timelapse photography, visit our forums at timescapes.org

329 Likes

  • Garrett M. Smith 1 year ago
    These shots are gorgeous.
    Nice work!
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  • Lucasberg (Joey) plus 1 year ago
    Dang Tom,

    You could say this was time well spent this summer.
    You are at Yoda status.
    AWESOME footage.
    I liked the mixed in tree clips.
  • ße ωell ;-) plus 1 year ago
    ditto to that!!! :)
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  • Sugoi 1 year ago
    Awe inspiring !!!!!!

    Amazingly impressive, glorious, edited well with a great choice of audio too !

    すごいビデオ!
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  • Kyle Shields 1 year ago
    AMAZING! Great work!
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  • MILapse 1 year ago
    BAD ASS! great dedication and it shows. Keep it up Tom!
  • Lucasberg (Joey) plus 1 year ago
    I always think of just the hours of shooting the actual frames for a long clip like this is ---alot.
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  • brian hunt plus 1 year ago
    AWESOME WORK
    was the camera movements done in Post ?
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  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    nope, done with the Mumford stepper-motor rotary motion control system.
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  • Ben Millett 1 year ago
    You've done it again! This is just amazing.
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  • tony prower 1 year ago
    Excellent! Stunning work, some really smooth panning and excellent quality work.
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  • Pigeon Pictures 1 year ago
    ...there is no baraka anymore!
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    don't blaspheme! :)
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  • arjan tuijnder 1 year ago
    Stunning!
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  • Martin Whipp 1 year ago
    Tom, that is a true masterpiece! Beautifully shot, choreographed, and edited.

    Top-grade work.
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  • Martin Tadilli 1 year ago
    pretty amazing work,i love the double layer effect that makes the movement!
    shit a have no words!
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    thanks!

    just to be clear... there are not any layers or any kind of digital trickery of any kind... it's straight out of the camera. :)
  • Martin Tadilli 1 year ago
    yes i know but i think the effect looks like 2 layers!
    it's a super cool work dude!
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  • Peter Naylor 1 year ago
    simply epic!!
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  • Andy Savage 1 year ago
    Absolutely Jaw dropingly Stunning!
    Excellent work.
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  • ¡ǝnɹʇ 1 year ago
    Three words. Wow, wow, wow.
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  • ße ωell ;-) plus 1 year ago
    I wish my skies would stay clear enough to be able to shoot just 30 seconds of footage!

    excellent work Tom, you give us all something to aspire too :)
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  • Pikku 1 year ago
    Damn...beautiful..got a 400d, did you shoot all these pictures by yourself?
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  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    Pikku, yeah, it's usually just me, my camera, my ipod, and a 12-pack of cold beer. :)
  • Earl James 1 year ago
    What kind of beer?
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  • Phil Hoyt 1 year ago
    stunning
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  • Marmil 1 year ago
    Love it. Very nice.
    Do you have any sort of custom setup for power for the camera and stepper?
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    right now i am using Bescor starved-electrolyte sealed lead-acid batteries:

    bescor.com/catalog.php?page=07

    but i am going to invest in lithium ion next.

    i also have a huge 140-amp-hour RV battery for serious field power.
  • Marmil 1 year ago
    Cool, thanks for the info.
  • ziadchatila 1 year ago
    Li-Ion batteries are great! I have one for my flash light and lasts a heap longer than others.
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  • Steve Swayne 1 year ago
    Great work. Does your camera have a built in time lapse function, or do you use an external shutter release/timer?
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    I use the Canon TC-80N3 intervalometer for static shots, and the Mumford Time Machine + rotary for panning shots.
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  • Perry Morris Jr. 1 year ago
    Woow!
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  • Jeffrey Butler plus 1 year ago
    Amazing. Thrilling...dude. Seriously.
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  • Brian Boudreau 1 year ago
    WOW!! Tom this is epic man.. simply Amazing work. Im blown away.
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  • Mr Rich 1 year ago
    Spectacular! Truly inspiring.
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  • mike ambs ☂ plus 1 year ago
    Whoa... beautiful :) Makes me want to watch Baraka...
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  • heart swells...totes.
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  • kateopolis 1 year ago
    breathtaking.
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  • Smog Films plus 1 year ago
    wow, See the stars is so beautiful :)
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  • Wolfgang Gaebler plus 1 year ago
    Absolutely great! I have to download it...
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  • BumKi Cho plus 1 year ago
    Beautiful music to beautiful footages. I cannot wait to go home tonight. Turn all my lights off and watch it full screen on my tv.
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  • Ryan Scobey 1 year ago
    inspiring work! I'm curious as to what intervals you were shooting for the night shots. They're smooth as silk!
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    always between 3-6 seconds.
  • Earl James 1 year ago
    That's what your wife says too.
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  • Brian Sewell 1 year ago
    How did you actually make the video... what program did you use?
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    I import the RAW (.CR2) riles into Adobe After Effects directly, then render out 1920x1080 Photo Jpeg MOVs at 95% quality. Then I do the editing in Premiere Pro, at which point I add the music and title cards.
  • Christian Wiedel 1 year ago
    Thanks for this! What a difference it makes to output to Photo Jpeg MOVs instead of the usual .MOVs! Thanks.
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  • Sean O'Brien 1 year ago
    Brilliant work. Can you give me an idea of what lenses you were using for the windmill and satellite shots?
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    Those were both on the Canon EF-S 10-22. The only other lens in this video was the EF 24mm f1.4, which I used for the opening milky way shot panning across the Eastern Sierras and Mt Whitney.
  • jason good 1 year ago
    very amazing clarity throughout the night sequences, -when you import your raw cr2 clip, are you just using this to assemble your 'clip' for use in the editing program or do you actually edit the video in Raw format? If so, do you know what the transfer rate is? how many mb/sec? thanks. I use FCP6, but just curious very cool. oh yea please check out this time lapse if you have not already:
    vimeo.com/1552827
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    I use After Effects to process the RAW files, color correct, crop, resize, and then render out 1080p quicktime files, which I then drop into my NLE - in your case, FCP. I don't think there are any NLEs that can ingest RAW photos yet, not even Premiere Pro CS4, from what I hear.
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  • djmirko909 1 year ago
    Passing planes looked like falling stars, you can even see galactic fogs that was what i was looking for!! cool
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  • Nicola Di Marco 1 year ago
    incredible!
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  • MMascheri 1 year ago
    Tom, just awesome!
    Matt
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  • MrGlory 1 year ago
    Crazy EPIC!
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  • Wynner3 1 year ago
    If my jaw could dislocate and drop to the floor, it would. That was amazing.
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  • oyvinto 1 year ago
    Ridiculously awesome! <3<3<3
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  • Jason Boudreau 1 year ago
    Absolutely incredible!!!
    Great work!
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  • Matthew Schickler plus 1 year ago
    Woah.
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  • Pietro Impagliazzo plus 1 year ago
    Holy schmoly Mr. Tom Fricke!!

    :)
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  • Spudgun 1 year ago
    This is superlative. You have an unquestionable, (and very marketable, I would suggest), talent.
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  • flip 1 year ago
    thanks for providing the full HD link.
    Beautiful.
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  • Kayle Lang 1 year ago
    You must have some kind of motorized tripod. No way you could do such smooth pans by hand. What tripod do you use for panning?
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  • John 1 year ago
    Brilliant piece of work Tom. What is the name of the music that you have used? It is just perfect for this piece.
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    It's called "Ritual" by Immediate Music. I first heard the song in the trailer for "The New World."
  • Gui Nunes 2 months ago
    where can i find that though?
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  • Paul Frederick 1 year ago
    Tom,

    Awesome work! WOW! The music is perfect and your edit points are also spot on. I've never seen such clear night timelpase before, not even in Chronos or Baraka by the man himself Ron Fricke! Nice job!
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  • TiM 1 year ago
    It`s amazing!
    Perfect idea, beautiful music and incredible video. I like it.
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  • Richard Webb 1 year ago
    Tom,

    Great work man! The best I've seen. I wouldn't be surprised If Planet Earth 2 come knocking at your door one day.

    Say, I see you have stated your not using any layering trick of any kind. How are you getting such a crisp and bright sky image? Just curious about your ISO and exposure time?

    Best,

    Richard
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    Hehe, feel free to send a link to the Planet Earth producers! I don't do anything special in terms of making the skies look crisp. A lot of it just has to do with trial and error, making sure you are getting enough light. And then post-production - especially the Camera RAW phase of exposure, saturation, color temp, etc - are all incredibly important in terms of getting a great final image.
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  • Hoop-CA, USA 1 year ago
    Nothing new to say---it's wonderful.
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  • John 1 year ago
    In the "camera RAW phase" how do you batch run your changes to exposure, saturation, etc ?
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    I used to batch the RAWs through Photoshop, but now I ingest them directly into Adobe After Effects, and then render out to quicktime files straight off the RAWs. It's very efficient and results in beautiful video quality.
  • Pietro Impagliazzo plus 1 year ago
    So AE handles camera RAW using all informations from the files?

    I didn't know that.
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    Yes. It's awesome. The quality of the renders is off the charts.
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  • Pikku 1 year ago
    Is there an automatic function or did you sit under the stars for hours?
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  • GRANT WAKEFIELD 1 year ago
    Beautiful stuff Tom. Insomnia has rarely looked so good!
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  • Stew 1 year ago
    Absolutly amazing! This is truly inspiring.
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  • Richard Webb 1 year ago
    Hey Tom,

    What camera would you recommend for this type of photography. The 350D you have used seems to work just fine ; ) I have been doing some tests with the Nikon D200 and have gotten nothing. I do a 30sec exposure at 3200ISO and still get no stars!
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    Richard head on over to the timescapes.org forum and we can figure out what the problem is.
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  • Chad Richard plus 1 year ago
    Hey Tom - you even out did yourself here - CONGRATS . As always I look forward to seeing more.

    Chad
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  • Max Power 1 year ago
    Wow that was amazing !
    Wish i had your skill.
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  • Dan Valentine plus 1 year ago
    Unbelievable Tom. Great work. Tell me, what settings do you set on your camera to take a photo of a stary sky? I have a Panasonic DMC-FZ50
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    Hey Dan, your camera needs to be able to take long exposures with a bulb function and remote shutter jack, or in the moonlight you can get away with exposures between 15 - 25 seconds, if your camera can do that.

    Milky Way exposures can be anywhere from 30s to 90 seconds, depending on things like lens speed and ISO.

    Feel free to pm me or whatever if you decide to try it and need any tips.
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  • Angels @ Work 1 year ago
    Wow, this one makes me speachless. GrEAt work!
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  • HDtimelapse.net 1 year ago
    Absolutely great work!
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  • Video Head 1 year ago
    What can I say but "WOW"
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  • Merin Darkrage 1 year ago
    Just four words:
    wtf? Awesome!
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  • Don Burns_AV Geek 1 year ago
    Is good! I especially dig the windmill shots. Are you panning these shots in post?
  • Tom @ Timescapes plus 1 year ago
    No, I pan while shooting with the mumford stepper-motor head.
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  • Dwight Gibson 1 year ago
    extremely breath taking. cinema at it's finest. Always impressed.
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  • Ian Provo plus 1 year ago
    oh shit, i cant wait to download
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  • Alec Sky 11 months ago
    oh man, this waterprint is annoying
  • David Suggitt plus 8 months ago
    watermarking=smart
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  • Sean Seah plus 11 months ago
    this is AWESOME!! How did u do it with a DSLR man? I got to be missing a lot..
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  • John Nooney 11 months ago
    Very rarely am I at a loss for words. All I can say is that I'm awestruck and amazed. Wow!
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  • Byron Abt 11 months ago
    amazing footage...well done!
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  • Per Erik Sviland plus 11 months ago
    Epic work. Truly a masterpiece
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