Yes, a single link Youtube Post, now click damnit

February 26, 2007 10:10 AM

Twelve Moons on Gichigami: (YT) ~1500 frames from a web camera in Canal Park Duluth Mn, A year's worth of time in just under 7 Mins, by Mark Ryan. (via)
posted by edgeways (26 comments total)

can someone edit this down to 7 seconds, thx.
posted by sxtxixtxcxh at 10:37 AM on February 26, 2007

Some exciting shit.
posted by basicchannel at 10:45 AM on February 26, 2007

what basicchannel said, only more exciting.
posted by Hat Maui at 10:46 AM on February 26, 2007

Thanks, I liked that, and enjoyed the soundtrack. I could have used more time with the winter scenes, it's insufferably humid down here this evening.

I have some awesome shots of Lake Superior from about 12 years ago, when it froze over. I'll have to scan them and post some time. I shot them with one of those throw-away panaorama cameras.

Oh, Wikipedia says it's Gitche Gumee. I suppose you'd have to ask an Ojibwe to be sure.
posted by Goofyy at 10:46 AM on February 26, 2007

I have always wanted to try time lapse photography of something like a plant growing (or maybe my son), but I find this to be dull. Too bad his window wasn't facing a construction site ... or a slowly drying wall of fresh paint.
posted by itchylick at 10:48 AM on February 26, 2007

Pretty neat idea, but way too long for this zero-attention-span internetter.

Also, "Twelve Moons on Gichigami" makes me think of "6 Degrees of Geechy Guy".
posted by DU at 10:57 AM on February 26, 2007

Also, in re: time lapse. Can I self-link in a comment? Because I built a timelapse-o-matic out of Lego a few months ago that itchylick might be interested in.
posted by DU at 10:59 AM on February 26, 2007

Thought it was pretty cool. Liked the cloud-fog around ~3:07.

I watched it with no sound though--speakers aren't hooked up to the pc.
posted by exlotuseater at 11:01 AM on February 26, 2007

If it's Legos and time-lapse then it's cool to self-link in a comment.
posted by basicchannel at 11:01 AM on February 26, 2007

I wonder if it's actually chronological
posted by parmanparman at 11:09 AM on February 26, 2007

I'm calling you as a witness for the defense if I get banhammered.

First test output of Lego CamBot
Closer up details of CamBot (the SunTracker did NOT work as I hoped, but CamBot performed very well)

Unfortunately I can't do a plant growing feasibly, since the camera will shut itself down after N minutes and I can't embiggen that interval. Plus the Mindstorm batteries will die eventually (maybe a power cord?)
posted by DU at 11:12 AM on February 26, 2007

Does anybody know what that song is?
posted by vytae at 11:15 AM on February 26, 2007

DU: if you're wanting to do longer intervals, you probably should consider building another actuator that would hit the camera's power button first, and have the other take the shot. you could even have it shut it off.

as it is now, you're killing your sensor.
posted by sxtxixtxcxh at 11:18 AM on February 26, 2007

What sensor?

The particular camera I have requires significant torque, with some dexterity, to turn on so I think that's a no-go with Le-go. I have multiple ideas on how to fix this all, but I fell out of my every-6-months Lego craze before I had a chance to implement any of it. Maybe on the next iteration.
posted by DU at 11:23 AM on February 26, 2007

Wow. If i didn't think Minnesota was boring before, I do now. And I live in Illinois.
posted by thekilgore at 11:36 AM on February 26, 2007

Unfortunately I can't do a plant growing feasibly, since the camera will shut itself down after N minutes and I can't embiggen that interval.

Rather than that, just tap the button halfway -- to set the autofocus. That will keep it alive.

Actually, on Canon digicams, pushing almost any button will keep it alive as long as you like. I've used this on my own time-lapse camera projects in the past.
posted by fake at 11:59 AM on February 26, 2007

Ugh. Webcam plus long, slow fades equals one very boring video.

I'm not sure this even qualifies as "timelapse". One of the nice things about real timelapse is that it compresses time so that imperceptibly slow changes become, you know, perceptible. When you play the frames back once every two seconds with an agonizingly slow fade, it makes it impossible to sense the difference between them. It completely negates the whole point of timelapse, imho.

I was almost impressed by the rainbow near the end, but when it was followed by an obviously fake full moon composited over a too-bright daytime sky, it made me doubt that the rainbow was even real.
posted by otherthings_ at 12:03 PM on February 26, 2007

Did you mean to refer to Lake Superior by its Lakota name?
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:28 PM on February 26, 2007

Er, I mean Ojibwe name. God, my friends are gonna kill me.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:32 PM on February 26, 2007

Well... I just used the title of the video, however the Gichigami spelling is sometimes used to refer to "the lake". link bout halfway down, but best to use F3
posted by edgeways at 12:37 PM on February 26, 2007

Interesting. I lived in Duluth for year in an old school called "Emerson" that was populated by artists of all sorts. I once called a cab to drive me down to lake just so I could look at waves. My studio was above Electric Fetus.

Good times... good times...

Thanks for this post.
posted by squidfartz at 12:54 PM on February 26, 2007

Beautiful stuff. Thanks for posting, edgeways.
posted by jiawen at 12:55 PM on February 26, 2007

squidfartz, it's quite possible we know many of the same people. I know many people who use to live in Emerson
posted by edgeways at 1:14 PM on February 26, 2007

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee...

Great... another month of therapy to get that song out of my head.
posted by hal9k at 2:49 PM on February 26, 2007

Light show with music. I liked this.
posted by pointilist at 10:20 PM on February 26, 2007

Mental Wimp: Read the thread next time.

I wonder what Duluth was like at its height. I've only ever been there since the decline. At that time, Duluth was a bustling metropolis, relative to where I was living (Hurley, Wisconsin).

Nice to see the lake though. I used to live for those summer days that were hot enough to require total emersion in that crystal cold water. Now I see the Indian Ocean (or the Southern Ocean, if you prefer), right from my chair.
posted by Goofyy at 4:14 AM on February 27, 2007