While I’ve known my latest camera, a 45-megapixel Nikon D850 is capable of shooting fantastic video, each time I’d try and stretch my skillset into the world of videography, the results didn’t quite measure up. My still photography standards had grown considerably over the years, and, as an unexpected subconscious side effect, so did my videography expectations. The quality I saw on YouTube seemed daunting, so I shuffled working with video off to the B list of my photographic priorities.
My mantra was that my DSLR was for stills, and my iPad or iPhone was for video. Full stop. End of story.
Well, thankfully, not quite. I’d been a big fan of timelapse photography starting in 1997 with the arrival of cheap video cameras that I could connect to my Windows 95 PC through the serial port.
My first digital video camera was the Logitech Connectix Color QuickCam. A cute little ball-shaped gizmo that I’d connect via the computer serial port and use to create 320 x 240 colour timelapse videos. While compared to today, the quality of the camera’s video is almost laughable, it was nothing short of astounding at that time. After that, I was hooked and never looked back.
Here is one of my first timelapse videos. A fuzzy mess that only a creator could love but, at the time, one that filled me with wonder at the possibilities to come.
Times change and the resolution, quality and power of today’s digital cameras deliver awesome video and possibilities. Add to that the ease of use and sophistication of modern video editing software (I’m currently using iMovie for the Mac) and YouTube’s support for large, high-resolution videos the time has never been better to dive back into this fantastic world of creativity.
Click here to see a summary of my latest timelapse videos published on YouTube. And don’t forget to like and subscribe!
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