Time lapse photography is a way of recording events over long periods of time and playing them back in a very short period of time. This is accomplished by shooting a single frame of a film or video and not shooting the next frame until some interval has passed. The longer the interval, the faster the time passes in the recorded sequence.
Ever wonder what it would be like to watch a pumpkin seed germinate, or a seedling grow? Wonder no more because I have made some time lapse videos. These are my first attempts at time lapse (and editing video) so they are a bit rough around the edges, but still interesting. I plan to work on refining my technique to improve the quality for later videos.
The links below will take you to another site where the videos are stored. They are in Real Player format and you will need RealPlayer to view them.
The seed germination video is in Black&White. It was lit with a 25 watt red light bulb (off to the left and not seen in the photo below). A stronger light inhibits the root formation. The seed was kept at 85 degrees F.
A few notes about the seedling video. The grow light is on for 20 hours and off for 4. Rather than have a black out durng the "night" I used a dim 25 watt red bulb so you can still see the seedling. The web cam was set up directly over the seedling so you will see the seedling from the top. You will also notice the the peat pot shrinks as it dries out and expands when I add water. I did lose about 16 hours in the middle due to a file problem, but the whole sequence covers 72 hours from start to finish. The seedling was kept at 85 degrees F. for filming.The video runs for 58 seconds.
My seedlings normally come up with the seed casing still attached. This tends to pin the seed leaves together for a while. The seedling does eventually lose the casing. In this time lapse you can see the seedling move around a great deal and the seed leaves flip open as soon as the casing falls off. On a side note, I had the light source well away from the seedling to keep from having the image too bright, but this resulted in a very "leggy" seedling which is not what you want.