Yosemite Time-lapse Photography

Photography Tips  •  Time-lapse Photography

Yosemite is, without a doubt, a true nature photographers playground.  So much in fact, a section of the park is named in honor of famous photographer, Ansel Adams. Colin Delehanty recently spent four days with a fellow photographer, Sheldon Niel, to create this four minute timelapse of the park. This project has now received media attention worldwide and millions of people have seen since it was released a few weeks ago. Take a moment and enjoy:

“Its isolated from many urban areas that might light up the sky and prevent you from getting good shots of the stars or the milky way. It’s ideal for outdoor time-lapse photography,” says Delehanty on photographing in Yosemite.

Yosemite National Park spans over 700,000 acres and is home to some of North Americas most diverse wildlife. The park’s sweeping valleys, lush with ancent sequoia trees, perfectly complement the giant granite slopes and waterfalls that fall from them.

The two photographers shot these timelapses on a Canon 5D Mark II with a Carl Zeiss 135mm telephoto lens. One of the most difficult aspects to creating timelapse videos in such remote areas is lugging their gear around. While some locations were only a block or two away from their camp, many of the locations were over a two mile hike away. Not only were they carrying the heavy DSLR, but they were also brought along the Dynamic Peception MILapse Dolly and MX2 controller, 6-foot aluminim rails, and a steadycam merlin.

To capture the footage, they two would first scout for locations, then drive their car as close in as possible. They would then have to carry their gear to the new site. “Its pretty challenging to hike up with all the equipment and sometime things don’t work out, like, forgetting to bring something like a quick release plate or your batteries,” recalls Delehanty. “You’re bringing so much stuff, it’s the easiest thing to forget the smaller stuff and some of the smaller things are the most important.”

Most of the clips were taken over a course of four or more hours, with the assistant of the MX2 controller. The merlin allowed them to not only create sweeping shots but also give them the ability to pan and tilt the camera automatically. You can take a look at how the how the crew used the set up in this documentary, shot by Dalton Runberg, who was along for the shoot.

For Further Training on Time-lapse Photography:

Check out this new COMPLETE guide (146 pages) to shooting, processing and rendering time-lapses using a dslr camera. It can be found here: Time-lapse Photography Guide