Dogs and bicycles

 

Copenhagen is renowned for its bicycle culture, and with more bicycles in the city than people, traffic jams are not only evident in the streets with cars, lorries and buses. It's also a problem on the bicycle lanes during rush hour. People here seems to be transporting anything possible on their bikes; groceries and kids are high on the list, but even man's best friend seems to enjoy a ride.

Here, there and everywhere

 

I spent Saturday testing the GoPro Hero3 cam that I told you about yesterday. And I did really get around; Amaliehaven, Gefion Fountain, Frederiksberg Have and Copenhagen Zoo. But I think I got a nice result, even if Windows Moviemaker and I will never be friends.

Curious penguin

 

I got the action cam GoPro Hero3 Black Edition a few days ago, and to test it I went to the Copenhagen Zoo. Here a very curious penguin tried to connect but didn't seem to understand that there was a thick glass wall between photographer and beak. The Hero3 camera is small, it's very easy to use with only three buttons, it got wifi so you can operate it with an app, and its 12Mp sensor can record both still, bursts of up to 30 shots in one second, time lapse and up to 4K video. But best of all, I think, is the frame rate, if you shoot in rather low resolution; 120 frames per second in 720 pixels. So if you shoot a clip with that and slow the frame rate down to 25 fps, you get a smooth slow-motion. Tomorrow I'll show you the whole video I shot yesterday.

 

Sunrise time lapse

I'm still fascinated by the Nikon D800's time lapse function. Today's video is from yesterday morning's sunrise over the Danish town of Helsinore (Helsingør in Danish). With a weather report promising a clear day, it was just a matter of grabbing an early morning train and find the right spot at the harbour. I managed two shots, one of the sunrise with the ferries crossing every 10-15 minutes and one of Kronborg of Hamlet fame, all edited in the YouTube editor.

Defrosting Santa

I'm still playing around with my new Nikon D800 camera and I'm still struck by awe. One of the new features in it is the time-lapse function and a few days ago I just had to try it out on something. Into the freezer Santa went and out again the next day, now embedded in a block of ice. The camera went on a tripod with the macro lens, a black background went up and a spotlight was used for the main lighting. But as I didn't want to stand around for hours, waiting for the ice to melt, a hair dryer was very handy. Setting the time-lapse function was easy enough; a photo each 2 seconds and 30 minutes of shooting and off I, or rather the camera went. 30 minutes later the the ice had melted and the video was in the box. A few things I needed to improve the next time; manual focus on Santas face, a wider depth of field and a more solid platform for the tripod (or is it the hair dryer moving Santa a bit?). Not too bad for a first try I think, though.

The second attempt was much better. This time I skipped the hair dryer and went for a natural melting. A photo every 20 seconds for 5 hours and manual focus with an f=12 and the shooting could begin. Well home after work (the shooting started at 6am) I discovered that the battery had run out at some point so that the video was 25 seconds long instead of the planned 30 seconds, but I still got the whole melting. And I like the result! I've got a few more ideas to try out so this is not the last time lapse I'm doing.

And down it went...

I did catch this sequence of the demolition of the Valby Gas Silo yesterday, so now the view from my balcony has changed.