Tag Archives: Chicago

What a Balls Ups

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I have previously played around with time lapse videos made with an SLR, a timer release and some software linked to Lightroom to create the finished video.  I decided to go a little longer with one and make a video throughout the night, starting before sunset and finishing off once the sun had come back up again.  This did not prove to be as simple as I had hoped!

It should be pointed out that most of these problems are entirely of my doing.  First of all, I did a calculation of how many shots I thought would be necessary to complete the clip.  This was more than would fit on one of my compact flash cards.  No problem, the camera has a second slot.  It turns out that, unlike the MkIV which will switch to the second card when the first is full if you so desire, the MkIIN won’t do that.  Okay, not problem.  I shall tether it to Lightroom and download direct to the laptop.

This didn’t work.  I believe this was also my fault as the MkIIN has a firewire connection as well as the USB and the USB tethering showed up on the computer but didn’t actually do anything.  Okay, I can fix this.  I shall let it run for a long time and change the card shortly before going to bed and the new card should work through the rest of the night.  A fully charged battery and off we went to dinner.

Upon my return, I find that the camera is not shooting any more.  Foolishly, while I worked out that a 16Gb card would be fine, I didn’t remove the 8Gb card that was in there so the card was full.  I swapped the card with another one quickly and set it off.  A while later I come back to check on it and nothing is happening.  The new card is full.  I hadn’t formatted it first.  What a fool.  I also have a flat battery.  This is not going to be good.  Fortunately, the MkIIN came with the DC adapter as standard (unlike the MkIV – how tight are you Canon?) so I swapped that in, put in a fresh card and formatted it.  Then I went to bed.

This finally worked.  The remaining shots worked fine.  The result wasn’t too bad but, since it had some obvious jumps in it – the moon was traversing the scene when the gaps occur – it wasn’t usable.  However, it did teach me a bunch of thing that I now need to deal with for the second attempt.  let’s see if I can balls that up as well!

Turn the River a Slightly Different Color

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Since the birthday of this blog has just passed, I am now going to spend my time repeating previous blog posts from a year ago.  Seems a lot easier than creating new content.  In fact, for those of you with an inquisitive nature, I will make things easier and you can go to this post to see what I wrote before and decide for yourself whether I am being original or whether I am totally ripping off my own work.  If it is different, has the quality of my posts improved???

This year St Patrick’s Day was a Saturday.  I am not sure whether this really made any difference because the city chooses a Saturday to celebrate everything and that is the party day whatever the date.  The odd thing this year is that it was warm.  Mid 70s is not what you expect for this time in March.  In fact, my first St Patrick’s Day in Chicago, we went to see the parade and gave up half way through because we were thoroughly frozen!

This time being too warm was more of an issue.  I won’t go in to whether the madness that the city falls in to is any way related to St Patrick or even the Irish (and we shall leave the fact that Patrick wasn’t Irish anyway for another day!).  Instead, I am going to focus on the tradition of dying the river green.  I went down to join the crowds and see how things were developing.  It was very busy with the weather really bringing out the crowds.

Dying the river went fine despite the coxed eights that didn’t get out of the way in time.  The Police boats seemed mad but hadn’t made an effort to get rid of them ahead of time so what did they expect.  It was funny to see the speed boats running close by and putting quite a wash over the eight who looked less than happy about how close they were to sinking!

Watching the crowds was also fun.  You do see some sights on a day like today and some of them can be photographed.  However, you also have to be careful since the drinking starts early and can affect the good humor of some people!

Up a Big Pole!

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Today we have a bit of a flashback.  Regular readers will know that I shoot a lot of helicopter operations.  Midwest Helicopters is the large local operator so they do most of the work in the city.  However, there other operators that undertake similar work and some of them will work in Chicago at times.  This is often a function of the weight of the loads to be lifted.  Construction Helicopters of Howell MI are one such operator and their S-61N aircraft can lift 10,000lbs – a big increase over the 4,500lbs of the S-58T.  If you need even bigger things lifted, Erickson Aircrane are probably your people!

This piece, though, is not about the helicopter so much as the people it was working with.  A few years ago, the Trump International Hotel and Tower was built here in the city – in fact just across the street from us.  We had the best seats to watch the demolition of the old Sun Times building and the growth from a hole in the ground to 92 floors of building.  It was fun to watch, even if it did take a chunk out of our view!  The building was topped off with a spire.  The parts for the spire were lifted to the roof by the construction cranes before they were assembled but it was going to be significantly higher than the rest of the building so those cranes were not suitable for assembling it.  The pieces would be lifted into place by helicopter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first attempt at this was unsuccessful as the winds were so strong that keeping each piece in place long enough to secure it proved impossible.  There was a long wait before the second attempt but the job finally went ahead.  The heroes of this story are the guys on the tower.  If you think that the tower itself is over a 1,000′ tall and the spire is a significant (and flexible) structure above that, you can see that this is quite an exposed location to be working.  From talking to the team that assembled it, the most senior guys are the ones at the very top – they want to be there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three guys were on the spire at the top.  As each section was brought into place, they grabbed the tag lines and pulled it into position.  When they had located it, they would put in a bolt in each corner.  Then, one would climb up the new piece to release the lifting line.  The other two would follow while a second group came behind them to insert the additional bolts to finally secure the section.  While they were finishing that off, the next piece was coming in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To add to the fun of this, the spire narrows as it gets higher so the working space gets progressively more limited.  All the time you are dealing with whatever wind conditions there are at this height combined with the not inconsiderable down-wash from the helicopter and trying to make sure you maintain your grip and don’t drop anything on the team below you!

The job ran a little long but they did finish it off and put the final cap in place.  They seemed to do a great job but were so far away from anyone else, I suspect that very few people appreciate exactly what they had done.  It was only recently as I was culling a bunch of old images that I looked again at them as saw exactly what they were doing.  I feel guilty for paying more attention to the helicopter operations when I first shot the job so decided to give them a little publicity now.  Well done everyone.

 

Thornton Quarry Video

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The Thornton Quarry lift job with Midwest Helicopters was a full day job so it provided a bunch of opportunity to try different things.  This was true for the stills but it also allowed me to experiment with the video as well.  Since the aircraft was operating all day, I was able to get to multiple locations and see all aspects of the job as they happened.  Normally, this isn’t possible since a lift will only last about 30 minutes.  In that case, you have to pick the location that will get the shots you must have and accept that the alternative shots will not be made.

This time I was able to move around the whole site and capture as much as possible of what was going on.  Some of the clips looked really interesting and the time but they actually proved to be no use.  Some of the boring stuff as it appeared at the time actually ended up being really of use when it came to editing.

At this point, it is important for me to apologize to people like Gerry Holtz.  Gerry is an editor and he does this sort of thing for a living.  Anyone else who knows about editing professionally, you are all due my apologies and my respect.  I am trying a bit with video editing but what I have learned is that it is bloody difficult to do.

On this shoot, most of the video was captured using my SLR.  The rest of it was shot on a GoPro which is such a great little device to get something a little more unusual.  It was handheld (or mounted in the case of the GoPro).  No tripods or dollies and certainly nothing as impressive as a Kessler Crane!

I suspect that to be good at editing it is important to have had some education in the process.  I am doing it the guy way – try something and then try something else and see what happens.  Not even a manual to consult!  Consequently, I make some progress but probably my approach starts from the wrong place.  If I was going to do a lot more of this I would take the training aspect seriously.  However, for the time-being, this is a little side hobby so I will probably stick with what I am doing.

Part of the fun(?) of the edit process is taking all of the disparate elements of the footage and trying to combine them into a coherent timeline.  Part of the engineer in me thinks it should be delivered in the same order it happened.  This is rubbish of course.  The viewer has no concern of course.  As long as the result doesn’t obviously have terrible jumps or continuity issues, no-one is going to be any the wiser.

Also, how much do they need to see.  About eighty lifts were done during the day.  Does the video need to have eighty lifts?  NO!  In the end, I concluded that two lifts were enough to tell the story.  One wasn’t enough but it didn’t need more than two.  I cut the length down as I went but even then it was still quite a long piece.  A pro would probably have it down to a couple of minutes but then, as I mentioned, I am not a video pro.

One lesson I have learned as I have practiced this video stuff is how many of the tools the software has are no use at all.  There are a million transitions between scenes, all of which make it look like you are experimenting with the software but they are a distraction from viewing.  I have learned to use simple transitions that are short so they are not obvious to the viewer.  They just stop the jump being the item the viewer focuses on.

Anyway, the final part of this story is that I was very happy with the result for this video.  Unfortunately, it turns out the company that was doing part of the work is very sensitive about their equipment and doesn’t like the equipment being shown on the video so I have had to remove it from my YouTube channel.  Consequently, I can’t include it in this post.  Oh well…

Winter Zoo Time

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A sunny winter weekend is often a good chance to check out the zoo.  Since a lot of the animals are not fond of winter weather, there are only a few that will be outside at this time of year.  Consequently, the zoo doesn’t charge for entry so it is good for those after a cheap day out.  We are members anyway so it doesn’t make a difference to us but it is good to go anyway.

During our previous visit the Snow Leopards had been pretty active.  We were hoping to see them again – they aren’t too bothered by the cold – but we also wanted to see what else was about.  Since you aren’t paying, you can make a short visit without feeling like you should make a full day out of the admission price.  As it happened, the Snow Leopards were soundly asleep while we were there but there were other things to see.

The Tiger was showing more action that is normally the case.  This is one cat that likes to sleep.  However, we timed our arrival well and saw a fair bit of movement.  Tigers are also fine with the cold of course.  Bears are similar.  Both Polar Bears were about and one of the Brown Bears was wandering around its enclosure.

We also saw a few birds wandering around the place.  The Pelicans were out near one of the ponds and another group of birds (I am thinking Guinea Fowl but you can correct me if I am wrong) were also strutting around.  The light was very nice so not a bad afternoon.

 

Night Skating

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As has been the case a few times recently, I was down in Millennium Park recently at night.  I was there to see something else but, while I was there, I took some time to watch the ice skaters.  There is an ice rink beside Millennium Park that is free to the public to use.  If you don’t have skates, they are available for hire.  However, if you come equipped, you are free to skate!

The rink stays open relatively late each evening and I spent some time from above watching everyone having fun.  Of course, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take some pictures (and also some video – I figure that all of these clips will one day be part of a larger montage of Chicago footage).  Since it is dark, it is time to try other techniques.

I was surprised how well lit the rink was.  I could get some quite fast shutter speeds if I wanted to.  However, that wasn’t really the point.  I can come during the day if that is what I want.  Instead, the slow shutter speeds were actually what I was looking for.  The question then becomes how slow.

I was mounting the camera to the railings with a flexible arm and clamp so my motion wasn’t a problem.  If the shutter speeds got too long, the blur of the skaters became so vague, it was hard to see whether they were there or not.  A slightly faster speed meant they became a bit more distinct.  This was what I was after.  You still needed to get the larger groups of skaters to make it show up noticeably though.  The perfect combination was when someone would stay totally still (or close to it) during the shot.  Then you had the juxtaposition of the movement and the lack of movement.  That was my favorite.

Some O’Hare Arrivals

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A bit more time stuck indoors than I would ideally have liked had meant that I was beginning to climb the walls a bit.  Some good weather had been about but I had been unable to get outside to enjoy it.  However, I did get a Sunday when I was able to get out and the weather showed signs of clearing up.  (It had been pretty murky early in the day but the forecast said it would get better and it wasn’t wrong!)

I decided to head to O’Hare to watch some European arrivals.  A strong westerly wind meant the arrival direction would be reliable as far as sun angle was concerned and the low temperatures should hopefully avoid too much heat distortion.  Apart from that, an afternoon out shooting the arrivals is better than plenty of other options even if it isn’t something new and unique.

As it was, there were a fair few interesting aircraft coming in along with the regular O’Hare types of traffic.  I was able to keep close to the car which meant I could hop back out of the chilly wind between interesting targets and listen out on LiveATC’s app on my phone to know when something was coming my way.  Flightaware also allows a bit of planning ahead.

It was a fun afternoon and some good results showed up.  Some new bits to add to the catalog along with some of the familiar stuff and some that will soon no longer be familiar and need to be remembered before they are gone.  Here is a small selection of the day.

Frosty Start

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The good team at Midwest Helicopter called me up recently to see if I wanted to go out on a job they had scheduled.  There were two jobs on the one day, one of which was going to be a long one.  Anyway, I need to get there first thing to be ready to head on out with the team.  I was going to ride in the aircraft so no messing around in Chicago traffic for me during the day.  Just sail across.

It had been a cold night so there was ice on the ground and frost on the aircraft.  I am not much use to the guys while they are getting ready.  Telling me what to do would probably take longer than doing it themselves and they would probably want to check whatever I had done anyway.  Therefore, I took the chance to get some shots on the ground of them getting ready and of the aircraft.

Normally I see the aircraft when it arrives at the job so getting it at rest was a nice change.  Also, the weather was great with lovely soft morning light so it was a great opportunity.  Here are some shots of the morning.  The jobs themselves will follow in the days to come.

Illuminating the Bean

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It is easy to get complacent when you have so much going on around you all of the time.  I saw something in the paper about an installation in Millennium Park where there was a light field set up around Cloud Gate (or The Bean to everyone except the artist who created it!).  The lights were illuminating the ground and also reflecting from the surface of the Bean itself.  Sounded worth a look.

I mention it to Nancy and the following day she says the paper mentions the exhibit ends the following day.  It is Sunday so I figure I had better get down there that night to see it before it goes.  Of course, I am not alone in thinking this.  I head down there and it is absolutely packed.  There are plenty of photographers around and one of them tells me how quiet it had been the previous Tuesday.  Great!  I am doing well recently with people telling me how it was better sometime before but they never give me a time machine to make this information truly useful!

Anyway, the presence of all of the people has some good effects.  I set up a time lapse when I first get there since it is busy and the people add something to the time lapse.  Besides, having a lot of people around makes it feel more exciting.  The other benefit is that, while the people obscure the light projections on the ground, they become a screen of their own so seeing the shapes play out on them can be just as good.

I hang around for a while since I figure people will drift off home at some point.  It is Sunday after all.  Sure enough, the numbers do reduce over time but the exhibit ends at 9pm and there are still plenty of people around at that time.  The patterns of light are different on each side of the Bean.  Projectors are mounted on scaffold frames and beam constantly changing patterns down.  There is also musical accompaniment (although I ruin that effect by staying in my own world with my own music – philistine!).

It was certainly worth it.  Someone asked me recently why to live in a city.  After you had seen everything once, what else is left to do.  A fair question if you don’t live in a city.  However, this was one of those things that says to me why it is fun to live in a city.  Something like this was happening and it was less than 15 minutes for me to walk there.

Some Fishy Video

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As you might have noticed, there is a bit of theme developing with some of the stuff I post.  Photos are the main focus of what I do but I am also dabbling more with the video side of things.  There are some things that video can show that stills do not represent as well.  Since the 1D MkIV arrived in my hands with the ability to shoot HD video, I have been surprised how many times I have taken some video along with the stills.

Anyway, all of that is a roundabout way of saying that I have got some video from the Shedd Aquarium here in Chicago that goes along with the previous posts on the swimmy things.  It is shot through glass (of course) in the public areas so I know that the reflections are sometimes there but even so,  I hope you like it.