11-hour Time-lapse with GoPro and LimeFuel Epic

I had a busy January so my posts have been non-existent this far this year. That’s not to say that I haven’t been busy with photography – I have. Here’s a short post which follows-up my first long time-lapse test last year with the GoPro Hero 4 Silver and the external battery Epic L40G4. This first test I achieved just under 10 hours but the time-lapse ended prematurely due to the microSD card filling up…   :-P

This time, a little longer – as the title of the post suggests, 11 hours of continuous time-lapse with an entirely self-contained (watertight) system – not too shabby at all.

Shooting Details :

GoPro Hero 4 Silver with full internal battery plus LimeFuel Epic L40G4 Battery

– 4002 stills for approx 11 hours of autonomy.
– Protunes ON
– wifi ON
– 1 image every 10 seconds
– resulting video is 24 fps

 

If you watch the video in HD on youTube you will see the time displayed in the lower left of the frame for each image.

Advertiser link:

[amazon_image id=”B00SCE6ZG4″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Limefuel Epic[/amazon_image]

Limefuel EPIC for GoPro

UPDATE:  Sept. 3, 2015 – see bottom of this page.

If you own a GoPro camera then you probably agree that the internal battery is arguably the weakest link in the camera system. Specifically, your operation time is limited to 60-90 min max, and dramatically less so if you’re using wifi and the LCD on the Hero 4 Silver.

This is particularly problematic for extended time lapses since it binds you being near the camera physically for battery changes. External USB battery packs work well in this case, but then you’ve got exposed ports and will need to weather-proof the entire set-up, like this:

DIY weather-proofing of GoPro timelapse system

 

The above set-up works very well, by the way, with the exception of the water drops on the lens at the end of this particular shoot.   :-/

Enter the Limefuel battery… a project I funded on Kickstarter back in March. This extended battery promises to deliver 3x the capacity of the standard GoPro battery, all while sitting fully enclosed in the waterproof case (you receive a larger camera back/enclosure to accommodate the larger physical dimensions of the Limefuel Epic). Mine arrived today with the first wave of deliveries to backers. It’s going through its first charge now… (photo below) – and time will tell how it performs and holds its own… check back here for an update and mini-review.

 

Limefuel EPIC L40G4 4000 mAh for Hero 4 Silver – first charge.

UPDATE:  September 3, 2015

Before heading off to work yesterday I quickly rigged up the GoPro on the side of our house, with the Limefuel EPIC fully charged, in order to do a quick and dirty test of the capacity of the battery. I ran a time-lapse all day while I was away, until both the Limefuel battery and the internal battery were depleted and the camera shut off. The results are in:

Duration of time-lapse was a very impressive 9 hours and 50 minutes on battery power.

GoPro Settings:

– 1 pic every 5 seconds
– Protunes ON
– WIFI ON
– 7 MP / wide
– Hero 4 Silver
– internal goPro battery was also full at beginning

 

By turning off the wifi I should be able to squeeze a bit more time out of it, but almost 10 hours is already pretty fantastic. This is exactly what I was hoping to receive when I backed the battery on Kickstarter. In you’re interested in getting one, you can now [amazon_link id=”B00SCE6ZG4″ target=”_blank” ]purchase them on Amazon[/amazon_link] (advertiser link). There are different models for various GoPro cameras, so make sure you check compatibility with your camera.

BTW, here’s the bare-bones time-lapse (sorry no audio on this one).

 

Advertiser link:

[amazon_image id=”B00SCE6ZG4″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Limefuel Epic[/amazon_image]

Video on DSLR

I’m doing a bit of volunteer video duty this weekend for the 150th anniversary celebrations of the school in our village of Le Pâquier. Committee president (and friend) Frédérique Moratel-Revaz opens the festivities (below photo).

I don’t do a lot a video work, but I’m always happy to do some experimenting to see what I can produce with my DSLR equipment.

If you see the f/stop I’m using in this photo then you’ll that I should have brought along an ND filter… it was way too bright, even at ISO 64 on the D810.  :-/   The sequences turned out fine, though. Tomorrow I’ll be faced with exactly the opposite conditions… a small, dark room, moving actors and very little space to get around.

I’ll have a follow-up post to this one shortly, including some sample footage.