Mitchell Falls Moonlit Timelapse

[iceman (Mike)]

Ken Duncan and I were camped out on a ledge overlooking the stunning Mitchell Falls, with the roaring sound of the waterfall echoing in our ears and the beautiful display completely visible even at midnight thanks to a very bright almost full Moon.

This timelapse was captured over 4 hours, from midnight-4am as we tried in vain to sleep. The shadow creeping across the falls is from the Moon setting lower in the West. You can see towards the end of the timelapse, the whole scene is almost dark once the Moon set.

Click here to load the video

Loading...

Watch in HD on Youtube

The timelapse images were captured with a Canon 40D, 17-70mm lens @ 17mm f/4, ISO1600, 30s exposures.

All of the images were stacked into a single image, which you can see below. Although it looks like a daylight shot, you can see the star trails at the top of the frame showing that it’s definitely taken at night!

- Large
- Blog

Thanks for looking.

[Adelastro1 (Wayne England)]

Very nice Mike. I love how the shadow from the moon creeps across the landscape.

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

You are going to get sick of me commenting Mike..... Great timelapse. If I may offer a slight critique, I would have liked to see a fraction more sky in the composition but I'm guessing on that rock ledge you couldn't exactly take a few steps backwards, and I realise that you were more focused on the falls rather than the sky.

[gregbradley]

Great work Mike.

Geez you're gonna be hard to beat at the next Malins!

Greg.

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Beautiful timelapse Mike - and that creeping shadow make it look very dramatic! It's a nice contrast with the tranquil looking falls.

[iceman (Mike)]

Originally Posted by Adelastro1

Very nice Mike. I love how the shadow from the moon creeps across the landscape.

Thanks Wayne. The Moon was so bright when it was up high we didn't even need our headlamps. A few times during the walk in we turned them off too and just trekked via moonlight. It was quite surreal.

Originally Posted by obsidianphotos

You are going to get sick of me commenting Mike..... Great timelapse. If I may offer a slight critique, I would have liked to see a fraction more sky in the composition but I'm guessing on that rock ledge you couldn't exactly take a few steps backwards, and I realise that you were more focused on the falls rather than the sky.

Thanks Greg, I appreciate your comments. You're completely right about the sky - the problem was, I was using my Canon 40D and with the crop sensor I just didn't have a wide enough lens to fit all of the falls AND more sky.

I was using the 5D Mk II and 14mm doing other shots so this was all I could do with the timelapse.

Definitely not the composition I was after for the timelapse but the shadow made the scene dramatic enough.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Great work Mike.

Geez you're gonna be hard to beat at the next Malins!

Greg.

Thanks for the kind words Greg but Alex, Phil and Colin are almost unstoppable. I'll be happy to just to have more work to enter - it's been slim pickings for me the last few years.

Originally Posted by SkyViking

Beautiful timelapse Mike - and that creeping shadow make it look very dramatic! It's a nice contrast with the tranquil looking falls.

Thanks Rolf, appreciate your comments. I wasn't sure initially what value the timelapse would be because with 30s exposures, the water itself wasn't going to change much from frame to frame. But after looking at a few frames and seeing the shadow creep across, I knew it would still be worthwhile continuing to capture the scene.

Thanks again!

[colinmlegg (Colin)]

Nice to see a timelapse from there Mike. Also love the shadow play - it's about all you've got to work with under those monotonous clear skies. Must have been amazing to be out there in full moon light..have never been there myself.

[White Rabbit]

Very nice, reminded me of some of the sequences from Chronos. Quick question, how did you stack all the images deep sky stacker?