Yet another super cool example of the power of the Canon 5D mk2 to make stunning videos, here is photographer Wesley Townsend Kitten’s series of stills turned into a movie called “The City”. He shot it on a 5D mk2 all around San Francisco, capturing the stunning beauty of the city. Kitten used Boards of Cananda’s “Dayvan Cowboy” for the backing track – one of my all time favourite electronic tracks, which has been used in countless cool videos – including my own movie documenting my trip through Turkey.
Here’s the video on Vimeo, as well as a few other related links.
The City from WTK Photography on Vimeo.
This timelapse is about a year in the making. I started sometime in June of 2010 and finished it on August 19, 2011. It wasn’t constant work of course, just working on it every now and then. I’d estimate I have invested anywhere between 250 and 300 hours on it. Most of this was time I spent walking, biking, or riding the bus to locations I was shooting. There are very few locations I used a car to get to. Total frame count is about 28,000 frames and 85 different shots. All the frames weren’t used in the final product as I edited down the clips. You will notice that some of the shots were shaky. San Francisco is a very windy city and even my heavy tripod couldn’t remain still. In hindsight I should have bought a different head. All photos were shot in JPEG and then some light editing in Lightroom. Compiled into .mov clips in Quicktime Pro and then all brought together in Final Cut Pro.
I started this project because there are so many people photographing the city that I wanted to capture it in a different way that most were not. Between the time I started and the time I finished, timelapses have become huge. It’s amazing to see what fellow artists can make with even the most basic equipment.
Gear-
Canon 5D and 5D Mark II
Canon 16-35mm L
Canon 70-200mm L IS
Canon 15mm Fisheye
Satechi TR-A Timer Remote Control
Slik Pro 700DX Tripod
Manfrotto 322RC2 Tripod Head
Other uses of “Dayvan Cowboy”
- Joe Kittinger jumps from 102,800 feet. If you like this video, you should definitely read this book, it’s amazing: The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space
- My own video of traveling through Turkey, 2008