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| Solstice Moon Path the six positions of the moon were chosen from over 1000 images taken June 20th 2016, location Eastern Shore lower Chesapeake Bay |
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| Solstice Sunset Path |
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| Exact moment of summer solstice 2016. 6:34pm. View looking northwest over the Chesapeake Bay |
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| Airplane trail, just below is Jupiter, and the Moon |
The Summer Solstice Sun and full strawberry moon only occur the same day once in about 70 years, and we caught it on film! Also some great footage of the nights and new moon preceding the June 20th Summer Solstice all filmed over the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Shore and Barrier Islands.
Filmed and edited by Jim Baugh for Jim Baugh Outdoors TV
2016 celestial navigation feature. Some of this footage will be used for the
show. Production lasted a total of 28 days, over 350 hours of filming, and 56,000
photos for a finished video of 2 minutes 27 seconds. Constellations and planets visible include Leo, Jupiter, the Big Dipper,
Arcturus, Bootes, Spica, Mars, Saturn, Anteras, Scorpious , Libra, Virgo and
the Milky Way. (pictures below wit graphics) This project was filmed on the Lower Eastern Shore of Virginia on
the Chesapeake Bay and Barrier Islands during late May and June 2016.
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| New Moon Chesapeake Bay early June 2016 |
Special thanks goes of course to “Ms 11” for putting up with
me this past month because have not had a lot of sleep. A big shout out also to
the good Lord for giving me the perfect weather and filming conditions just
when I needed it. Even the clouds showed up at the right time.
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| Sunrise Barrier Island Eastern Shore Virginia |
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| Storm over Mermaid Bay Cape Charles |
During this filming there has been a lot of interest in the tools used to create such a project. Below I am posting everything I used to complete the Solstice Moon Film.
Production Info Field:
Cameras Cannon 1080p, and Scinex 1080p for pre production and scouting. Hero 4k silver for all time lapse day and night. Settings for Night Lapse
varied, we used 3000k, 5500k and native white balance with exposure from 10 to 30
seconds, continuous, ISO from 200 to 800. Best results were lower ISO and shorter exposure
times resulted in a lot of less noise. (200 ISO 10 sec exposure for the full moon)
Time Lapse Day ISO 100 intervals from 5 to 10 seconds. I used the Brunton 2.0 battery pak for power and it worked flawlessly with power lasting 13 hours running full wifi, etc. Battery times lasted even longer on shorter exposure settings. Also used for power was a JBL Charge. Lock down- I used a tripod and a gorilla grip as well as a safety line attached to both. For the opening underwater shot we used a troll pro at a depth of 40 feet filmed 70 miles offshore Virginia Beach at the Norfolk Canyon. The sounds you hear in the beginning of the film are pilot whales and porpoises. The long exposure panning timer I made out of the guts of an egg timer and various GoPro mounts, worked very well.
Time Lapse Day ISO 100 intervals from 5 to 10 seconds. I used the Brunton 2.0 battery pak for power and it worked flawlessly with power lasting 13 hours running full wifi, etc. Battery times lasted even longer on shorter exposure settings. Also used for power was a JBL Charge. Lock down- I used a tripod and a gorilla grip as well as a safety line attached to both. For the opening underwater shot we used a troll pro at a depth of 40 feet filmed 70 miles offshore Virginia Beach at the Norfolk Canyon. The sounds you hear in the beginning of the film are pilot whales and porpoises. The long exposure panning timer I made out of the guts of an egg timer and various GoPro mounts, worked very well.
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| June 20th 2016 Solstice Sunset Over the Chesapeake Bay looking North West |
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| June 20th 2016 Solstice Full Moon looking West over the Chesapeake Bay |
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| Solstice Moon |
Production Info Post:
Over 56,000 still photos were first imported into GoPro Studio then compiled into 4k and 1080p videos files. Some basic color correction and speed adjustment were added at this phase. Next files were imported into Premier Pro were most of the editing and color grading was done. Most of the video files durations were altered greatly, as much as 300% from the source file. Some audio multitracking was also done during this phase of production, about 8 tracks. Photoshop was used to create a matt or mask that was used to cover any video noise from long exposures. I developed this method and sent it to GoPro for them to spread throughout their community as a workaround for video noise. They were very pleased and loved the Solstice Moon video and suggested it to be entered in the GoPro awards program.
Audio Post:
Solstice Moon is heavily treated with a soundtrack and effects. The piano composition "Piano Double" is an original, I played it on a KX88 piano (controller) and a JV1080 synthesizer 64 voice piano patch. Mastering was done in Audition and the video track was used as a source to lay audio tracks down. This included effects. Most organic sound effects were captured by Jim Baugh Outdoors TV however some also came from the JV1080. The effect at the end of the video I must give credit to engineer Eddy Offord who designed this effect by playing two natural E notes on piano and then reversed the tape. This is the sound you hear at the beginning of the song "Roundabout". I did not sample the record, but did play it on piano, and reversed the audio in post. Great effect and it makes the ending. Hats off to Eddie Offord engineer for Yes.
Astral Apps:
Using a Note 5, I used these very helpful tools to determine shooting location. Google Sky, Moon Calendar, Luna Solaria, My Radar and a time lapse calculator. Note 5 also was used for various pics, the camera shoots 16 megapixels RAW data file.
Photo Tips:
Lastly, if your going to be trying some night lapse shooting, be sure to be in an area with very low light pollution. You can look at a light pollution map for starters, but for astral photography you will need to be out of town and best results for the stars will be on a new moon. Solstice Moon project was first filmed on the new moon before the Solstice. These were the shots where we captured the brilliant stars. Then later we filmed on the summer solstice, it was a rare full moon, only happens about every 70 years or so. Low light pollution is key. The Eastern Shore was perfect for this filming, the next best place would have been Hatteras NC. (As far as the mid atlantic)
Pre scouting out locations is essential. We story boarded Solstice Moon with locations that we checked prior to filming and calculated moon and sun times for the day of filming. Other things to consider is during summer, there is very little night fall around the solstice, maybe four-five hours. This means to start filming for a sunrise and begin in darkness, you need to be set up on location between 3-4am. Once the cameras start rolling for time lapse, they cannot be moved.
If your going to be filming in natural areas like we did, keep in mind environmental obstacles like bugs and insects. One fly on your camera housing can ruin hours of filming. To solve this, I used a cloth soaked in deet and set it by the camera. This solved the problem. Little things like this can save you 10 hours of wasted film.
One last thing, I probably used the My Radar app more than anything else, would check it constantly throughout the day for the 28days of filming. Having a live radar feed was essential in capturing some of these shots. It is a great tool. Scout motto, Be Prepared!
Pre scouting out locations is essential. We story boarded Solstice Moon with locations that we checked prior to filming and calculated moon and sun times for the day of filming. Other things to consider is during summer, there is very little night fall around the solstice, maybe four-five hours. This means to start filming for a sunrise and begin in darkness, you need to be set up on location between 3-4am. Once the cameras start rolling for time lapse, they cannot be moved.
If your going to be filming in natural areas like we did, keep in mind environmental obstacles like bugs and insects. One fly on your camera housing can ruin hours of filming. To solve this, I used a cloth soaked in deet and set it by the camera. This solved the problem. Little things like this can save you 10 hours of wasted film.
One last thing, I probably used the My Radar app more than anything else, would check it constantly throughout the day for the 28days of filming. Having a live radar feed was essential in capturing some of these shots. It is a great tool. Scout motto, Be Prepared!
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| Screen shot from My Radar, used everyday of filming. |
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| Milky Way Late May |
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| Saturn, Antares, Mars and the Scorpius Constellation |
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| Mermaid Bay on the Chesapeake 4 days after the Solstice 2016 |
Jim Baugh
Jim Baugh Outdoors TV
