Slow Motion Waves

Yesterday, I took my Kodak Zi8 down to the Point Loma tidepools to try to capture some wildlife videos. Those were less than successful, but more about that in another post. I was able to set the little camera up on its flexible tripod and capture some (very tiny) waves hitting the cliffs. Knowing I would want to do some time alterations later, I used the 720p, 60 frames per second setting. Here's what I ended up with, after playing with it for a bit in Premiere CS5. I uploaded it in 720p, so I recommend that setting on the embedded YouTube player. It makes a big difference.

A few observations:

• Normal speed makes the waves look pathetic and puny, which they were. Half speed gives them a bit of majesty. Quarter speed looks weird.


• I tried allowing the sound to retain its original pitch, but that didn't work out at all. At a quarter speed it echoed terribly. Allowing the sound to go down in pitch as I changed the speed of the video adds to the feeling of majesty.


• In another video, I shot some waves at 1080p, 30 frames a second. Reducing those down to quarter speed gave me obvious time artifacts. The Zi8's 60 frames per second mode is a godsend for doing slow motion.


• I wish I'd had bigger waves.

The Zi8's small size and the flexible mini-tripod I bought for it make it an ideal tool for capturing nature videos. I've got a 32GB memory card for it, so the only limitation now is battery life and I never came close to running out of that yesterday.

More videos to come in the future.