So far this winter it has been a very warm season, with the exception of a few days near -10F when the steam rose from the water. As I write this today it is nearly 60F which might tie or break the warmest day on record. While we all like the warmth and a season without shovelling snow, it is not necessarily the best for the Great Lakes. Without ice coverage the lakes will evaporate faster. We may see lower lake levels in the coming seasons which can be trouble for harbors for both recreational and industrial maritime activities. Yet, it might make our beaches bigger and help with the erosion problems we have faced in these lakes.

This quick video was shot on January 15, 2024 when it was -8 degrees. Personally I love going out in that kind of weather to get these kinds of shots. You dress for it and when shooting don’t really think much about it. This might be the coldest day of this winter with only about 6 weeks to go before spring. While for those few days the ice along the edge of the lake here in the Chicago area built up slightly it was clearly smaller than usual. This was the ice at the edge, as things were just starting to freeze.

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers, The Sweetwaters Seas

I did my first real test of the of the “holy grail” of time-lapse where you go from daylight to night-time (or the reverse). I used the Timelapse+ VIEW intervalometer and software plugin for Lightroom CC to handle the exposure changes. I did this from the Montrose Harbor area looking down to Chicago, an iconic view of this beautiful city. We started the exposures at 6:40pm and finished 2 hours and 44 minutes later at 9:24pm. This gave us just under a minute of video from the 1,408 images shot. For those interested it was shot with the Canon Mark 5d IV with the 24-105 lens set at F/11. The ISO started at 100 and ended at ISO 8000. The shutter speed started at 1/80 of a second and ended with an exposure of 4.0 seconds. A total of 14.5 stops! Timelapse+ VIEW was setup to change the shutter speed first and then the ISO. Timelapse+ VIEW Intervalometer will automate night to day time-lapse using a light sensor and advanced algorithms. This system worked really well and once you take it into Lightroom in post processing the plugin finds the keyframes which you can use to do the initial processing in Lightroom Development window to make any exposure / color corrections you require. The software then makes these corrections for the entire selection in subtle increments so you have a finished piece with smooth transitions for a beautiful time-lapse.

Now one thing I know I will try next time is starting with at least a 1 second exposure to make the water smoother throughout the time-lapse. I would also go longer into the nighttime view to give a little more room in editing to be able to use a longer nighttime scene.

This Timelapse+ VIEW intervalometer and what we will be able to do with it will be a great addition to The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes documentary! It will be in the equipment bags for every shoot from now on! Can’t wait to get outside along the Great Lakes and do some day to night with the Milky Way winding its way across the screen, and maybe even back to daylight.

Enjoy,

Richard

#thesweetwaterseas #GreatLakes #timelapse #timelapse+ #Chicago #LakeMichigan #Canon #CanonMark5DIV #Chicagophotography #artofchi #earthpix #timelapseplus #travel #landscape #cityscape #astrophotography #illinois #illinoistourism #way2ill

Been a warm winter...

Chicago Skyline Time-lapse