The clouds steal the show.

I’m really liking this high-quality time-lapse movie creation. It’s fun. Best of all, I can set it up to do a job while I’m home and check the results later.

Today’s experiment came out better than expected. The main goal was to create a time-lapse movie of today’s saguaro flowers closing. (The flowers of the saguaro cactus bloom at night and are wilted and closed by late afternoon.) But I set up the camera to include the sky beyond, which was just filling with clouds. The building clouds stole the show.

If you think this looks good, you should see it in full quality at 1936 x 1296 pixels. That’s the lowest resolution my Nikon D80 can deliver, so that’s how I bring it into QuickTime.

I shut it down when I did for a few reasons:

• The camera’s battery was almost depleted. It had snapped 621 images 20 seconds apart.
• The wind was kicking up. I worried that a gust could knock over the camera and tripod and damage my camera on the concrete surface of my back patio.
• The sun had moved above and behind the cactus. That wasn’t the best lighting for the flowers.
• The flowers were just about fully closed.

I’m recharging the battery now. If the clouds dissipate a bit, I may relocate the camera to my upstairs patio and attempt a sunset time-lapse.

If you’re new to this blog or have stumbled onto this page and wonder what the heck this is all about, read “Time-Lapse Mania” to learn more.