TAZM PICTURES

I don’t think we really have Google Street View in Namibia just yet.  In fact, I don’t believe they have worked out where the different house numbers are on the streets – GPS systems just get you to the right street, and the rest is up to you.

So I took a drive through Windhoek via one of its longest streets, Independence Avenue – starting from Ausspannplatz in the south-central part of the city, heading north, and all the way to the northwest corner.  After that, we did another run down Eveline Street, which is Katutura’s most “happening” place most days.  Both videos were taken on a Sunday afternoon, meaning it’s relatively quiet, traffic-wise.  Otherwise you’d see a lot more back ends of cars while standing still. The video is taken using the Timelapse HD app on an ipad, 16 fps, one frame every half second.

These are going to be used as part of a broader video I am making about Namibia, particularly Windhoek.  I think it’s important to have a feel for what it’s like driving around a city.

independence Avenue from Tom on Vimeo.

Eveline Street from Tom on Vimeo.

Although you can’t beat the price for video and music editing software when it comes to iFilm and GarageBand for the iPad, trying to create a video from top to bottom using nothing but an iPad 2 still leaves a bit to be desired.  Probably people who have never used any other video or music programs never notice – but I find myself constantly wishing I could resize the video, fade music in and out, or make color alterations.  This is to say nothing of trying to use an iPad to record video in the first place.

I recently took a trip to the Namibian coastal town of Swakopmund, and took the very rare step of bringing neither a camera nor a computer.  Of course, as I arrived, the “golden hour” at sunset was approaching (the hour or so after dawn and before sunset when the light lets you capture amazing footage) and I thought the wind and waves at sunset on the westward-facing coast would make for some good video.  So I grabbed my iPad.

The video below is the result – all of the footage was captured with the iPad (you can see some of the auto-balance and lighting issues), edited using the iFilm app, and then I added some music made in iPad’s GarageBand.  It runs a bit long at the end, mainly because the music is a bit long.  Then I uploaded it to YouTube and cheated a bit – using the stabilize function to cut down on the movement caused by the strong coastal wind hitting the iPad while I was recording.  I think it turned out OK.  Yes, that is a dead penguin on the beach.

I’ve been fooling around with the Photoshop Express App for the iPad – mostly because I’m not clever or patient enough to master the REAL Photoshop.  Given the right photo, you can use the (relatively) limited effects available on the app to do some interesting things.  Besides the usual tools like cropping, adjusting saturation, exposure, etc – by sliding your finger back and forth on the iPad screen by the way – there are a handful of color effects that add a mood or a look with the click of a button.

The photo below was originally in normal color.    The first option I used was simply to convert the photo to black and white:

Then, I tried the “warm vintage” look.  To me, this is the kind of effect you see so often in Hollywood these days – everything is bathed in yellow morning light, and life is somehow brighter than it really is.

Lastly, I played around with the “add frame” tool and played around with the sliders to create this “vintage sepia” look.  There are other apps that will do this in one click, but you can experiment with Photoshop Express and get the same thing.

Here’s another attempt at using the iPad 2 and the TimeLapse HD app to create a timelapse video.  This one consists of stills taken every 5 seconds from a rooftop in Windhoek, Namibia.  There is a bit of flicker toward the end as the ipad adjusts to the changing lighting.  I’ll have to see whether there is a way to shut that off.

As I continue to look for ways to make my iPad useful beyond being a lightweight web browser / game console, I came across a handy app for creating timelapse videos:  the aptly named Timelapse Camera HD.  This elegant and simple app lets you set an interval between photos, the frame rate, choose front or rear camera, and several other settings.  You put your iPad in place – this is actually the trickiest part, as you can’t zoom and may find that even a light breeze will jiggle the iPad – and simply tap the “record” button.  While it’s recording, you can occupy yourself calculating how much footage you’ll be getting (by knowing how many frames per second you’re recording, and calculating how many seconds you’ll end up with based on your interval).  When you’re done, you tap “stop” and in just a few seconds, the app will render a finished video which you can immediately review, and then save.

Since you’re likely to want a video that’s landscape-oriented, it’s important to turn your iPad on its side.  The stills will show up sideways during the recording process, but in the end everything turns out fine.

The down side of the app is that you can’t export it to Windows Movie Maker for further editing.  I also tried Adobe Premiere Elements, and while the file seems to import successfully, it ends up corrupted within the editor.  I assume it works seamlessly on iMovie or other mac-based editing programs.  So to string together a series of short clips (and edit out the parts where I might have inadvertently moved the iPad) I used the separate iMovie app for the iPad.  iMovie has its own limitations, but for $4.99, it’s hard to complain.

Also, it makes a difference whether you’re using the front or rear camera – one records in wide format, while the other records in standard. I assumed they’d be the same, and used front or rear depending on whether it would be easier to lean the iPad toward, or away from the scene being recorded.
I recorded a few scenes in and around Washington, D.C. and here is the result: