Tilt-Shift Time Lapse

You may have seen some of these videos recently, where somebody takes a time lapse movie of a scene from a high vantage point, then processes the individual photos for a "tilt-shift" effect (essentially just applying a blur to the image such that it appears as if there is a very shallow depth of field, which gives the impression that one is looking at a a very small scene filmed with a macro lens or something). Usually the saturation is also cranked up in these movies so that everything looks painted or plastic, adding to a miniature/toy effect. Here's a couple photos I snapped of the model train set at Bahnhof Neustadt. This is basically the effect you want.



I decided to give it a go making the real life movies now that I have a digitial SLR as well as Photoshop at my disposal. Here's my first attempt, filmed from outside my bedroom window looking down Rothenburgerstrasse in Dresden:



Not bad for a first attempt, I think. I took images at one second intervals, the playback is at 6 frames/second. Going up to 10 frames per second is less jerky, but then everything is just too fast. Next time I'll probably take 1/2 second intervals. Also, I live on the second floor (first floor for Germans). So this isn't really high enough to get a good effect. But it's enough to give me confidence to go seek out interesting places around town, where I can get higher up, and look out a bit further (e.g. from Nudel Turm looking over Albertplatz). I hope to have some much cooler movies of familiar places soon.