I love tilt-shift timelapse stuff. My buddy Tate is an even bigger fan. This is definitely one of the better ones I’ve seen. Shooting up high in New York really adds to the sense of miniaturization.
The Sandpit, directed by Sam O’Hare, is a day in the life of New York City, as seen in miniature (watch on Vimeo in HD):
But the coolest aspect of this short is that Mr. O’Hare actually explains how he did it:
It is shot on a Nikon D3 (and one shot on a D80), as a series of stills. I used my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 and Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 lenses for all of these shots. Most were shot at 4fps in DX crop mode, which is the fastest the D3 could continuously write out to the memory card. The boats had slower frame rates, and the night shots used exposures up to two seconds each. The camera actually has an automatic cut off after 130 shots, so for longer shots I counted each click and quickly released and re-pressed the shutter release after 130 to keep shooting.
Check out the rest of the interview on Aerofilm’s blog.
BTW, I should say I had nothing to do with this video. I just saw it online and thought it was cool.