Two Photographers Plus 50 NIKKOR Lenses and Four Z 7 Cameras Equal a Breathtaking Time-Lapse Video

The Gear

The NIKKOR lenses were a mix of the photographers' personal glass and Nikon inventory, and spanned years of manufacture. As far as Mark knows, the oldest lens he used was a 55mm Micro-Nikkor circa 1979, and Chris counts an AF 20mm lens from the early 1980s as the oldest he used. The most recent glass was used by Mark—the NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S. Chris shot with 18 lenses, Mark with 40.

Each photographer had two Z 7 bodies, and Mark added a slider—essentially a portable, motorized dolly and a 12-volt battery to power it to his equipment for the project. "You have to time the slide—the movement of the camera—with the camera's built-in intervalometer, and it takes some calculations and practice to make sure the slide doesn't come to an end before the series of images are shot."

It was worth the effort. A time-lapse sequence depends on movement—it could be light, water, clouds, the sun or moon, but something has to move, and Mark knew there'd be places where motion wasn't going to happen on its own. "If there's already movement at a location, it's probably not going to be a slider shot," he says, "but in Olympic National Park there's the Hoh Rain Forest, and I went to one section because of the ferns at that location—they grow to epic proportions, four or five feet high and just as wide. But the ferns don't move, and the forest is so thick and dense you can't see the clouds, so movement had to be created. The shot I envisioned was to have to the camera looking as though it were flying through the ferns to reveal the forest." And for that, he needed the slider.    

Plans of Action

The time-lapse sequences for a project of this scope involved so many elements that the photographers had to have detailed plans—a methodology," Mark says, "beyond the taking of pictures. You have to consider the location: is there visible movement? And the weather: it doesn't have to be nice—adverse weather creates the most dynamic images, but it has to be consistent."

Most of the places Mark chose were well-known to him; a few—like Mount Rainier National Park—were on his bucket list. "I tried to mix in iconic places, like Reflection Lake in Rainier, sometimes to cue other photographers. Other places, like Bears Ears National Monument, are extremely remote and few people go there. I hiked over 23 miles in a period of two-and-a-half days at Bears Ears, carrying everything—tent, sleeping bag, food, water, gear. And some places I'd seen only in pictures—like Bandon Beach in Oregon, with its Wizard's Hat natural formation."

There's also a methodology for the camera settings. As you might expect, automatic settings aren't ideal for time-lapse. A change in the scene will trigger a change in aperture or shutter speed, white balance or focus, and those changes will cause flickers in the image. "All time-lapse sequences are manually set," Mark says. "There's nothing automatic—you can't have changes that could create differences in color tone or contrast or exposure." Because manual focus is necessary, depth of field is key, so whenever possible f/22 was his aperture choice.

Figuring out f/stop and shutter speed settings required studying the location and the scene, often visiting two or three times to take readings over a period of consistent weather. In a valley in Olympic National Park, Mark saw the beautiful effect of light moving through the scene. "Fingers of sunlight danced down across the moss," he says. "I sat for two hours watching the light move and I thought, This is the sequence I need. Next day I came back, set the camera up and when the light hit the moss I walked over and metered on that light. That gave me a base exposure to manually set the camera. Then I did a test series. It looked good, and the next day I came back and made the sequence you see in the video. People may look at that shot or others like it and say, 'Man, you were really lucky,' but it's not luck at all. It takes an amazing amount of pre-planning and what I call 'photographic precognization.' You have to understand what the light is going to do at a particular location at a particular time to capture moments like that."

So after all these years, all the incredible technology, all the magic today's cameras and lenses deliver—it comes back around to awareness of a basic starting point of photography: what is the light going to do?

The Key Word

We mentioned it at the beginning, it was always on the minds of the photographers and it's evident in the viewing of the video: consistency.

Consistency In the frame rate and the intervals and the settings and the weather. And in the reliable consistency of the NIKKOR lenses. Over the years, the camera models and types, from film to digital to mirrorless, chances are if you shot with it then, you can shoot with it now and get the same quality results. Over multiple generations, NIKKORs have delivered quality, reliability and consistency.

You've viewed Earth, Wind & Inspire, and we think it's likely that if the lens identifications weren't featured, you wouldn't be able to tell whether a sequence was photographed with a lens made 40 years ago or one made literally within months of its use on the project.

We think that's pretty cool, too.