​One of the things that I'm learning to do are time lapses. I mean I know how to do them I want to do it properly and do it well.

The bottom line for doing time lapses well is by creating motion blur. This is achieved by longer exposures and closing down the aperture. For example when doing a dawn scene close down the aperture to f22 while opening the shutter for longer periods such as 1/16th of a second. The same thing goes for time lapses that occur at dusk. This effect will create a motion blur of subjects such as cars or people. This creating a smoother transition from one frame to the next. 

If you want to do a time lapse outside of the "Golden Hour" such as shooting at midday when the sun is in full strength then use a neutral density filter. This way you can still creating motion blur. A ND filter 16 or ND 8 may do the trick. Close down the aperture and drag out your shutter speed say to 1/30th of a second and it may achieve the same results. Play with your shutter speed til you get the right amount of motion blur. 

Once you've created your time lapse, take it in to your video editor and create a push/pull effect to acquire an even more professional look. In Final Cut Pro (FCP) you can apply a "Ken Burns" effect. In Premiere Pro (PP), I believe you have to create a key frame to add dynamic movement to your time lapse.

Hopefully I'll be doing more of this on my videos as I recently purchase a full ND kit.

I've got lots on my plate as I have an upcoming trip. I'm looking forward to doing some traveling. Along the way I plan to take footage and images for my portfolio and this website. 

A thing I've recently been reminded of is that technology will continue to evolve. With my hard drive and my laptop recently going kaput (died completely), how important it is for me to back up my most important files onto a cloud server or somewhere on the internet. Not just any provider will do. I need a vendor that can provide stability, ease of use, adequate hard drive space and most importantly is security and encryption. Google is good as it provides free space but the problem with Google is its' invasiveness. Privacy with google, in my humble opinion, is only a facade. I'm sure there is something on the internet that can provide all those services but I need to do the research to locate it. 

I'm also now beginning to back up to a SSD as it has no moving parts. My old backup to an old SATA drive is no longer reliable. I recently experienced this when I connected my old 54oo RPM SATA to my working computer. It was encrypted so I punched in my code. However the hard disk would not reboot. My computer could not find the disk or the files. It was unrecognizable. I tried multiple ways. I finally stripped off the plastic housing and directly connected it to a SATA dock rather than by USB 3. Still would not read. So I will have to take it to a repair shop by which I can remove the files and transfer them onto a SSD. 

My 17 inch Mac Book Pro also died. It was a late 2011 model with a 2.4 GHz speed. I fried the logic board. The tech I had brought it to cleaned it up but forewarned me that it may have damaged the logic board as it has gotten too hot. He was correct. It was overheating. After 1 month of heavy use, the screen started to go bizzerk. With the use of rendering videos, Photoshop, uploading video files simultaneously the laptop has finally died. The screen would first start to freeze. I would reboot then start over. Same thing happened a few minutes later. Sure enough, the logic board finally died. It wouldn't even reboot. 

So I've learned my lesson. I will back up to a cloud server as well as a SSD. 

One of the things that I've been wanting to do is to complete this website.

I've finally found a platform by which I can upload and control all my own work. Using Domain.com in conjunction with Weebly has made this possible.

www.domain.com

They are a web hosting company which I highly recommend. The one downside that I've found with Domain.com is that they are not able to host text that read right to left...for example such as Arabic and Farsi. They claim that they do but I've not found that to be the case. Perhaps they are able to do that now. 

Yeah, I want to get this website up and running. I'm just so busy with other projects I'm trying to manage right now. Content creation, content management, website construction, video editing and production, and photography. 

Life can just get so busy if I let it. I need to make sure that I keep my priorities straight.