Introducing 8K timelapse!
I’ve just made available my first 8K timelapse clip.
It’s a 23-second day-to-night sunset timelapse of Cheltenham. The sun sets behind Cheltenham Racecourse as it prepares for the 2024 Cheltenham Festival. It’s available in 8K from £453 here. Lower resolutions are available too.
It’s a remarkable bit of video, and I’m pleased to be able to offer it here exclusively through POND5. You can download it for royalty-free use using my link with a 20% new customer discount.
Anyway, I thought I’d hop on to my blog and write about it for a bit. I quit social media in the summer 2023, and decided I’d write a blog instead. I did that for a few months and enjoyed it, but soon stopped, and have been quiet for months.
Other than a ridiculous drop in engagement on the only platform I have left, YouTube, quitting social media has been nothing but positive, but I do need somewhere to ramble. For now, it’s here, thanks for coming along.
So, 8K timelapse, why? I’m not really sure. Home setups are still very unprepared for 8K footage, and the delivery methods are questionable. This 23-second 8K clip in ProRes 422 has a bigger file size than most people’s entire 2001 DVD collections. There’s no practicable way to get it to your viewer’s MK1 eye balls without a load of compression, so what’s the point?
Well, I see the main benefits in this context as being that you’re purchasing something future-proof. If you buy it, when you NEED it in 8K, you’ll have it. Whenever that ends up being, by my estimation I reckon it’ll be the year 2065 or so, if ever.
The other main benefit is that it scales down beautifully. Chuck this 8K clip over to your video editor and the quality that bleeds through to your 4K or HD content will be off the chart.
And of course, you can crop in quite a huge amount and still be able to deliver the clip in HD or even 4K. With something like this, that could be a basic crop, a vertical social media post, a reveal, a pan, or a Ken Bruns-style effect. 8K gives you a load flexibility.
So, it’s in 8K, primarily, but not meant to be used in 8K.
Great. Let’s now shoot everything like this?
I wish I could, but it just isn’t feasible. This Cheltenham timelapse, for example, involved this…
A recce to find the location.
A few days of weather watching to find the perfect conditions.
A few hours of gear prep.
A drive to and from Cheltenham.
8 hours capturing the timelapse.
8 hours of processing, stabilising, deflickering and colour grading.
A computer and data storage system 1000X that of 1969 NASA.
But anyway, it’s done, and available exclusively on POND5 here. I won’t be running out to shoot a load more 8K anytime soon, but watch this space.
For anyone interested in my huge collection of Cheltenham stock video footage please see this blog post. Cheers