Lithops flower bud growth and first bloom - Time lapse HD video

Seven consecutive days during the growth and first bloom of a Lithops flower bud.

See the flower in full bloom:

www.flickr.com/photos/yellowcloud/3939825873/in/set-72157...

 

The opening/closing of the flower seems to be sunshine-activated. Since after the first two openings there was really bad weather for days, I had to stop the time lapse because the flower did not open again and I did not want to wear out my DSLR with 144 photos a day while nothing happening in front of the lens.

 

10 minutes per frame, 1034 frames total, 30 frames per second in the video. Taken with a Pentax K200D in aperture priority mode (f/32). Trigger: DIY 10-minute timer circuit connected to camera remote input. Camera power supply by wallplug adapter. Nighttime illumination by desktop lamp.

 

Software involved in production:

Easy Graphic Converter (www.etrusoft.com)

for batch rescaling the individual jpg frames to 1280x720

JPGAvi (www.ndrw.co.uk)

for making the 1280x720 AVI video

and k-lite codec pack (www.codecguide.com/)

for the used xvid mpeg-4 codec, set to highest quality.

Original video file size 118MB:

www.flickr.com/video_download.gne?id=3931605460

 

Successful uploading this video to flickr was pain, since flickr always gives you a "Bonk!" message after you have uploaded the whole file without success, not telling whether the codec was wrong or resolution, framerate or whatever.

 

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Uploaded on September 18, 2009
Taken on September 18, 2009