During the two week break that my wife Liz and I enjoyed exploring the volcanic island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, just off the west coaat of Africa, I captured thousands and thousands of still images of sunsets, in order to create time lapse videos featuring the unique combination of light and colour you can experience in this part of the world.
But on this trip I had my newish Canon 250D camera with me as well as my trusty 6DMK2.
I got the 250D as a backup for the 6DMK2 in case of breakdown at a crucial moment (it has happened!), but I also got it as the cheapest and smallest camera body option for shooting 4K video.
So as well as shooting stills for time lapse videos on my 6DMK2 I also tried out my 250D for shooting real time 4K video of sunsets.
I found the 250D to be very much suited to this activity, as with a cropped sensor I had an immediate 1.5x magnification factor over my full frame 6DMK2, plus, when shooting 4K (or UHD) video, the 250D only uses 3840 of its potential 4000 pixel frame width, thus giving a little extra magnification on top of the cropped sensor effect.
Coupled with my 100-400mm zoom lens, which looked ridiculously large on the tiny 250D body, these sensor magnification effects gave me an impressively large image of the sun at full zoom.
And here is a compilation video of some of the sunsets I filmed on various evenings and in various locations on the west and south coasts of Gran Canaria.
No doubt I'll be using this technique again, alongside my more traditional time lapse shooting, to capture some more lovely sunsets back home in north Wales.
Filename - gran canaria sunset video 01
Camera - Canon EOS250D
Lens - 100-400mm zoom @ variuos focal lengths
Exposure - Aperture and ISO adjusted to give a shutter speed of 1/60 sec or faster.
Filters - None.
Location - Gran Canaria, The Canary Islands
Music - White River - Aakash Gandhi
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K and 1080p formats also available)
Clip duration - 95 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2023 unless otherwise stated.