It’s been a while since I posted an original video, so here’s one I made in late January from the window of an Airbus A319. I started recording as soon as electronic devices were allowed and stopped when my arms got too tired. This video shows California’s Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lake Tahoe, and western Nevada.

I made the video by holding the camera against the window using both hands and my shoulder to stabilize it. Despite my best efforts, the video turned out jumpy, so I used a free deshaker filter (download and instruction link) to make the final video much smoother.

Next time, I hope to find a seat with a forward view and to record for a longer time.

Here’s another video I made on my day trip to Tahoe.  I used HDR in order to capture the highlights and shadows, but forgot the first rule of HDR–have plenty of free memory. I’m already working on a couple of posts for the coming weeks, but I plan to do a multi-part article on HDR soon.

There’s some flicker in this video even though I used a deflicker filter. I’m attempting to switch from Windows Movie Maker to VirtualDub and trying to figure out too many things at once.  I’m sure I could have cut down on the flicker if I had adjusted the filter, but producing a working video is enough of an accomplishment for this week.

This is the final product from my Windows Movie Maker tutorial from the other day.

I took my car up into the mountains and went hiking near Lake Tahoe.  It was 106 F in the central valley and Tahoe was a bit cooler, especially by the lake.  I was expecting a bit more cloud movement in this video, but at least the boats are fun to watch.  You might also see a quick appearance by a lizard on the left rock.

I used manual mode with infinite focus.  The other settings are less important as the scene was evenly lighted and the water was too far away to create a choppy effect.

There was some flicker in this video, but not enough for me to worry about.  Since this was a quick tutorial, I wasn’t concerned about perfection, but I would have corrected the flicker if this was a more formal video.