Today’s Wonder of the Day was inspired by Julius. Julius Wonders, “what can make time go fast” Thanks for WONDERing with us, Julius!
Do you look forward to the day when you'll be able to drive a car? What about that day when you'll graduate from high school? The day you'll go to college? These are all exciting things to look forward to, but you can't speed up time.
Time ticks away at the steady rate of 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, and 24 hours per day. Even though it's fun to think about the future, don't forget to make the most of the present. It'll be the past before you know it, and you'll want to be able to look backwards at time well spent!
One fun way to look back at time is to watch a time-lapse video. Have you ever seen a time-lapse video? If you watched the video for today's Wonder of the Day, that's one cool example of a time-lapse video. There are many others available on the Internet to watch.
Time-lapse videos don't really alter time. But they do create the illusion that you're watching time pass much more quickly than normal as you watch the video. For example, a time-lapse video might show the blooming of a spring flower. The actual blooming process might have taken several days, but the time-lapse video shows it happening over just a few seconds or minutes.
How does that work? Is it magic? Nope! It's just the art of photography enhanced with the power of modern technology.
A time-lapse video stitches together hundreds or even thousands of photographs that were taken over a particular period of time. The photographs, which are usually all shot in the exact same way, play back at a faster rate over a short period of time, creating the illusion of seeing the subject of the photographs change over time very quickly.
Popular subjects for time-lapse videos include things such as flowers blooming, sunrises, sunsets, seasons changing, children growing, and a wide variety of natural phenomenon involving changes over time. What would you like to see a time-lapse video of? Someone may have already created one!
Before you try to create your own time-lapse video, though, you should know that you'll need to do some planning and have some patience. You might also need to get your hands on some modern technology, such as video editing software.
If you like to take photographs, then time-lapse photography might be for you. Why? Because you need a LOT of photos. How many? If you want to make a high-definition video that will play back at a rate of 60 frames per second — and you want your time-lapse video to last 30 seconds — then you'll need 60 times 30 (1,800!) photographs!
Oh, and you'll need to make sure that each and every one of those 1,800 photographs was taken in the same exact way. The only thing that should differ between pictures is the time at which they were taken.
Once you have all your photographs, you'll need to assemble them into a video. This can be done with a wide variety of video editing software available today. Some of it is available free on the Internet, while other versions may be quite expensive. When you see all your hard work transform into a breathtaking video that makes your subject come to life and go through a day's, a week's, a month's, or even a year's worth of changes in just a few seconds, it'll all be worth it!