Old Faithful | Coldstreams 3D and Drones

3D video of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Geyser eruption – YouTube.

This is a “fake” 3D video created from a 2D video shot from the overlook several hundred feet above the geyser basin.

This video was created by time shifting a 2D video to produce separate left and right images – creating a very nice effect of the steam cloud coming out of the screen at the viewer.

To create this effect, the one 2D video was dragged to both the “left” track and the “right” track in Magix Movie Edit MX Plus. Then, using the Stereo 3D effects tools, click on the “Shift Frames” – or + options. For this video, the right track was shifted 5 frames to the left. This has the effect of moving the steam cloud forward or towards the viewer.

Because the steam cloud is constantly moving, by shifting one copy of the video sequence off by 5 frames, the left eye sees the original and the right eyes sees the original but shifted by 5 frames when the steam has moved slightly. This, in turn, is similar to having recorded a separate left and right video image. But instead, I cheated used only 1 camera.

This was shot on a single, handheld Lumix GH-2 with a 45-200mm zoom lens. My tripod was simultaneously in use shooting a time lapse sequence using a Canon SX1 which I have not yet processed.

Last year, I made a short video featuring the Thermal Sounds of Yellowstone.

This fall, I attempted to recreate parts of that video in 3D and stereo sound (rather than the monaural recording of last year).

Here are some samples of what I recorded this year, both uploaded to the blog as MP3 files:

2012YellowstoneDragonsMouth – the Dragon’s Mouth thermal vent/geyser inside a short cave at the Mud Geyser Basin.
2012YellowstonePaintPots – the sound of the Artist’s Paint Pots
2012YellowstoneBlueMud – the Blue Mud Steam Vent sounds like a washing machine!

Recording sound is hard work. First, I needed to be out early – or late – to avoid the crowds and people talking and walking on the boardwalks, making noise. Second, even then I often had to wait for quite some time until the area was free of visitors (fortunately, not all visitors are noisy so sometimes I recorded when people were nearby!). Third, to get sound like this I used two 18 inch long shot gun mics, through a Beachtek audio mixer, and then into my little Canon HF M301 consumer camcorders (set up for 3D).

A photo of the set up looks like this – two shot guns on top (home made wind muffs), the Beachtek mixer, attached to a mostly home made 3D camera mount. Click on the image for a larger photo. While bulky, this set up is not very heavy – carrying it mostly means not constantly bumping the mics into tree branches while hiking on the trails!