Slow Life - Amazing video of coral and sponge life.

[progressoid]

http://vimeo.com/88829079

"Slow" marine animals show their secret life under high magnification. Corals and sponges are very mobile creatures, but their motion is only detectable at different time scales compared to ours and requires time lapses to be seen. These animals build coral reefs and play crucial roles in the biosphere, yet we know almost nothing about their daily lives.

Learn more about what you see in my post: http://notes-from-dreamworlds.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/slow-life.html

This clip, as well as stock footage, is available in 4k resolution. Make sure you watch it on a large screen! You won't be able to appreciate this clip or see individual cells moving in a sponge on a smartphone. If you have a full-HD screen, when you enter full-screen mode, please press on "view actual size" next to the HD icon to improve sharpness.

To make this little clip I took 150000 shots. Why so many? Because macro photography involves shallow depth of field. To extend it, I used focus stacking. Each frame of the video is actually a stack that consists of 3-12 shots where in-focus areas are merged. Just the intro and last scene are regular real-time footage. One frame required about 10 minutes of processing time (raw conversion + stacking). Unfortunately, the success rate was very low due to copious technical challenges and I spent almost 9 long months just to learn how to make these kinds of videos and understand how to work with these delicate creatures.

More stunning images at his website: http://notes-from-dreamworlds.blogspot.com.au/

[MineralMan]

1. Marvelous! Thanks for posting.

[MuseRider]

2. Beautiful!

I wish things like this meant enough to more people. We are losing all of this rapidly. Such a gorgeous video, thank you for posting it.

[Scuba]

3. This looks cool, but unfortunately I can't watch vimeo videos, probably due to my connection.

Bookmarking for later viewing. Thanks progressoid.

[progressoid]

4. Yeah, sometimes I have problems with vimeo too.

Usually when my daughter is hogging the bandwidth.

[Scuba]

5. I live in the sticks. I used to have satellite internet ....

.... it was glacially slow, unreliable and expensive, but otherwise fine. Now I'm on RF which is only slow, unreliable and expensive.

[MoonRiver]

6. Wonderful!

Thank you so much for posting this!

[adirondacker]

7. Beautiful video! It took some time for it to load on my backwoods connection, but well worth it.

Thanks for posting.