San Francisco to Paris in 2 minutes

[Peter JB]

This is amazing. This guy set up his camera on a tripod in the window seat and took a photo every 20 or 30 seconds through the entire flight! Great viewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j36E...layer_embedded

[Greg McDonald]

Brilliant!!

[Jarrad Phillips]

Originally Posted by Greg McDonald

Brilliant!!

What Greg said!

[Danny Rizk]

Great clip and worth watching over and over...

[Philip Argy]

Here's his own narrative:

You are now watching: Aurora Borealis via Airplane

Shot a photo roughly every two miles between take-off in San Francisco and landing in Paris CDG to make this airplane time lapse. Made with a 5d2, a time-lapse controller, and a 16mm – 35mm, mixed with some iPhone shots. The music is a modified demo track “Gain” by DETUNE ltd. denkitribe on the Korg iMS20 iPad App. I’m pretty sure the track is copyrighted but it’s My First Synthesizer score so I’m hoping denkitribe is cool with it. Edits and pans in After Effects CS5 and iMovie.
The photos during take-off and landing are all computer models and totally rendered because I would never use an electronic device during times which the FAA prohibits them. I did get lucky and have a whole row to myself to setup the tripod and gear.
Thanks to my neighbors for not minding an SLR click every 2 to 30 seconds for 11 hours, and thanks to Stephanie and the whole Air France flight crew for being insanely friendly and allowing me to shoot. Thanks to @ztaylor for showing me the Korg iMS20 iPad App. Thanks to @jayzombie and the #nerdbird on the way to SXSW this year for helping me come up with the idea. Thanks to @somnabulent for the idea of live scoring. Thanks to you for actually reading this far. You are a champion.

Not sure why he didn't mute the shutter click, and a bit sceptical about the assertion that take off and landing shots were 'simulated'!

[Robert S]

I think it's fairly obvious that the take off and landing shots are not simulated. As for the click - you can't mute the mechanical noise of an SLR.

[Greg McDonald]

Originally Posted by Robert S

I think it's fairly obvious that the take off and landing shots are not simulated. As for the click - you can't mute the mechanical noise of an SLR.

You can with a DSLR....

[Brenden S]

The click is more the mirror coming up, so you can do mirror lock up which would reduce the sound a little.

[Robert S]

Originally Posted by Greg McDonald

You can with a DSLR....

The same mechanics are at work inside the camera in either a film SLR or a DSLR. As described above it's the process of the mirror flipping that makes the physical noise (or pretty much most of it) - you can't get rid of this. I'm not convinced a mirror locked up for an entire flight is a practical scenario.

[Gareth Forwood]

Awesome video!

WRT mirror lockup, my camera barely makes any noise when in that mode, and over the noise of the engines I doubt anyone a seat behind/in front would even notice the noise. But the normal noise would irritate me no end if I was near it for so long...