This was assembled in Quicktime from 2000 still images taken by using a Nikon D700 in the “interval timer” mode. The camera was fastened to an outside rail and set to take a photo every six seconds. Quicktime then assembled the photos into a .mov file that plays back at 12 frames per second. So, one minute of movie time represents 72 minutes of trip time on the channel. The first half begins just below the Port of Houston Authority Turning Basin (the very end of the channel) and continues down to Green’s Bayou. The second half takes us from there to Morgan’s Point at the head of Galveston Bay. From there we still have 31.5 miles of channel across the bay to the pilot station outside the Galveston jetties.
CAMERA SETTINGS were all manual to avoid surprises. The lens was a Nikon 17-35mm zoomed out to 17mm. White balance was set to tungsten, manual focus, iso 1600, 1/8 sec/ f/4. After the first part of the trip where the shore and docks are less dense I bumped the exposure up two stops to 1/4 sec and f/2.8. The overall result was a little dark for my taste after the deck floodlights were turned off so I added 1.33 gamma to all the photos taken after the deck lights were off. When I make the 1080 version I’ll fool around to make a more gradual transition there and will probably decease the exposure around the last terminal and bridge (on the second video).
It looks incredibly fast, but we were actually only making 5-6 knots in the first half and no more than 10 knots in the open areas of the second half.
This was a Panamax ship, 106 feet wide, and about 600 feet long with 32 feet of draft.
@ 1:13 a seagull is photographed in the upper left quarter making a bright flash - several people asked what that was.
A daylight trip going all the way to the Gulf of Mexico can be found here.
A similar trip through the Panama Canal can be found here.
(Via OneEighteen on Flickr)
