Spring Mountains November Time Lapse

The Spring Mountains November Time Lapse video features autumn season cold front clouds, colorful sunsets and a few night sky scenes. Every scene is filmed at locations throughout the Spring Mountains in southern Nevada during the first week of November. This area is high desert terrain, which is confirmed by the Joshua Tree forests. The geology of the barren mountains provides plenty to think about and the high elevations definitely make the cloud viewing experience even better!

November is usually when cold fronts begin moving through the desert southwest. These weather systems often bring a steady flow of wispy high altitude clouds and some long lasting storm fronts. The sunsets are beautiful this time of year and they last a long time. There will also be stationary fronts of thick white cloud cover, but this type of sky is not really interesting to view as time lapse. Fortunately when filming in the Spring Mountains there is nearly always a better direction to point the camera when boredom occurs.

There is an interesting key point to look for in this video. A herd of wild horses can be seen in the lower picture frame starting at the 2:04 mark. This wild horse segment is a short clip, so the scene is repeated with a cropped version to provide a better view of tiny horses darting around. Wild horses are often encountered in desert mountain ranges and they are a welcome sight to see, especially when a time lapse session starts to get boring. Sometimes I stop the time lapse video camera and switch to a super telephoto lens just to take pictures. A collection is building and a wild horse slideshow is in the plans.

Every scene in this video was processed inside a mirrorless camera with the automated time lapse video function. For the day to night segments the camera program mode function works best. To accomplish this, the ISO limit range and minimum shutter speed have to be programmed before clicking the start button. This means the future lighting conditions have to be forecasted. If lighting up the Milky Way is important, then those settings will have to be programmed. The addition of city lights, atmospheric dusty haze or moonlight will complicate matters, so some guess work is involved and compromises may have to be made. When I get more spare time for processing, I will return to filming night sky scenes with the RAW image interval method, since this process ensures better quality and star trail videos can be made.

I usually create the music soundtracks with jam band software on a laptop computer while in the field filming time lapse. Thoughts flow freely while out in the desert and it is easy to explore new musical directions. The music in this video has a space age theme and the flow certainly goes into the robotic spectrum. I constantly create new sounds that can be challenging for some listeners. If the sonic venue is not up to your personal preference, then please use "Plan B" and play your own music while watching the video. Better still, create your own music and have fun playing along!