Whether monitoring the flow of traffic on the I-405 or documenting tidal fluctuations in Malibu, timelapser Joe Capra, a.k.a., Scientifantastic, specializes in documenting details on a grand scale. This time around, he paints a picture of Los Angeles as a teeming metropolis in his new 10K by 4K timelapse film, Pano | LA. The Creators Project previously featured Capra’s stunning 10K timelapse video of Brazil, and now he’s turned his camera on the City of Angels, documenting 24 hours in the city in just under 6 minutes.
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Capra started filming wide-angle shots of LA years ago, when a client requested panoramic timelapses of the city. To achieve the look he wanted, Capra invested in some new gear—two Canon 5DIII cameras, plus 24-70mm, 24-105mm, and 70-200mm lenses—and trekked to Malibu to take seaside test shots. Capra was so inspired by the initial images, that he decided to keep shooting for himself. After nearly two years of filming, he’d amassed enough to complete Pano | LA.
Capra shared iterative works throughout the filming process. In 2015, he released 36 seconds of footage documenting the Fourth of July in LA. And earlier this year, Capra shared Phased | LA, a 12K timelapse shot on a Phase One XF IQ3 100 megapixel camera. Pano | LA was shot with the two Canon 5DIII DSLRs placed side by side.
Capra tells The Creators Project that he did not shoot Pano | LA for the purpose of extreme resolution, but rather for its “panoramic look, especially the compressed look you get when using long lenses.” His custom setup allowed him to create a panoramic frame within a timelapse format, without “faking it by just cropping the top and bottom of regular timelapse shots.”Check out Pano | LA below:
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