Good afternoon everyone!
Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Chris, and I am a hopeless forum junkie. I really hope to learn a lot from you folks
I run a company building motion control systems for timelapse photography and i have been getting into what I call Biolapse. I have put a lot of work into a setup to do timelapse photography of plants.
you can see more details of the project on www.biolapse.com (no i do not advertise nor do i get paid on that website, nor to I sell anything on that website. It is just to document this monumentally challanging hobby. I assure you, i do not make a penny off this.
I have done timelapse of several types of plants, hyacinth, oriental lilies, wheatgrass, moss, and other various plants. This has all been an effort to get my system ready to build a carnivorous plant set.
The vision is to have about a dozen or so carnivorous plants in a set, the camera will move about, taking images of the plants as they grow, shifting focus from one plan to the next, etc.
My Biolapse system is in a spare room in my basement. I built my own control system which can monitor/correct temp, humidity, day/night cycles, external LED lighting to illuminate the set. I can control the camera, its angle, position, intervals between images, the zoom, focus, and even wirelessly dump the images to my laptop which can also monitor the conditions of the room, and allows me remote access to change/adjust any parameters. Generally when it is running it is a total hands-free operation, and with this type of thing even walking past the camera can have ill effects.
I have run into two fundamental problems with this project when it comes to carnivorous plants.
1) I am in colorado. (high alt/ low humidity, less oxygen)
2) I dont have a very green thumb.
I have 10 flytraps that i have quarantined in some 1 gallon jars to keep temp and humidity up, sitting next to a window that recieves at best 6 hours of sunlight during the day. So far they seem to be recovering from the shock of shipping...
This is the second time i have recieved plants, the first time I ordered a pitcher plant, sundew, and a flytrap from amazon, the flytrap survived briefly, but died. I just figured out why too, the humidifier uses a 5 head oltrasonic fogger which apparently does not cleans the water or purify it, so basically it was dumping tap water on the plants. next time i will be sure to use distilled water, i suppose i need to figure out how to do this myself.
I am looking for tips. I have Shapgnum/peat mix that i will be using for the bedding.
The artificial light consists of 4x4ft sull spectrum tubes, seen here.
I dont know if these are enough, the orchids clearly did not care for this light, the last flytrap seemed to respond well with the light about 1 foot above the plants.
here is a short clip from the last one who i ended up killing with contaminated fog
I realize this might not be optimal, but im not sure what is. My experience on this is pretty limited, and i am learning more every day. I have several books i try to read, but with a full time day job, a ever growing side company i own, and being a single father i dont have tons of free time to dedicate. I have found forums are excellent ways to help get tailored information that might save me quite a bit of time and money.
This weekend i plan to move one of the plants down to the grow room (I think i am the only person in colorado with a grow room like this that does not grow pot) and to start shooting. The first goal is to get this lil guy growing nicely under artifical light (with enough room to manipulate a camera). Once i have him growing, i want to expand to other varieties of flytraps, sun dews, pitchers, etc, and other plants that are native to that environment. Then i want to build out a full set, about 3ft x 6ft to recreate being out in nature.
At this point, i may be rambling, I really hope to learn a lot while i am on here and hopefully be able to contribute as much as i can.
Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Chris, and I am a hopeless forum junkie. I really hope to learn a lot from you folks
I run a company building motion control systems for timelapse photography and i have been getting into what I call Biolapse. I have put a lot of work into a setup to do timelapse photography of plants.
you can see more details of the project on www.biolapse.com (no i do not advertise nor do i get paid on that website, nor to I sell anything on that website. It is just to document this monumentally challanging hobby. I assure you, i do not make a penny off this.
I have done timelapse of several types of plants, hyacinth, oriental lilies, wheatgrass, moss, and other various plants. This has all been an effort to get my system ready to build a carnivorous plant set.
The vision is to have about a dozen or so carnivorous plants in a set, the camera will move about, taking images of the plants as they grow, shifting focus from one plan to the next, etc.
My Biolapse system is in a spare room in my basement. I built my own control system which can monitor/correct temp, humidity, day/night cycles, external LED lighting to illuminate the set. I can control the camera, its angle, position, intervals between images, the zoom, focus, and even wirelessly dump the images to my laptop which can also monitor the conditions of the room, and allows me remote access to change/adjust any parameters. Generally when it is running it is a total hands-free operation, and with this type of thing even walking past the camera can have ill effects.
I have run into two fundamental problems with this project when it comes to carnivorous plants.
1) I am in colorado. (high alt/ low humidity, less oxygen)
2) I dont have a very green thumb.
I have 10 flytraps that i have quarantined in some 1 gallon jars to keep temp and humidity up, sitting next to a window that recieves at best 6 hours of sunlight during the day. So far they seem to be recovering from the shock of shipping...
This is the second time i have recieved plants, the first time I ordered a pitcher plant, sundew, and a flytrap from amazon, the flytrap survived briefly, but died. I just figured out why too, the humidifier uses a 5 head oltrasonic fogger which apparently does not cleans the water or purify it, so basically it was dumping tap water on the plants. next time i will be sure to use distilled water, i suppose i need to figure out how to do this myself.
I am looking for tips. I have Shapgnum/peat mix that i will be using for the bedding.
The artificial light consists of 4x4ft sull spectrum tubes, seen here.
I dont know if these are enough, the orchids clearly did not care for this light, the last flytrap seemed to respond well with the light about 1 foot above the plants.
here is a short clip from the last one who i ended up killing with contaminated fog
I realize this might not be optimal, but im not sure what is. My experience on this is pretty limited, and i am learning more every day. I have several books i try to read, but with a full time day job, a ever growing side company i own, and being a single father i dont have tons of free time to dedicate. I have found forums are excellent ways to help get tailored information that might save me quite a bit of time and money.
This weekend i plan to move one of the plants down to the grow room (I think i am the only person in colorado with a grow room like this that does not grow pot) and to start shooting. The first goal is to get this lil guy growing nicely under artifical light (with enough room to manipulate a camera). Once i have him growing, i want to expand to other varieties of flytraps, sun dews, pitchers, etc, and other plants that are native to that environment. Then i want to build out a full set, about 3ft x 6ft to recreate being out in nature.
At this point, i may be rambling, I really hope to learn a lot while i am on here and hopefully be able to contribute as much as i can.
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