10 timelapse videos

"The wheels of the cosmos turn too slowly for humans to watch" José Francisco Salgado.

10. The Mountain

by TSO Photography

A stunning time-lapse video from Terje Sorgjerd, filmed around Spain's highest mountain, El Teide - one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars, and the home of Teide Observatories. The shots of the Milky Way are breath-taking...indeed, if you break out of the 'twinkling lights in the sky rotating over the Earth' perspective, and instead grasp your viewing position as it really is - on a spinning globe, watching billions of fixed suns in the virtually unending depths of the cosmos sweep into view - the opening sequences to this video can pretty much bring a tear to your eye (well, at least they do for me).

9. In The Land Of The Northern Lights
by Ole Christian Salomonsen

Six months and 50,000 images in the making, Ole Christian Salomsen's timelapse video of the Aurora Borealis ('The Northern Lights') is exquisitely beautiful. The time-scales aren't as stretched as in many time-lapse videos, in order to preserve the real-time speed of the aurorae as much as possible, "instead of the northern lights just flashing over the sky in the blink of an eye":

One can only wonder what ancient people made of this spectacular atmospheric phenomenon, in which spirits seem to rise from mountains and dance across the sky.

8. Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010
by Sean Stiegemeier

When Eyjafjallajökull erupted last year and threw European travel into chaos, Sean Stiegemeier thought the obvious thing to do was...travel. "I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better," Stiegemeier said. Four days of travel chaos, followed by four days of bad weather, left him just a day and half of filming. I can't imagine what he would have got with the full 10 days.

Make sure you also check out Stiegemeier's initial 'test' reel, which is as good as any other timelapse you're likely to see.

7. 24 Hours of Neon
by Philip Bloom

Philip Bloom's time-lapse framing of Las Vegas brings out the two sides of Sin City, which are - quite literally - day and night. "I wanted to create a sense of colour and insanity that Las Vegas gives you", says Bloom. And, amazingly, he did the entire thing all from one single viewpoint - his balcony. Watching people, cars and planes zipping about the Las Vegas 'hive', one can only imagine some greater, long-lived consciousness would see us only as ants or other bugs, flitting about with what seems - on this time-scale - little purpose or significance.
6. Sub Zero - Winter Night Timelapse
by Randy Halverson

Shot in Dakota at the tail-end of winter, "Sub Zero" is appropriately named - Randy Halverson spent most nights filming in sub zero temperatures, with around -25F wind chill. Being February, the constellation Orion makes numerous appearances in the sky - how many times do you see it? Update: See Randy's latest videos, Plains Milky Way andTempest Milky Way.

5. El Cielo de Canarias / Canary sky
by Daniel López

If you want to get a feel for the 'fluid' nature of clouds, make sure you check out this wonderful time-lapse presentation by Daniel López. Like tidal oceans, waves of clouds roll in and out, and pour downhill like a tipped bucket in one sequence (see 2:50 to 3:15 for the most spectacular. Add to that some stationary lenticular ("UFO") clouds, a solar corona, and heck, even a "double-rainbow", and you just know you have to check this one out.

4. Lapse of Memory
by Tony Partington

When I traveled to the United Kingdom some 12 years ago, one of my favourite experiences was visiting megalithic sites - from Stonehenge through to small, barely-known arrangements in farmer's fields. The atmosphere of these places is heavy with a sense of time. Here's a wonderful time-lapse video that gives you the feel of these sacred sites; the realisation that the Earth has spun countless times, and all sorts of biological creatures have come and gone, while these stones have sat there as mute witnesses. "Lapse of Memory" assembles more than 70,000 panoramic high-dynamic range images into a one-of-a-kind viewing experience.

3. Timescapes: Mountain Light
by Tom Lowe

Tom Lowe won the Royal Observatory's 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year award, and this clip will show you why. Filmed under August skies in California's White Mountains and Yosemite, "Mountain Light" is just one part of a longer feature called Timescapes (see other spectacular films from the production timeline at the link).

Some of the wonderful moments from this video include a rain storm that hangs to the ground like tendrils from some cloud creature, and the inquisitive radio telescopes flitting about, contemplating the mysteries of the far-away universe. Brilliant.

2. The Chapel
by Patryk Kizny

While filming time-lapse indoors doesn't give many of the same time effects as some of the outdoor videos featured above, in this particular case Patryk Kizny's use of the technique - along with HDR photography - helps bring a timeless, otherworldy perspective. Which works very well when combined with the setting of an abandoned temple in Zeliszów, Poland, designed by Carl Langhans and built in the late 1700s.

1. The Aurora
by TSO Photography

Another stunning time-lapse video from Terje Sorgjerd, the man who gave us "The Mountain". Shot in and around Kirkenes and Pas National Park bordering Russia over the space of a week, in temperatures well below freezing, Sorgjerd's jaw-dropping sequences capture one of the most spectacular appearances of the Northern Lights in recent years.