Thanks for the encouragement, all. I will post more as things develop, indeed. Today, those walls you saw at the end of the 3rd video were filled with concrete. Tomorrow the sub-slab plumbing gets roughed in and the ledgers for the Insul-deck will be placed. At the end of this week, the stamped-concrete floors and the concrete slab under the wood floors will be poured. Next week the deck goes on, then gets poured. After the back-fill it'll be time to build the 2nd (main) story walls. It's amazing how quickly everything's been moving, though the excavation took some time, since it's so rocky. Re: Av-mode: yes, since I get a meter feedback in manual mode, I could just use that to set shutter & f, which is actually what I do these days. But when one is getting started, and when one is used to shooting in Av or some more "automatic" mode, it's helpful. The main point is: once you're set, you want to be in manual mode so that you can keep the shutter/f the same, or essentially the same, all the way through the day. A $100 hunting camera sounds like a good idea. I don't know anything about them; I guess they have a manual mode and timer-shutter (or you can hook a remote release to them easily)? Do you have a brand/model recommendation, for this kind of work? Re: difficult settings in the woods: I wouldn't expect the settings to be too difficult - do you expect a lot of light variation or something, as the sun streams through between trees, perhaps? It might just come out looking like my moving-cloudy days, where the light flickers a bit, but the brain can tell that it's "normal". You'll want to set the exposure so that the brightest point isn't too over-exposed, but you can probably get that reading by going out on a bright day, at the sunniest point, and see what you get. Obviously if your variance is too great, you're right, it might just appear to "blink" - I suppose you could experiment with setting the camera in Av-mode and just setting the f, and letting it change shutter-speed every shot, to get a more "neutralized" lighting, but that might not result in a movie to your taste. Re: lot: yes, we love the view.

@Annie: lzerarc is right; I'll give a little more detail here. The Insuldeck panels (decking) you saw installed are not just foam - they have integrated "beams" of steel. They aren't very significant, and the gauge of steel is nothing to write home about, but it's enough to support a person walking atop about a 10-15' span; any more and you'd want bracing below. And, in fact, for the pour, all of the partition walls and then simple 2x6 Ls are used to brace every 6-8 feet along the spans. For this house there were maybe 6 Ls in addition to the partition walls; they only take a couple of minutes to knock together and a couple of minutes to mount up. Then, wire-mesh is placed over the radiant tubing, which contributes to rigidity, and rebar is placed at all edges, angling into the wall. All spacings, rebar sizes, etc. are engineered. Finally, where beams are needed, they're built out of rebar (tied together with rebar ties). Once the concrete is poured, all of that metal within gives the concrete its strength. @gaonmymind: thanks; I'll go change those video names soon.

Hey there, Frugaljon....welcome aboard. I wish to recommend to your pleasure a video on YouTube about the Hanging Hosta of Hampshire. Ever heard of them? I've watched the videos innumerable times, trying to note details of how they manage so many hosta, and what happens when winter comes, you know, just looking and dreaming. I link to one such video below. My hosta garden is 25 x 100 and is in coastal Alabama (near the Gulf of Mexico), and my zone is considered 9a or at best 8b. We have an undependable winter here, but we manage a few freezes and cold temps enough to make dormancy possible. Get ready to join the fun day after Christmas, when the Hosta Alphabet series begins. Until then, similar threads exist for last last several years. Wonderful resource. Here is a link that might be useful: HANGING HOSTAS OF HAMPSHIRE video

I have tried that method over and over again... but I think my computer, or the program, just isnt powerful enough to handle 13,000 images. Also, movie maker requires 0.03 seconds as the minimum, which is 33fps - 6.5min of movie. I kinda want it to go much faster than that. about 1.5min? But I dont know... my program keeps crashing.