Tuesday 19 August 2008

How to Do a Timelapse

The age old art of showing time passing with a series of interval shots stitched together to form a section of footage. Sounds fairly complicated but with the right know how and a bit of patients its a easy skill to master. Hit the jump to read more
Ok before we get started there are a few things your gunna need.

1. A dslr
2. A timelapse trigger (some cameras have one built in) canon do the tc 80n3 that works great (its what i use) other after market versions are available.
3.A tripod
4.Photolapse CLICK (or other image sequence stitching program)

Ok first things first set up the camera on the tripod and frame the shot you want.

Next plug in and set up the trigger (how to set it up will vary from model to model) and select a suitable delay. For most things such as sun sets where it is moving quite quickly (all over in the space of a hour or so) Ill set the trigger to take one frame every 5 seconds for a flower something like once every 30 minutes .

Ok now to set the camera up first things first set the camera to Manual set a suitable exposure set up.
quick tip: if your photographic quickly moving objects (cars people ect) it is advisable to use a long shutter speed to get some motion blur to make it look more realistic

Then select a suitable focus point this is totaly dependent on the scene use your photographers initiative. At the point once the camera is in focus turn the lens to Manual focus.

ok the final step set a custom WB setting for the current conditions.

then hit the start button sit back and wait

Once all your images are shot load them into there own folder on your pc
open up photolapse
Find the folder in the left hand finder window
Click load files from current folder
Click Mark all
Decide on a frame rate (depends on your delay between photos but I normal start at about 12 and then play from there)
Click Create Movie and wait
Sit back and admire your creation !

For some insparation for timelapse hit up youtube



Have fun!!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

great how to on time lapse... I have done a few time lapse videos on my laptop that lasted several hours, put to music they really take on a life of their own. Great job.