Time-Lapse Tutorial
I’ve put together a tutorial on how to shoot a timelapse using a DSLR and intevelometer. The tutorial covers everything from settings you should use to making the time-lapse video in quicktime.
Let me know if the tutorial was useful. I’ll try and do some more tutorials if this one is recieved well. Also, if you’ve made a time-lapse, post a link to it in the comments.
January 31st, 2007 at 12:10 am (#)
tnxs, seriously. well done.. more more more……
January 31st, 2007 at 8:33 am (#)
Zach:
great stuff. I agree : more!
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:31 pm (#)
great stuff. i’ve seen everyone of your shows. Are you using After Effects for the “Ken Burn” moves?
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:36 pm (#)
Richard,
No I’m just using FinalCut Pro and using the motion/zoom curves. They work a lot like After Effects in that you can ease and keyframe etc.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm (#)
[...] Time-lapse tutorial Zach Wise [...]
February 6th, 2007 at 12:21 am (#)
[...] Time-lapse tutorial by Zach Wise [...]
February 7th, 2007 at 10:33 am (#)
thank you for the tutorial. i will post a link to one when i make it! i’m getting started this week….
May 30th, 2007 at 9:41 pm (#)
This is great, thank you. I have been taking some test runs — when I get a good one indeed I will post. I have a question though — If when doing something like a sunset, how can you keep the speed and f-stop the same? The scene goes from light to dark… Whats the trick? I am actually doing one right now, and just sat there and slowly increased the exposure time but I am sure when I compile the sequence there will appear to be sudden changes in the light. Have any pointers?
THANKS!!!
May 31st, 2007 at 3:25 am (#)
Ok, compiled two of my sequences into one, posted here:
http://corneveaux.com/gallery2/v/Time_Lapse/Experiments+in+Time+Lapse+%231.flv.html
As you can see in the 1st video, as it got darker I had to go from a 1/200 exposure to a 20 second exposure — and it shows. So then, whats the trick?
For anyone curious, this is shot with a Canon XTi using the same remote Zach mentioned and the sequences were rendered in Sony Vegas 7. I was only able to get ~600 shots for each sequence before the battery died. Have a plug -in power supply on the way (Canon ACK-DC20 AC Adapter Kit).
Thanks!
May 31st, 2007 at 11:02 am (#)
I think the best way to handle going from day to night is to keep the exposure and f-stop the same and let the frame go dark. Then stop the intevelometer and set your exposure for night. Then in FinalCut or any other video editor, do a cross dissolve to make the transition from day to night.
Here is an experiment I did awhile ago, but I haven’t done the transition.
DayNight
June 30th, 2007 at 5:57 pm (#)
I’m interested in giving this a try. I’m hoping to use the EOS Capture utility (part of the Digital Photo Pro software from Canon) that came with my EOS 20D on a Mac Laptop (at least as soon as I get an AC adaptor for my EOS). I’ve also had success with using my Sony HDR-HC1 HD camcorder using the time-lapse mode in iMovie. Of course the problem with both these techniques is that you have a lot of hardware outside for a long duration, and the need for an AC power supply.
I am very interested in the zoom and pan effects that I’ve seen in some time-lapse videos. Particularly at this site here: http://www.sandboxla.com/
Are these all created using FX in editing software? Or is there a way to creep the zoom. I’m thinking that a slow pan could be accomplished with a telescope drive motor or some equivalent.
Any thoughts appreciated. And thanks for the great tutorial! It’s inspiring.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:04 am (#)
this is maybe the most useful photography tutorial i’ve seen. wow.
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:32 am (#)
Excellent tutorial!
I’ve never known about the shutter drag before.
Thank you very much!
December 10th, 2007 at 9:21 pm (#)
Hi Zach, I hope you don’t mind, I’ve uploaded the video to Stage6.
http://www.stage6.com/user/yunir/video/1931207/
Thx!
December 11th, 2007 at 3:04 pm (#)
Thanks so much for the great tutorial.
At the moment I can only afford one camera so I went for a video camera.
I have been making timelapse using sped up video but I am now really keen to get an SLR and start making timelapse this way. (I’m going through too much video tape my way)
Here is a link to one of my timelapses for anyone who is interested.
http://www.stage6.com/user/ThrashingMarlin/video/1930694/Sea-Of-Tranquility
Thanks
David
December 18th, 2007 at 11:41 am (#)
[...] out this excellent video tutorial that covers how to shoot and edit time-lapse movies, from Photojojo friend Zach Wise. He uses an [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 6:34 am (#)
VERY helpfull..
thanks
January 26th, 2008 at 12:56 am (#)
Thanks for the great tutorial here is my effort:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RUCOTcnDsQ
February 6th, 2008 at 11:39 am (#)
Awesome tute! Would love to see more!
Used my 40D, Tamron 17-55mm 2.8, and a Canon TC-80N3.
At work one day at the local airport I set up the camera inside to protect it from flying debris, and from ‘walking away’. Spots are not sensor spots but dirt on the window I shot through.
.8 second exposures, F32, every 5 seconds. Cokin P154 ND filter to cut down the amount of light to get a slower ss (darn lens is too fast! - Never heard anyone complain that their lens was too fast!)
In my video program, I believe I set the rates at slides on screen for .2 seconds, and transition of .075 seconds.
Added a few frames of text so if you view the vid, wait until at least half loaded before pressing play. Quicktime viewer 7 required to view.
link
February 24th, 2008 at 12:18 pm (#)
I’ve made a couple of attempts to get a working time-lapse system. First with a home-wired intervalometer and a p&s camera, and most recently with the Canon controller and a 10d slr. In both cases, I’m having issues with missing frames. For some reason, when I get down in the 3sec interval range, I will miss a frame every 30 or so.
Have you experienced this? What camera are you using?
February 27th, 2008 at 3:19 pm (#)
Zack, great tutorial. Did my first time lapse today on Canon 5D and TC80, I have a few questions.
1. Is there anyway to globally clone the dreaded dust spots off the sensor, because they stand out a mile on a time lapse with clouds rolling across a sky? And to clone numerous spots off 300 frames would be a pain in the a&*.
2. Same goes for correcting a converging vertical, basically I have a building in the foreground and lots of clouds rolling over it, looks great for my first attept but would like to correct the verticals if possible.
I did manage to open the Quicktime in Photoshop CS3 cloned and sharpened, then tried exporting. It worked but only on the first frame, and the playback of this exported file stopped and jumped erratically?
Thanks again
Graham
April 5th, 2008 at 6:42 am (#)
Thank you for such an great tutorial. You really seem to have a talent for this sort of thing.
I did have one question. When capturing for example, a sunset or night falling on a city, and you’ve got your DSLR all manually locked down clicking away with the Intervalometer, how are you compensating or changing the exposure as it gets darker?
Thanks,
Rod
April 5th, 2008 at 8:19 pm (#)
Nice tutorial. How do I get a folder of vertical images to stay vertical in the image sequence???
April 9th, 2008 at 6:02 pm (#)
Once again like I said before you make a great work.
Congratulations,
António Chagas.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:03 pm (#)
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April 11th, 2008 at 7:13 am (#)
Thank you for posting this. I know how to shoot a time lapse, but I could never find a good program to compile the video. Thank you very much for making this available.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:31 pm (#)
Zach - as for shutter speed…do you think you can ‘over’ drag the shutter? What’s your experience been with exposures longer than 2 seconds per frame?
Thanks,
TOR
April 25th, 2008 at 12:06 am (#)
I’m sure in certain situations you could ‘over drag’ the shutter, depending on what you’re trying to capture and the frame rate you play it back at. For the most part though, I think you want the camera to be exposing as much as possible leaving little time in between frames captured.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:51 pm (#)
Nice work. Thanks. FYI I found this on a general google search for making timelapse movies.
I had to look up what you meant by shutter drag. If anybody else stumbles upon this tutorial and needs a reminder, from what I gather it involves narrow aperture (ie f22) to get a nice long shutter speed. As shown in the tutorial, that will cause motion blur in the still images, and it will also yield a desirable exposure length relative to interval length.
Did I get that right?
June 21st, 2008 at 9:03 pm (#)
p.s. Graham: Lightroom is the perfect software for editing images before assembling them as a movie because it makes batch operations, such as spot removal or straightening, relatively easy. You just “copy” the relevant settings from one photo to the rest of the batch.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:04 pm (#)
Yesterday I made one time lapse video.
Today I watched your grat tutorial.
Tomorrow I’ll make a better time lapse video than I did yesterday
Thank you.