Settings used for Time Lapse Still Photography...

[cayenne]

Hello all,

I recently had a Vello interval timer loaned to me, that I liked so much, I bought the wireless version of it to to time lapse photography.

My question is...how do you set your camera for doing time lapse? My first one, was us out camping, I put on a tripod, with 17-40mm lens set to wide..and since I'd not done it before, and the adult beverages were flowing...I just set the camera to automatic. It turned out pretty good, I'd done jpegs....and it went from late afternoon -> Dusk and lighting campfire -> Dark with fire and a couple lanterns around.

I stitched it together in iMoovie...and it looks pretty good. But of course the darker shots...are at huge ISO, etc.

I was wondering if anyone that did Time Lapse...had some advice or good links to how to set things up.

Do you use jpeg...or RAW or maybe one of the smaller RAWs (m or s..I've not yet figured what those were for).

I'm guessing most set their camera to manual....but how do you take into account changing light...going from day to night, or vice versa...and get the exposure right for the whole period?

What interval do you work with? Is it better to do some multiple of 12, if you're going to be putting the video together at 24fps? At multiples of 5 or 10 if doing 30fps?

What timing of each shot do you use for the finished stills to time lapse video? Each still for 1 second or more or less?

I got fairly lucky on the first one...I tried a 2nd one with mixed results so far...exposure wasn't great and have been working to correct a lot of it with Aperture...etc, and trying to use FCPX to stitch this one together.

But to try to stay on topic...what settings do ya'll use out there for setting up, say a 5D3 on a tripod to take Time Lapse stills?

Thank you in advance,

cayenne

 

[bchernicoff]

So far I've used manual, but then I haven't done what that changes from day to night.

As far as interval goes...a good place to start is when you know how long your final video is going to be. For instance if your goal is to make a 2 minute timelapse that plays at 24fps, you know that you will need to capture 2880 images (120s X 24fps). Next, if you know how much time you plan to capture, you can divide. So, if you want to capture 3 hours which is 10800 seconds, you divide 10800 by 2880 and get 3.75s for an interval. Round up or down as you like.

 

[cayenne]

So far I've used manual, but then I haven't done what that changes from day to night.

As far as interval goes...a good place to start is when you know how long your final video is going to be. For instance if your goal is to make a 2 minute timelapse that plays at 24fps, you know that you will need to capture 2880 images (120s X 24fps). Next, if you know how much time you plan to capture, you can divide. So, if you want to capture 3 hours which is 10800 seconds, you divide 10800 by 2880 and get 3.75s for an interval. Round up or down as you like.

Interesting...I was coming from the opposite approach and can't figure out the math...

I hadn't planned how long the clip would be...I was just interested in capturing everything no matter how long it took.

Let's say I have 1000 images....taken at 12s apart...what would be the ideal length of the video (and accodingly, how long should each image last on screen 1 sec or a fraction of a second) so things would look smooth at 24fps...or 30 fps....?

Thanks for the reply!

C