Time Lapse Photography
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Many new cameras have the ability to shoot time lapse. Time lapse is simply a series of still images put into a movie; a movie is nothing more than a series of still images. Take a series of 500 still JPG images, load them into a movie maker software, and hit "make my movie" its that simple! This post is a short overview to the time lapse photography; tons of free information can be found on-line, or just send me an email!
How to setup camera?
Tripod: the camera must be on a sturdy tripod, and can not be moved or bumped during the photography
Focus: put the camera in manual focus; this way the focus will not be int erupted by someone very close to the camera as in the painters above. Take a test shot to check focus before shooting
Auto program without flash: let your camera do the work; aperture or shutter priority can be better choices at times but when your starting out auto is fine; I shot this movie in auto.
Image Format: shoot basic JPG files in normal mode. These movies are viewed on small screens so using a large photo file size is not necessary and just slows things down.
Battery and Memory Card: fresh battery of course, and format your memory card prior to taking photos. Its much easier to pull large amounts of photos off when there are no other photos.
My Setup:
Nikon D5100 + Nikon 17-70 f3.5 mid zoom at 17mm, manual focus
Auto program mode, Nikon D-lighting set to high, Nikon picture control set to vivid
Manual focus (checked in live view)
Interval shooting every 15 seconds, I let the camera run 3 hours while the work was done.
Movie clip in windows movie maker (no music I know, will add some later.)
What interval between frames?
This depends on what you are filming. The deck work above could have been shot every 30 seconds for a jerky movie (lots of movement between frames,) or every 1 second for a smooth movie (less movement between frames); I shot at 15 second intervals. If you are shooting for a very long time (say 8 hours) the interval between frame becomes more important; if your are not careful you will end up with way to many images. Here are two examples:
* 1 frame per second is 60 frames per minute. 60 frames per minute x 60 minutes per hour x 8 hours = 28,800 images!
* 15 frames per second is 4 frames per minute: 4 frames per minute x 60 minutes per hour x 8 hours = 1,920 images ~ much better!
How long will the movie be?
Most movies play back at 24 frames per second. (some at 30fps) You can slow this down to make your movie longer, but it will be more jerky.
Divide the number of frames by the playback frame rate per second:
* 900 frames divided by 30 frames per second = 30 second movie
* 900 frames divided by 10 frames per second = 90 second movie
How to make the movie?
I used windows movie maker; simple and free software included with windows since XP. I also use Apple Quick Time Pro ($40 ~ and more options,) and Picassa a free Google product.
Each program has its own procedure, but in a nutshell you go the folder with all your images and drag those images into the movie program. You can add a song from you hard disk if you like - there is an "add music button" in each program. The click auto "make my movie" button (slightly different name in each software, you get the picture, er ~ uh, movie!)
And just like that you made a movie!
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