How to Make Time-Lapse Video

 

 Time-lapse photography is an interesting technique that records a scene or objects that has a slow state-of-change and turns it into a video that plays back in high speed. The easiest way to do it is to have your camera stationary on something that changes slowly (e.g. clouds, plants growing, etc) and start taking series of photo for hours or even days. Hours and hour’s worth of photos are compressed into a video with merely few minutes playtime, thus creating a time lapsing effect.

 

 

In another word, it allows us to see the progress faster without having to wait along the actual time. Spotting sun’s movement from sunrise to sunset takes about 12 hours; it’s boring and you probably won’t notice the changes. But seeing it rise and set in 10 seconds, that’s pretty interesting!
In this article, we’ll show you how to create your own Time-lapse video. To make things easier to digest, we’ve split the content up to several sections:

1. Understanding Time-lapse fundamentals
2. Choosing your camera for Time-lapse project
3. Post-editing your Time-lapse photos
4. Combining photos into Time-lapse video

1. Understanding The Fundamentals

 

We’ll start by understanding some fundamental rules. Under normal circumstances, every one second in a video comprise of 24-30 frames of photos, calculated with the unit fps (frame per second). If you watch a 2 minutes video at 24 fps, that means it’s made up of 2880 photos (frames) animating at high speed.
To create Time-lapse effect, you basically reduce the interval for each shot and merge them into a 24-30 fps video. E.g., if the sun takes 12 hours to set and you take a photo every 1 minute, you will have 720 photos. With a 24 fps compression, you’ll have a video of sun rise to sun set in 30 seconds. Isn’t it amazing!

Your subject

You probably already have some ideas in mind, but here’s what we can think of just in case you left your creative cap at home.

• Sunrise, sunset, or from sunrise to sunset
• Fruit rotting
• Flower blossoming
• Growth of plant
• Ice melting
• Clouds movement
• Stars movement (clear sky required)
• Movements of a busy city street

 

Smooth or Blocky?

Before you get all excited and try out your first Time-lapse photography project, we’d recommend that you start by thinking ahead the interval of each photo, i.e., the pause time between each photo; is it going to be 1 second? 10 second? 1 minute? 1 hour? Etc.
Let’s get into more details.

Smooth (Shorter interval) A shorter interval between each photo gives you a smoother video output. It is usually use to shoot something with a slightly faster state of change, e.g., ice melting, clouds movement or busy city street. Shorter interval is usually around the range of 1-1hour per image. 

Blocky (Longer interval) Longer interval between each photo tends to give you a more blocky video output. It is usually use to shoot something with a slower state of change, e.g., progress of a building rotting of an apple that could take days or construction take could take years. The pause time between each photo can be quite subjective, it can be 1 hour per photo, 6 hours per photo or even 1 or few days per photo depending on the subject.
Now that you’ve choose a subject for your Time-lapse, and have a rough idea on the intervals, let’s take a look at how it can be done with various types of cameras, be it dSLR, point-and-shoot camera or webcam.

note…

 

Like everyone else, we tend to fail on the first attempt. Even when we are well prepared, some things somewho tends to fail or dissapoints. Here are some tips, drawn from our experience so you be aware of and reduce the chances of failing in a Time-lapse photography project.

• Do test shots.
  Don’t start shooting right away. Always do some test shots to ensure you are getting the right angle and composition you want.

• Take photo in basic JPG.
  Set your camera to take photos in the most optimum JPG quality else you’ll be running out of disk space very fast.

• Manual mode for all.
  It is recommended that you shoot in manual mode with manual shutter speed, aperture, exposure and white balance to avoid camera trying to adjust itself when the environment of the subject gets unexpectedly darker or brighter.

• Extra batteries. If you are time-lapsing outdoors then good batteries are essential. It’s good if your camera battery can be changed without removing the camera off the tripod. If the Time-lapse is taken indoors it is better if you use the camera’s main charger to avoid draining the battery. That includes taking care of your laptop’s battery too if you are depending on your software to control the Time-lapse interval.

• Extra Memory cards. You need to make sure you have enough memory space for the Time-lapse. You can make your own calculations to get free memory amount you need for your desired Time-lapse. Just find out what’s the file size of one picture and then calculate how much pictures approximately will be taken, and you can do the math to get a result of memory space you need for your Time-lapse.

• Choose a strategic spot.
  Set the tripod up securely and in a place where it will not be moved or knocked over easily, especially if you are shooting in a busy street. 

• Keep an eye on your camera. Always keep your camera and the equipments at sight during the shooting or at least make sure they are safe from filching.