adams.co.tt blog - tagged with timelapse

Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 Time Lapse Test

2012-11-06

I have just purchased a Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 for use during time lapse filming. Here is an initial test.

iPhone Time Lapse

2012-05-04

As an experiment, I decided to create, edit and publish a time lapse video using just my iPhone 4S. Here are the results:

I used iMotion HD and iMovie. This would not be possible without the ability for applications to share content between them. I would encourage iOS developers to take this into consideration when building apps, rather trying to bolt in every possible piece of functionality into a given app.

Beijing Traffic

2011-11-26

A short time lapse video of an evening of Beijing traffic. Shot using a Canon EOS 5D.

Music credit: Blue Bhikku by Meturi

Time lapse videos with the LX3

2010-03-18

Time lapse videos are a particular interest of mine, which is clear from my previous posts on the topic. In the past I’ve always used my DSLR to capture the images for these videos, but I’ve found that it is not always the perfect solution.

For example, when making a time lapse video of a project at work, I had my DSLR set up on a tripod taking images every few seconds. While the team was very interested in the outcome of the video, the constant clicking of a shutter began to really grate on some, and I had to stop recording after a short space of time.

My Panasonic LX3 does not suffer from the same issue. It’s much smaller and importantly much quieter. However, it lacks any means to trigger it remotely or on a timer. It does however offer a continuous shooting mode, taking images every half a second or so, until the memory card is full or the battery runs out. However, to use this mode, the shutter button must remain depressed.

Therefore I went searching and found a stockist for this online:

Combined with a cable release, you get this:

And as a result I was able to produce this:

link

The biggest drawback is that I am not able to control the interval at which images are taken. But I find this to be an acceptable trade off for the gains in quietness and portability.

Company Away Day Time Lapse

2009-07-06

It’s rare when my hobby of photography and my job in software development coincide, but recently the company I work for had an Away Day and one of my colleagues put together a team of people to record a time lapse video of the event. I was part of the team, and this is what we made:

It was definitely a lot of fun to do and hopefully we’ll be able to do something similar again next year.

Time lapse - Part 2 - Animating images

2009-06-08

In my previous post I described how to generate an image sequence for time lapse movies. In this post, I’ll discuss the different ways to turn those sequences into real video. In terms of ease of use, QuickTime Pro is my favourite. To create a film, it’s as easy as:

Then, simply choose the framerate you desire, and Robert’s your dodgy aunt.

This will produce a silent animation of the image sequence you created. I’m told that you can similar results using the open source app ffmpeg. A colleague of mine provided this little snippet for its use:

ffmpeg -sameq -i timelapse-%d.jpg timelapse.mpg

where:

-sameq: keep the same quality of the input in the output, 
so no extra compression is used
-i: take all files starting with ‘timelapse-’ and a number
 (%d = digits) plus ‘.jpg’ in the current directory

However, once you have this film, it’s still likely that it is too large in dimensions for general viewing. In this case, you have two options:

Resize the source images before making the film

Resize the generated film

Both are valid approaches, and some simple searches around batch resizing images will provide solutions to the former. QuickTime Pro will resize the generated films provided you use the Export feature.

QuickTime Pro can also be used to add a soundtrack to a movie:

Open both the video and a similarly lengthed audio track in QuickTime Pro.

Go to the audio track, select all, then copy.

Go to the video track, then use:

Save.

Once you have a video which you are happy with, you need to choose where to display it. Vimeo, flickr and youtube all have HD playback, but in some cases require a paid membership. It is important to remember that each can have contraints on filesize, duration, or both, depending on the kind of account you have, so ensuring that your videos aren’t too big is important.

Time lapse - Part 1 - Generating image sequences

2009-06-07

In my photographic travels, I’ve recently taken a real interest in time lapsing. Having done some research in the area, I’ve found it is relatively easy and inexpensive for an amateur such as myself to produce one. To that end, I thought I’d give a couple of quick tutorials on how to produce a simple timelapse movie that should work on both OS X and Windows.

The above is a time lapse video I made last night from the top floor of my parents house in France. Despite the fact that chunks of it look like day time, it was mostly filmed in the hours from midnight to about 3am. The illumination comes largely from the moon, so the film almost goes black for a section when the cloud cover becomes very heavy.

So the first thing you have to do when producing a timelapse movie is to produce a sequence of images. This can be done in two ways using a Canon SLR (those of you not shooting with a Canon SLR should skip to the second method). The first and cheapest is to use the remote capture software that comes with your camera. Assuming you have installed it on your computer, when you connect your camera, you should be presented with this:

Start the remote capture application and you should be able to remotely change camera settings using this dialog box:

Once you have the correct settings for the scene, you can start a time lapse using the following menu item:

There are, however, problems with using this method to generate your image sequence. Firstly, your camera has to be tethered to your computer. That means you are either limited by a laptop battery, or your computer needs to be plugged into the mains. If you have a desktop, it’s not likely to be very portable. Also, Canon’s software is buggy in my experience, and limits you to batchs of 999 images and a minimum recycle time of 5 seconds.

However, as I mentioned earlier, there is another way of generating an image sequence. You can use a timer, such as the TC-80N3 from Canon. The major problem with this device is that it is very expensive for what it is. Fortunately, eBay is to the rescue, with many cheap and cheerful alternatives available from China. This is mine:

Note: This timer and the TC-80N3 only work with a subset of Canon SLR bodies. Check that the timer you are buying works with your body.

It is possible to buy a timer like this one for most SLR bodies, and it has many advantages. It allows untethered shooting, unlimited batch sizes and image periods as short as 1 second. It also has a host of other features such as controlled long exposures in bulb mode, and delayed exposures.

At this point I should mention a couple of things. There are two factors that will limit the number of images in your image sequence. These are, your battery and your memory card. There are a couple or things you can do to maximise both.

To maximise your battery, turn off image reviewing. This stops the LCD screen on the back of your camera being switched on for every single exposure. You aren’t going to be watching every single one, so it’s just a pointless waste of battery.

To maximise your memory card, switch the image resolution to the smallest JPEG setting you can. Shooting in RAW is pointless, as you’ll have to just convert to JPEG anyway and you aren’t going to tweak the settings for several hundred or thousand images. Shooting in large resolutions is equally silly as noone watches video in 4372 x 2906.

Finally, when choosing your exposure mode, if at all possible, choose manual exposure. If you allow the camera to meter, it will meter on every single shot. Often your camera will not consistently meter between images, and as a result your video will flicker, when you animate your images together. Also, set focus to manual as well, other wise your camera will attempt a focus lock on each exposure. Particularly in dark situations this can cause the camera to miss shots, as it hunts for focus or refuses to expose because it cannot find focus at all.

In my next post I’ll discuss ways to turn your image sequence into a movie, with a soundtrack if desired.