2 questions about creating time lapse from still images - alignment and RAW vs JPEG..

[erotavlas]

Hello, I'm creating a kind of time lapse of a construction site. I'm taking one photograph each day until the building is completed. My camera has a 16MP sensor and I set it to save the RAW + JPEG. Also, I am hand holding the camera (since the location I am shooting from does not allow for tripod) - although I am aligning it with the display grid as best I can each time - there is still some slight shift from image to image.

My questions are as follows

1 - when I'm finished and ready to start compiling the images together into an movie, which format do I use RAW or JPEG?

2 - How can I align the images? Can it be done in Adobe Premiere? (i.e. can it auto align them as it creates the movie? or do I have to do some preprocessing on the images first, and then create the time lapse?

thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[20belowphotography]

first of all, i always suggest shooting in RAW; it has much more potential for post processing. in my opinion, shooting RAW + jpeg is a waste of memory as you can always export a RAW on a jpeg later on. i always shoot RAW unless i'm doing something real quick for the internet and i don't want to export it.

that said, your time lapse will be jpeg so if you shot in raw, do your normal editing and then export as jpeg. i create my time lapses in adobe lightroom, but i always shoot on a tripod so i'm not sure about aligning them. here's a thread talking about aligning them in photoshop. hope that helps

 

[Gavjenks]

You can use RAW, but you have to be very careful to NOT edit your images differently from image to image like you normally might when converting RAW to jpeg. You need to pick one set of settings, and apply it to every frame, in order to maintain the same look and feel and consistency throughout your final video.

You don't want one frame to be a greenish hue and then the next a reddish one, etc.

Other than that, there's no reason not to use the RAW if you took it.