Help with time lapse

[Fangman]

I have been asked if i could set up for a series of photos of a construction site to be taken at hourly intervals during dayligh hours ove a period of about five weeks. Digital - wide angle and battery pack. I hear that possibly a Nikon (Hate to say that word) 200 might do it.

Suggestions please.

 

[Garbz]

Won't do it over hourly intervals for weeks. The battery would run flat.

That said batteries always have spares. It's a construction site so I'm going to assume you can get power from somewhere, but you don't need a D200 to do this. Any camera along with USB cable and the right software has this capability. Nikons do it via Nikon Camera Control NX, not sure which software Canon and other use.

Alternatively it should be possible to buy remotes which have periodic shutter release functions.

 

[Fangman]

Thanks - investigated the Canon TC-80N3 Timer Remote Controller which should do the job. Has only 100 hours - but may be able to organise battery and card change within this period with it being run from Mon am to Fri pm. This should work with an older EOS camera having the three pin connector so may even consider film body that would not cost to much in case of damage. Most likely I will look for a "previously enjoyed" as car salesmen say - 20D

 

[D-50]

The D200 will do exactly that although youll need to change the battery every day.

 

[bango707]

The D200 will do exactly that although youll need to change the battery every day.

regardless if you are shooting with a D200 or a 20D you can always run A/C power if you get yourself the adaptor.

Im sure you know this but if you shoot one fph that = 24fpd which is roughly 1 second per day. thats 7 seconds per week, 35 seconds over the five weeks. Is construction going 24/7? I ask because if there aren't any lights on at night then about 1/2 of your time lapse is going to be black. In post you can edit out all of the black frames but then it might look kind of strange having the sun jump all around in the sky from one side to the other in your final product.

so overall you are looking at 840 frames, ~440 of which will be black if there aren't any lights on the property.

It would be possible to throw in a 2or4g CF card shooting Large/Normal jpegs (not RAW), run your A/C power and return in 5 weeks and collect everything!

 

[Sw1tchFX]

The D200 will do exactly that although youll need to change the battery every day.

No you wouldn't, when the meter isn't on, or the shutter isn't open, the only thing that's running is half the quartz display on the top. That's practically nothing in terms of battery usage.

 

[Garbz]

Too right, Also if you leave it on auto-metering which is worth testing one day in advance as it can play up the the camera will auto adjust the lighting anyway. It's just a matter of keeping it consistent.

That's how the BBC takes those timelapses of flowers opening and closing and opening and closing. If it's shade during the day the lighting bearly changes when you metre it consistently.

 

[D-50]

Switch is right, tou probably only have to change the battery every week/week and a half. Are you planning on just leaving the camera at the site or are you going to be there to watch it. It would be a pretty boring assignment to have to sit there for 12 hours a day. I would be very hesitant to leave my camera at a construction site unattended though. I worked in construction recruiting for years and heard numerous stories of peoples laptops being stolen from worksites.