Time Lapse Photography

Thorhammer you do awesome work! I really really do like how your shots look.
Just thought I'd let you know that you are an inspiration to a young and aspiring photographer! ahha
 
Hello everyone, I've been lurking around this forum for a while now and really enjoy what everyone has had to say...for the most part;)
I've done a lot of time lapse photography using the canon 20 and 30D's and also the Nikon D200. I personally like the ease of use with the Nikon because unlike the Canon it has a built in intervelometer. When using a Canon you will need one of these which run well over $100 new. here is a link to one http://www.samys.com/product_detail.php?item=1925
What you will need to shoot a time lapse:
Tripod
Camera with build in intervelometer (Nikon D200,D2Xs) or is compatible 20D
large CF card. I use an 8G with a backup 4G
battery pack. I like to do a lot of night time lapse so I am often out there for 5-7 hours. Using the cameras batteries will not last you plus you risk moving your camera and screwing you whole shot if you swap the battery.

As far as merging the frames into a video clip the best way I have found is to open quicktime, go to file, open image sequence, it will open up a window for you to select a frame out of a sequence of shots. You will select the very first frame of your time lapse (that you had already downloaded and put into its own folder) and then click open. The Image Sequence Settings will pop up and this is where you select the frame rate that you want it to merge your frames at. Video is always played back at 30 frames per second because it goes through a process called a 3:2 pulldown so I generally select 30fps. Also, before shooting I take 30fps and multiply that by how long my clip will be which is generally 15 seconds. 30X15=450 frames. I will be taking 4 frames per minute so I will know that it will take me over an hour and a half to finish shooting. Getting back to merging the clip, once you select your frame rate the image that you selected will pop up on the screen, go to file, save as and save the clip as a self contained movie. Then import that into final cut or whatever editing software you are using and you are good to go except that you will probably have to render the clip once you drop it into your timeline.

On a side not I have seen some flickering issues when people have used the Canon 5D for time lapse photography. Not sure why but it happens with that camera.
As far as file size I generally shoot large/normal jpegs. This is because its nice to be able to pan across or push into your time lapse. It really ads production value to the shot. Shooting RAW can give you some unwanted flicker.

Now that you are totally confused get out there and shoot some time lapses!!!:)
 

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