Published by Swiss James on 11 Jun 2008 at 12:16 am
Timelapse photography
I’ve been into the idea of timelapse photography for a while now- ever since I saw this cool video by a fellow Shanghai expat called Lifemage.
You take a series of photos every so often, then string them together to make a movie clip at 24 frames per second (or whatever). Time is sped up, everything moves fast, flowers bloom before your eyes, fruit rots as you watch, people gasp in astonishment.
The idea has been around forever but what with digital cameras, the Internet, smokeless fuels and the Macarena now freely available, anyone can have a go.
Sitting around pressing the shutter every minute for 16 hours is a bit of a pain though so on Monday I bought a battery pack for my camera to do the timing automatically. I set it up on the balcony and recorded the sun setting over the grey sky West of Jing-An.
Not bad for a first try, if a bit murky.
Now I know how to do it, I’m thinking about making a clip of my journey to work, the sun rise out of the back window of my place, Nanjing Dong Lu pedestrians, me drinking a whole bottle of Rum, the decline of Western Civilisation- the possibilities are endless(ish).
Here’s what I used-
The timer settings were 1 per minute x 99 shots = 98 minutes in real life, 22 seconds in the clip.
Jenis brand battery grip for Canon350/400d – 750RMB
Tripod – 100RMB
Bottle of rice wine – 5RMB
Mate that’s great I think I am gonna get one, but honestly, you don’t need time lapse to observe the decline of western civilisation – it’s happening pretty fast already! And was the rice wine really necessary? Is your flat quite drafty?
that was neat.
(but why isn’t there any music on the video?)
That is really cool! The original YouTube one is great as well. (I wonder how long that poor girl had to stand there for). That’s really good for a first attempt. How did you do the timing thing? Is it a setting inside the camera?
Woai- I reckon you’d enjoy it, maybe we can both be standing out on Nanjing road, might make us feel less stupid. You bring the cigars, I’ll bring the booze.
The rice wine really did make the setup feel a lot more stable- the tripod was out on the balcony and it was pretty windy out there. Makes a big difference on a 100RMB tripod!
Angie- I just thought it was such a short clip that I wouldn’t have music. For a longer one I definitely will though, got a tune picked out as well.
SEL- Thanks! The original Lifemage one really is great, I figure she must have spent at least 6 hours standing around in various places- it’s his wife I think, she makes a great model.
The timing thing is all in the battery pack, you can’t do it just with the camera. At least not with this camera.
ah, that’s his wife? i didn’t recognise her with her clothes on!
James – I’m up for it but we’ll need someone else (Shopgirl?) to stop the camera (your camera) from getting nicked! How long would we need to stand there for?
dingle- those photos were artistic you grubby minded little pup
WoAi- that’s what you were supposed to be for!
I reckon I’m going to try 99 x 30 seconds to start with, so only 49 minutes. But eventually I want to start doing 24 hour periods- that’s when we have to go down to the railway station and start recruiting desperate migrant workers.
James surely the intervals need to be shorter. In the subway one they were more like half second gaps rather than half minute gaps.
yeah you’re probably right- the thing is that this thing I’ve got now will only take up to 99 frames.
I’m getting something that should be delivered today which will do more, then we’ll be in business.
It’s interesting though when you have to decide how long to have the shutter open for as well- if it’s short (say 1/60) then the people would be jerky, and if it’s long (< 1/2 second) then the people will flow like a river.
Doesn’t make as much of a difference with the one I’ve done here, although you can see individual cars in the first few seconds, but just headlight streaks as it gets darker.
You have to choose the shutter speed for all shots? Don’t you need a longer …. oh I see what you you mean, right. Well in our case it won’t matter as we won’t be doing a sunrise to sunset one, so the light will be more or less constant. So you’re getting ANOTHER grip or something that works with the existing grip?
The new thing isn’t a grip, it’s a thing that plugs in to the side- like a cable release.
Still no sign of it today, the delivery company are useless. I’d have needed a grip for the extra battery power with or without this new thing, so it’s no loss really.
The light will be more or less constant but still have to decide whether you want moving objects to be blurred or not. We could have two cameras set up, one with a short shutter speed, one with a long one.
Oh the possibilities, the geeky, geeky possibilities.
that’s great mate! like it…
you’ve missed the golden opportunity anyway Suisse, timelapse photography from the moment your fringe sounded the general retreat and started it’s hasty dash towards the back of your head, it would have been a corker!
Hahaha! Thanks for the “shout out” James…..and thanks for defending my naked wife!
Truth be told, my “time lapse” is actually just video, sped up….Not single frames taken at intervals. Each clip was 2 minutes of video…sped up to be about 10-15 seconds. We did 10 of them…so, about 20 minutes of her standing motionless and 2 hours there in total. It’s a shame that the compression is soo bad…any advice on how to get a good quality vid on youtube?
Yours is REAL time lapse and is looking sweet….do some more! I’ve been experimenting will some time lapse recently, with kinda cool results…I’ll see if I can get them up on youtube or Flickr or something.
Video sped up? Oh my God I feel sick, you’re a fraud- A FRAUD!
I’ve just started using the flickr video function instead of youtube, it already looks loads better, you can chose the dimensions of the video, there’s no big YouTube sticker over the video, and it compiles them a lot faster too.
Still trying to do more timelapse although I haven’t left the apartment yet- had a failed attempt at watering a plant and then seeing if the leaves straightened up over a few hours.
They didn’t.
Got a new turtle one which came out pretty well. It’ll be up here on Wednesday.
Looking forward to seeing your timelapse anyway.
dingle- you could’ve also seen the wrinkles forming on my forehead, it would’ve been good, you’re right.
pat- ta!
Hi Swiss James! I just noticed you mentioned your battery grip had the time lapse thingy in it. Just wanted to pass on what I use, not sure if it would be useful to you. You can download the program here. http://www.breezesys.com/DSLRRemotePro/index.htm It’s not free and it requires you to hook your laptop to the camera, but you can set it to take up to 25,000 frames.
Hello.
I have the Jenis battery grip myself, but I have lost the instruction manuals. If you can I would really appreciate a copy sent to me by email. If you could scan the document or even take pictures of it.
Nice timelpase by the way!
Hi all
Just got the Jenis Grip Professional for my D70s. Instructions are hopeless. Anyone knows how to probram the time lapse fotography?