Time laps photography / film

JensR said:

JensR said:

Example: using a 4x ND filter, let's imagine you're shooting at ISO 100.

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[...]

JensR said:

By setting the ISO at 400, you can still get a decent shutter speed
and avoid under-exposure when you reach nightfall, while being able
to avoid overexposure when the sun reaches the zenith, since your
camera can go to 1/4000th of a second (you'll probably have to use a
ND x8 filter anyway, though).

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...this I do not understand.
Using an ND filter is more or less the same as lowering ISO.
So.
ISO 400 and an x8 filter is the same as
ISO 50 and no filter or
ISO 100 and a x2 filter (a polarizer, for example)
"same" meaning, that identical f/# and identical shutter speed will
create the same exposure.

It of course depends on how the noise is distributed between
exposure/shot noise and read noise, which combination is better. But
generally, the rpeference would be to stay with base ISO.

Right?

Click to expand...

Yup, the lower the ISO, the best the results IMO.

The ND filter will only help you get slower shutter speeds, which reduces the risks of "blimps" appearing in the time-lapse film... And that's why I almost always use ND filters (except at night) for my time-lapse shootings.

Judging on experience, I can say that it's difficult to achieve good-looking time-lapse photo without using a ND filter in the first place (or at least a x2 polarizer), even when shooting at ISO 100. To achieve the best in time-lapse photography generally means to get a shutter speed slow enough to prevent "blimps" (subjects that jump from one place to another), usually 1/15th of a second or slower.

I should've mentioned that I usually shoot with at ISO 100 with a ND x8 filter in the first place, but sometimes use ISO 400 (with the same ND x8 filter) for extended shootings going from daylight to night time, to prevent the under-exposure problems mentioned earlier.

So my comparaison was between shots made at ISO 400 vs. ISO 100 while using the same ND filter (or none if you prefer), not different ND values.

You could always use ISO 100 with a ND x2 filter instead of ISO 400 with a ND x8 filter. Both result in ISO 50... It just happens that I generally use strong ND filters (x8 or more) to reduce the shutter speed below 1/15th of a second, and I used this ND x8 filter in my example. I shouldn't have been this specific.

My bad... again! Sorry about that.

Ultimately, you'll have to choose between a time-lapse shooting ending before it gets too dark because of a too slow shutter speed (like with ISO 100) or a longer time-lapse shooting that has some "blimps" in it because of higher (daytime) shutter speed (like with ISO 400).

So you either can get the butter or the bread, but getting both and a toast is very difficult and pretty much depends on the weather: cloudy days are most welcome for time-lapse photo, especially those dark autumn stormy days!

--
Once you've mastered the technique and the equipment, you can concentrate on
the more important aspects of photography: originality, atmosphere, emotion
and — ultimately — soul.
— Jeff

Most welcome. You do know your stuff!

cegaton said:

Shoot RAW (yes, I know it takes longer to save) but you will be
rewarded by the amount of information you have to play with in the
highlights and the shadows.

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Ouch!

I just can't imagine myself developping 2000+ pictures from RAW to a QuickTime Pro compatible photo format. Even in batch process, that would be awfully long! But I'm sure the results must be a big notch above the quality you can get from JPEG files.

Personnally I shoot in JPEG (with some loss in highlights and shadows, of course) and at 2 megapixels (which is more than enough for a movie running at 24 fps and in 720p high definition).

And I will choose the lowest possible compression level that suits my needs: it will depend on how much photos I need to make my time-lapse film — when it's exceeding my memory card's capacity, I'll either choose to increase the file compression or to reduce the number of frames (and the duration) of my time-lapse sequence.

--
Once you've mastered the technique and the equipment, you can concentrate on
the more important aspects of photography: originality, atmosphere, emotion
and — ultimately — soul.
— Jeff

I recently did a short stop motion movie with iStopMotion and my K100D, but mine was a different beast all together. Rather than recording a natural phenomenon, my wife and I drew a LOT of pictures on a chalkboard. (Well, she did most of the drawing. I wrote / directed and set up the camera and lighting.) It was a lot of fun to put together.

You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl-o2kdhwNk

JelleNL said:

Thanks for the nice comments.

This timer remote makes it possible to take an unlimited amount of
pictures, unlike the K20D as said. It has only 99 shots at max.

I'm using the Phottix Timer Remote and I bought it on Ebay at HK
Supplies.

http://cgi.ebay.nl/Phottix-Timer-Remote-C1-for-Canon-350D-400D-450D-XT-XTi_W0QQitemZ200213110268QQihZ010QQcategoryZ43443QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262

It is the same as for the C*non 350D - 400D - 450D ect.
I paid little over €40,- shipped to The Netherlands. The same device
(but with a different brand name) is at Amazon for $99,-.

I'll be expanding my Cokin filter collection now with some more gray
grads, a filter bag an one or two hoods. Would make perfect video
then
I know Cokin is not the best quality in the P-system, but it is the
best I can justify now.

JelleNL
--
http://www.jelledobma.com

Click to expand...

thanks for the suggestion of time laspe timer.
i'd like to do this in my travel but strolling around a pc is nt so easy.

i have the hitech graduated filter. they are very good and no cast. cost 30 dollar but are far better than cokin p series.

--
http://www.pbase.com/jon1976

I haven't read through the whole of the thread, so I don't know if something like this has already been addressed.

It seems that when shooting timelapse, one would ideally want to smooth any changes in auto-exposure over time. I'm not aware of any systems that actually do this. It should be trivial to program on a camera like my old EI-2000, which had the DigitaOS allowing custom scripting... but unfortunately, no modern cameras are programmable in the same way. I might borrow that camera back from the person I gave it to some time for some experiments.

Metering on something which will not change illumination too erratically, as suggested in one of the posts here, will clearly help.

Can anyone tell me how much programmatic control some of the cameras that support tethered shooting allow? I imagine one is obliged to use some limited proprietary software, but maybe it wouldn't be so difficult to reverse engineer...

--
Peter

tigrebleu said:

I just can't imagine myself developping 2000+ pictures from RAW to a
QuickTime Pro compatible photo format. Even in batch process, that
would be awfully long! But I'm sure the results must be a big notch
above the quality you can get from JPEG files.

Click to expand...

It seems to me that time lapse implies already some sort of Zen attitude opposed to our usual modern life rush.

I've batch processed quite a few thousands of frames (if I was to add them over time you are looking at millions of frames very quickly). The trick is to convince yourself that if you go to sleep, your computer could use that time to get those frames ready for your morning coffee (or tea...)

I've also done Raw developing using different settings for highlights and shadows and then composited the elements in AfterFX or FCP. Poor man's HDR but quite effective for rapid changing levels of illumination.

Patience is an absolute requirement for time lapse.

Thanks to Jelle and Eric (marigold) for helping me debug my interval timer. It is indeed defective and I returned it to the ebay vendor in Hong Kong. They sent another one straightaway after receipt of the defective one. This new one work perfectly and I'm happily snapping away.

So, how many shutter actuations can we get on these things?

volosong said:

Jelle,

Got my timer the other day, can't get it working correctly. Please
e-mail me, or check e-mail I sent to you. Thanks.

Click to expand...

--
Steven
GMT -7

Thanks for all the information everyone.

Greg

Everyone in this thread should take a look.

Greg