Digital cameras have made it incredibly easy to do time-lapse photography, thanks to the ability to take hundreds—or even thousands—of photos without interruption. However, creating a time-lapse sequence that achieves your artistic intent may require a bit of planning or even some camera accessories. This week, Chris and Jordan walk us through the process of planning and shooting compelling time-lapse videos.
Click the links below to jump to a topic in the video.
An introduction to timelapse photography with Chris Nichols
Like many others here, I truly enjoyed the tips. The Assembling Your Sequence part was pretty brief like almost glossed over, however. Any chance you could expand on the steps you take for that segment?
Really useful video, I have attempted a few timelapse, and so kinda familiar with the basics, but there were some good tips dropped throughout, so really useful (especially the one on using NDs to get a longer shutter). The discussion at the end on workflow was interesting too, I'm more PC centric, so some tips on software on the PC prior to Adobe Premiere wouldnt go amiss.
thanks a lot for that intro into time lapses. I've never gave it a try, as I didn't know what needs to be considered. Your video gave great insights about the basics of such time laps videos. keep going with such videos, it's fun and one can learn a lot. cheers, urs
Almost everything in photography is done to death. A creative person is someone who can find ways to put their own twist on something that has been done before.
@cdembrey: Time lapses can be used on anything that changes over time, not just clouds. Sounds like the creativity issue is with you, not the technology.
It's like saying out of focus backgrounds on portraits are done to death, and people should just stop taking shallow DOF photos.
@cdembrey I recently saw a time-lapse of the cycle of a honeybee from egg through larva to adult. It was very compelling and even as a hobby beekeeper I learned a great deal from the amazing footage.
Nice video. Chris and Jordan's techniques lean towards getting the highest possible video result by recording maximum quality stills. That is great though you will find that in most cameras max quality tends to quickly consume both batteries and memory. It can also limit the shortest possible interval due to the extra time to write all of that data to memory.
Alternatively you can shoot Goldilocks "just right" sized stills without sacrificing much or anything in quality. If you empty all of your batteries and fill up all of your cards shooting top quality you might find yourself without a camera later in the day.
Here's the Goldilocks settings I use to create 4K time lapse videos on my Panasonic LX10:
Would be great also to see a video of more advanced long exposure techniques. I have been setting the exposure to match the frames per second for more fluid videos. Also, I would like to know how to get better at extremely long exposure videos, for example, 150 second exposure. I have been able to get magical long exposure using about 150 seconds of clouds, not sure about other subjects though.
Like others here, I really look forward to your videos. Keep it up! Quick question– you mentioned "Apple's Compressor" at the 12:"30 mark. Is this a standalone product? Part of another application? Thanks!
Compressor is a standalone application for encoding and compressing digital video. It integrates with Final Cut Pro X, allowing you to create custom encoding presets that you can access from within Final Cut. Compressor can be used as a standalone application as well, acting as a sort of Swiss Army Knife for video conversions.
One of its powerful features is the ability to batch encode using different presets. For example, if you need to output your video to multiple formats (mobile, YouTube, theater) it's possible to create presets for each and batch process everything.
Mark III version of my marvellous Sony´s do not include an intervalometer too - they removed this feature. So, the small sidekick on canon should be extended to Sony too. I´d like to see an inbuilt intervalometer again in MK III by an firmware update. (or inbuilt in Mark IV from the beginning).
Editing Raw shots in changing light conditions is tricky. The German Gunther Wegner programmed an timelapse plugin for Lightroom that is most versatile.
When I do time lapse, I use the electronic shutter and shut the LCD off to conserve battery power. If the exposure interval is sufficiently long, like +15 seconds, it is also possible to set the camera to sleep between each shot. Manual focus and fixed exposure may be appropriate also.
Any Panasonic. This is an extract from my G7 manual. It should be noted that the start of interval shooting can be delayed for a period of, I think, 24 hours, during which the camera also sleeps. The recording starts automatically. • During recording standby, the power will turn off automatically if no operation is performed for a certain period. The Time Lapse Shot is continued even with the power turned off. When the recording start time arrives, the power turns on automatically. To turn on the power manually, press the shutter button halfway. • Operations during recording standby (The camera is turned on) Displays a selection screen that lets you pause or stop the recording Displays a selection screen that lets you resume or stop the recording (during pause) • After the recording stops, a confirmation screen will be displayed, asking whether to proceed to create a motion picture. To create a motion picture, select [Yes]. For information on creating motion pictures, refer to
Yeah Panasonic have had one of the best in-camera intervalometer and stop motion implementations for years now, and their bodies even render pretty solid videos from the time lapse right in camera, AND it's fully implemented on all their bodies from the lowest end GF/GX### bodies to the high end ones.
I actually prefer shooting a time lapse with my GM1 or GX850 despite the anemic batteries than with my E-M5 II (as long as it's only for a couple hours and/or I'm near an AC outlet). Panasonic even goes the extra mile and adds a little rubber door on all their bodies for using an AC coupler with an AC adapter (Oly forces you to buy their grip for the same functionality, bleh).
Yes indeed. There's more to these Lumix cameras than most people seem to realise. I was going to add a comment about the little cut-out for the cable and dummy battery AC adapter, but you beat me to it. Personally I do not use one because with the G series, I find that using the electronic shutter along with longer shot intervals [suitable for some subjects but not others] and letting the camera sleep in between, lets the camera work all day long without a battery change.
Advanced techniques are welcome but for future ideas I would also like to see how to use some of the star trails apps that are out there. I shot star trails on my DSLR and put them in an app and had no idea how to get the app to work. Neither did anybody else. It was a workshop. We finally had the instructor do it. It processes the app into one still photo.
LOL, and the instructor couldn't /show you/ how to do it with the app? That's not good. What app were you trying to use? Some are pretty simple, others are a bit more complicated, while of course the good 'ol Photoshop Layer Blending Mode trick works just fine too, if your computer has the RAM to handle that many raw photos stacked in one PSD file...
@Canon20Duser StarStax can seem complicated, but I'm surprised that your workshop instructor didn't plan to do a thorough demo of that app, if it was a star trail / night photography workshop. :-\
Timelapse videos are special also because you can get the best possible output from the camera. There is no consumer cameras which can output 8K 14-bit 4:4:4 RAW video, but with timed still shooting it is possible with any full frame +36 MP camera. One day some people look their old timelapses from a big wall-size screen and feel it was just yesterday. Some people look their muddy washed out pixels and in denial switch to a tiny screen to cover their mistake from the past. It is old, so it looks old, eh?
I have a very silly question... if you do a time lapse that takes hours or days, how do you prevent your camera from being stolen? Are you all the time, 24/7 looking at your camera making sure that it is there?
If you're going to use a very expensive camera, and your timelapse is going to be anywhere near other people, (or if there's any sort of bad weather possible) ...then yeah, you gotta "babysit" the camera the whole time. This might just mean camping nearby for a couple days, (36 hr eclipse timelapse: https://youtu.be/l-UOryF4J1Q) if you're out in the wilderness, or it might mean standing/sitting right there next to your tripod for many, many hours.
Alternately, however, for timelapses that run more than just a few hours, most people use contraptions to secure the camera, as well as keeping it safe from the elements. A weather-tight container with a window in it, bolted to something immobile, usually. This is how long-term projects, from construction to conservation, usually get their job done. Oh, and they usually /don't/ use expensive full-frame setups, they use smaller, cheaper cameras that they can power externally from a DC power source or car battery etc.
Definitely would like to see more, including more advanced techniques.
Also, would be interested in recommendations for cameras for time-lapse. For example, is there a budget option for astro/aurora timelapse, or is that an oxymoron?
I have the same dilemma. I have tried both manual and automatic exposure, but both have their limitations. Manual get too dark or too bright if the sun is shifting, and automatic makes exposure flicker too much...
there is software that can be used to correct flicker probably the most common is LR time-lapse but it can also be done in other software as well youtube is full of videos about how to do it
A common approach (seen in Sony's timelapse app on older Sony E-mount cameras, and also in LRTimelapse and its derivatives) is to do filtered autoexposure - analyze the scene and determine if exposure needs to be adjusted, but only adjust by a small percentage of the "identified" adjustment. I think LRTimelapse also restricts the direction of exposure adjustments based on whether you've chosen sunset or sunrise mode.
Since many cameras only allow adjustment in 1/3EV steps, often there's some RAW postprocessing to smooth things out in between 1/3EV adjustments.
This did my D800 between 2012 - now … it still running without any service... at a shuttercount closing in on 1.5 Million... most footages with the inbuilt intervalometer, others with a Syrp Genie
I'm a broken record about this, but I just want to encourage us as a photo community to demand built-in intervalometers in every digital camera on the market, from the cheap to the expensive. Not because many people will use it (most won't) but because it's just ridiculous that it's not standard. The cheap cameras can have simple/barely-configurable intervalometers, that's fine: UI costs money, I get it. But there's just no excuse not to empower these devices (containing supercomputers, by all-to-recent standards) with such a simple feature. They can count -- I know they can! Don't pretend you couldn't figure out a way to make them count!
Let's start complaining when makers of multi-thousand-dollar cameras shrug and say "use an app"/"buy a dongle". Let's stop acting like it's not ridiculous.
Even my old Panasonic G6 has the time-lapse features seen on that GH5. It keeps the stills and gives the option of building the time-lapse at the frame rate I decide. The tips about using filters to extend the shutter speed are just what I need to improve my videos.
Good to hear. It's really bizarre that Sony left it out of the new models, given that they were cramming as many features in those things as they possibly could.
Well, know this, if you ever plan to do any TL and motion Control together, you won't use the Camera TL feature if the the Camera has one. Almost all Motion Controllers that I know of have TL built into the Motion Controller, so the motion and the TL shooting are all controlled together, by one App.
@gskloenda - same for if you want filtered exposure control. For that what you REALLY need is a robustly documented tethering protocol.
Which, unfortunately, Sony lacks. Third-party wired tethering support for Sony is really meh, especially integration with the likes of qDSLRDashboard/LRTimelapse.
My cheapo GF6 Pana from like 5 years ago had full featured time lapse and stop motion modes, all their bodies do (even the tiniest), they've been awesome with that for years. As an added bonus, all their bodies also have a mini rubber door on the battery door for threading the cable of a battery coupler thru, on my E-M5 II I have no choice but to buy the grip or leave the door open when using a third party coupler... Sounds like Nikon and Pana have been leading in this regard, I really dunno why Sony killed Play Memories without a functional replacement.
Thanks, gents. That was a very useful introduction. I'd like to know what you recommend for an external intervalometer, since I have a Sony a7riii and Sony has not given us an internal time lapse capability.
timelapse photography scene is over-saturated now back in the past, people feel amazed by your simple cloud moving, sunset timelapse
but now we have more than just timelapse: hyperlapse, hyperzoom, dronelapse....etc and your creativity in editing play a big parts of your timelapse video to attract viewers attention..
You guys are great. I watch all the videos. That said, a deeper dive into timelapse really isn't my thing. Some suggestions? I'm sure you have better ideas than me but I could use some help on a video editing workflow, software programs you like and don't like, or something like that.
If the latest digital equipment is so wonderful why can't we easily find a lens/camera combination that doesn't suffer from infrared "hot spots"? In fact, it's almost impossible! Answer: Because neither the reviewers of cameras (like DP) nor the manufacturers care about real photography and genuine photographic tradition. Then there is the quest for "fluid motion" photography requiring up to 4 mins. exposure with 10X neutral-density (ND) filtration. Very difficult to find cameras that will do it, and now more and more camera manufacturers are requiring A SMARTPHONE in order to execute the remote shutter release necessary for time exposures. Again, the latest in digital photography represents a degeneration from real pictoriography and its needs in favor of glitz and video. Things are so far gone that reviewers (DP) are not even aware that such deficiencies are growing worse and digital camera technology is becoming less and less capable of refined still photography.
I would love to see more videos on Timelapse, especially, advanced, and motion control. In fact it would be great if you could do some extensive reviews on motion control systems comparing them Pros, Cons., value, come up with a review giving a rating by DPR. I know there are some on YT, but many don't have the simplistic, presentation that both of you are so good at.
Along with more tutorials on advanced TL techniques, can we also have a guest slot for Dale (or yourselves) giving a tutorial on astrophotography and shooting aurora?
I’m surprised with the hype X-T3 and Z7 has generated especially with video, these video reviews are still shot on a micro 4/3 GH5. Are they not good when compared to the m4/3 sensor?
I'm only making guesses but I think it might come down to two things: 1. I think there were some advanced features that the GH5 has that the other camera's still don't have. Not being a videographer, I don't remember what they were...something about histograms maybe. 2. Not everyone immediately changes their gear as soon as something new, bright and shiny comes by.
Do you think a gear site doesn’t have all the different gear to choose from? They can switch between cameras with ease with the resources and connections they have.
I think Chis and Jordan use their own gear. Gear for review needs to be returned eventually. You'll often hear them saying things like "we had our hands on [brand x] for a week" or "we only got to play with [brand y] for a couple of days". It's also a testament that the GH5 is a very capable video/stills hybrid and that it holds its own against bigger sensor camera's. DPRTV did a comparison between the XT3 and GH5 that goes through the pros and cons of both systems for video.
The GH5 and GH5S are both very good cameras for video - more than good enough to shoot projects like this. They also have a good combination of features that are useful to videographers such as video waveform displays.
Also, once you’ve established a workflow for video projects it’s easier not to reinvent it every week to accommodate a new piece of gear.
Chris and Jordan sometimes shoot episodes with other cameras, particularly when it’s a new model and they’re testing video capabilities.
I've done a time lapse gear switch and I agree that it is not simply a matter of switching the gear. The setup on the new brand of camera was so different that even though I thought I had practiced and prepared, out in the field I made a couple of mistakes that cost me a couple hours of what would have been great time lapse frames. It gave me a great appreciation of how much of the time lapse workflow on the previous camera was tuned to how that camera works.
If Chris and Jordan's primary goal was to produce an informational time lapse video within a schedule and budget that would allow them to get it done on time and move on to the next job, I fully understand why they would not simply "switch between cameras with ease" if they wanted it to work, as expected, the first time, on time, without possibly blowing it and having to stick around another day for the right light to come around again.
Since time lapse is about so much more than just "the camera."
I believe it's the Zee7 and NOT zed. At least that's how Nikon's promotional video calls it. That's the product's name. I don't think it's correct to mispronounce formal names. I accept you believe you know everything for a to zed but I think you're wrong in this case. Okay, you're a proud Cow-Towner who must announce your Anglo roots but I think in this case you got to change. No matter, it's a simple switch to call the Z7 by its formal name. Really it is. For instance, though I'm from New York when in London I stop someone in the street to ask, "Could you please point me in the direction of the tube station at Lester Square?" and not, "Hey, how can I get to the subway at Leicester?" It's easy-peasy. I am perfectly willing to accept the zed thing when referring to the letter z say in a mathematical equation. Heck, I even let it drop to mix things up to keep my students' attention.
And yes, I loved the info on time-lapse and do want more but not the Zed7. Please.
This was discussed in the very beginning of first DPreview TV video about the the camera.
I will not call it 'zee', because in my native language there is no such phone/sound. Also the way native English speakers pronounce camera brands, such as Nikon etc. is totally wrong. But who cares?
It’s a letter, not a name. And the audience of DPR is international.
Plus I’ve seen plenty of US celebrities say ‘zee’ even though they were filmed in the UK... so how exactly does it work?
BTW - you’re example - you’d really struggle to get on ‘the subway at Leicester’ because Leicester is a city 100 odd miles north of London, and it has neither a subway or a tube there... and I’m sure if you asked about ‘Leicester Square subway’ in London, you’d politely get pointed in the right direction without concern.
Anyway, just off to listen to a bit more Zed Zed Top!
Your anal! Take the info use it, or don't use it! This is not a place to critique or try to change there style, They are where they are because of there style. You don't like it, close your browser!
It's a Zed in Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand and probably lots of other places. It's a Zee in Retardistan, the US of A and, well probably that's it. Lord knows what its called in Japan, China, Boutan, Slovenia, Poland or elsewhere? It all refers to the same chunk of plastic, so all's good.
Aberaeron - I do know in Japanese Zee is pronounced Jee. But there is a Zeh sound which would make it possible for them to say Zed. If they tried to say Zee7 it would sound like Jee7. If the Japanese really do want it pronounced Zee7, it would be funny because they physically can not pronounce their own camera name.
Dylthedog - haha dont worry man I only went after him because of his attitude.
Technical question. I know traditionally with DSLRs when they take a still, the lens is wide open for good autofocus and viewfinder brightness. When you click the shutter, the aperture stops down, the shutter opens and closes and then the aperture opens wide again. So if you create a timelapse this way you would introduce flicker because the stopping down of the aperture isn't perfect and there will be slight variations shot to shot or frame to frame in the resulting video. Do most cameras with built in timelapse generation handle this properly (keep the aperture stopped down until all the shots have been taken)?
I think the variations are too small to really be noticeable. As far as I can ascertain, my K5 go through the whole process for each shot, thus not keeping the aperture stopped down the whole time. Not sure about mirrorless, though.
Aperture flicker is definitely an issue with time lapses. As for wcan's question, I'm not sure how well modern cameras do on this score (you should be shooting in manual mode anyway, to minimize such issues.) My understanding is that it's still an issue. I think with Magic Lantern you can enable "sticky DOF preview" in live view mode and it might force the aperture to a constant state. The other main tips are along the lines of: shoot with an all-manual lens (or twist the lens half off to convert it to an "old school" lens), shoot wide open, etc.
I would love to see that kind of focus on these features... But I don't think so. When I got a Canon G1X mkii, all the reviews made a big deal about the star trail mode and what not. What they failed to mention, that while the camera is in star trail mode, the LCD stays permanently on -- with the relatively poor battery life (and a spare battery costing nearly $100 in my country) I ended up shooting one single test shot on star trails :(
How does timelapse photography affect shutter life? I know that some people smash out thousands of photos for one timelapse video. Do timelapse photographers replace their shutters often?
Almost all mirrorless cameras sold today offer fully electronic shutter. The only mechanical parts moving are the aperture blades.* This should also be possible with DSLRs, by using live view and fully electronic shutter (if it is supported).
*I believe there are tricks to keep them closed as well, such as using constant preview on Panasonics, but I have not tried this.
Why would it affect shutter life? Sure, you are taking a lot of frames and therefore firing the shutter many times, but that shutter will still last for its full rated number of clicks.
When I am doing “normal” stills, I might shoot 500 frames in a single day. How is that any different from firing 500 frames to build a 21 second (@24fps) time lapse video?
Also: with time lapse the shooting frame rate is low. Compare that to, say, sports photography where you are firing many bursts at 8+ frames per second. My thinking: banging a mirror at that rate in sustained bursts must harm the camera far more than 1 frame every few seconds. Yet pro DSLRs can handle 100,000 or more actuations over a shutter’s life.
Thank you for the tutorial. It's a good introduction to an interesting technique.
Pentax has this option also in many of their DSLR cameras. Here is and example that was done with a Penta K5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuvhUrP-eYs It's a technique that's fun using it. I can recommend to give it a try.
That was really cool. I was expecting some sort of landcape TL, instead I got bees developing in a multiwell plate. There was no lid on the plate so how did you prevent bacteria or fungi growing in the wells? In a real hive, the capsules (or what ever they're called) would be capped with wax.
This is a setup used to test plant protection products and if they harm the development of honeybee larvae. You have to work sterile and the entire setup is within controlled environmental conditions regarding temperature and humidity.
When I first saw the vid, I thought you had done this as a personal project (not as part of a research project in a proper facility). The description on the vid would have answered my question (face-palm).
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