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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> Time Lapsing - so much fun
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Showing posts 1 - 17 of 17, (reverse)
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 11/19/2006 06:10:42 PM · #1
So I finally decided to get off my arse and try some time lapse photography; and I'm glad I did because it was a blast.

Please forgive the wobbling, I don't have a remote control yet:
//video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8769927939147202454
//video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4253137656148779740

3 quick questions:
-Changing aperture/shutter settings in the middle of the shoot produces abrupt exposure changes when viewing the final movie; so is there a way to get a good exposure throughout the movie when shooting in a situation with gradually changing light levels like the sunset?

-What's the proper work flow for optimizing final video quality? For these videos I batch processed the individual photos in Photoshop and saved them as very large JPEGs, which were then uploaded into VideoMach to be compiled into a 600x400 movie. The movies came out kind of blotchy, so is there anything I can improve upon?

-VideoMach is very powerful and easy to use; however, the compression methods are very limited so my movie files comes out huge (50mb for a 30 second clip at 600x400). Are there other programs out there that have better compression capabilities? I have Adobe Premiere so if that's great for assembling time lapses then I'll just try to learn that instead.

11/19/2006 06:14:48 PM · #2
Cool! I prefer the 1st one, good job.
 11/19/2006 06:46:28 PM · #3
i'm curious .
how many frames over how long of period ?

something i haven't tried with the d200 but intervolometer is built in ..

hmmm just need some spare time .....
 11/19/2006 07:02:26 PM · #4
Dumb question but did you just take hundreds of pictures and stitch them together?
More details please!
 11/19/2006 07:24:56 PM · #5
I've done a few, using gif files and sequencing them into a animated gif file using a free program. It's easy to batch convert everything into gif with PS.

Christmas Tree

and

Garage Demolition
 11/20/2006 10:34:13 AM · #6
the 1st video was 700 shots over a roughly 20 min period. I batch processed all of them in Photoshop to adjust the exposure and color a little bit, then uploaded the edited JPEGs into VideoMach to be 'stitched' together. (pretty much any video editing program can do this).

Can anyone out there give any advice on my questions pllllllease :)
 11/20/2006 11:06:51 AM · #7
I can't watch them yet, on 56k at home, but if you have Premiere, why not use that to compress the file?

I've done a couple before, they're fun. I did it the hard way, with photoshop to batch resize, an Avisynth script to put together, virtualdub to crop and save as AVI, and Quicktime pro to encode.
//jonbuder.com/videos/clouds.mov
 11/20/2006 11:18:09 AM · #8
Originally posted by MadMan2k:
I can't watch them yet, on 56k at home, but if you have Premiere, why not use that to compress the file?

I've done a couple before, they're fun. I did it the hard way, with photoshop to batch resize, an Avisynth script to put together, virtualdub to crop and save as AVI, and Quicktime pro to encode.
//jonbuder.com/videos/clouds.mov


that's a great video; I need to learn how to make the movie so as to minimize the file size.
 11/20/2006 11:30:46 AM · #9
Peterish, really like the first video. Sorry, I can't offer any advice, but will watch this thread and hopefully someone will inform us. Hey, maybe this could be something that gets tackled under a "How did they do that?" tutorial.
:)
 11/20/2006 12:01:30 PM · #10
I've done a few with my E-10, which has a built-in intervalometer function. This avi of the October, 2004 lunar eclipse is one I just uploaded to the Google video site.
 11/20/2006 01:08:18 PM · #11
I just watched the ones in the OP now - the first one is really cool. For encoding, give Quicktime a try - just use the free player and 'obtain' a serial number for it, and it'll let you save movies and choose how you want to encode them. I like the QT .mov format, the algorithm seems to work really well.

There might be some free encoders out there too. AutoGK is free and I use it for DVD's, but haven't tried it with smaller files.
 11/20/2006 01:18:31 PM · #12
hey MadMan, I just tried QT and it does work extremely well; I'm gonna play around with it more. Do you by any chance know how to incorporate audio as well? There doesn't seem to be an option to include audio in the export dialog.
Thanks for all the comments, keep em coming I love free advice/critique!
 11/20/2006 01:27:57 PM · #13
I'm not sure about adding audio tracks in QT actually - you could use a program called AviSynth, which lets you write scripts that creates a virtual video file and you can manipulate it (create it from frames, add audio, etc). Or you could use VirtualDub, I think that lets you import a sound file and save it with the video.

Or you could just go the efficient route and use Premiere :p
 11/20/2006 02:20:37 PM · #14
Wow, this is some really cool stuff. Sorry, I cant really answer ur questions, but I like what im seeing here.
 02/13/2008 06:35:33 AM · #15
Hi Guys,

I have a nikon D50 and I was wondering if it is possible to set it into a "time lapse"
mode where you can trigger it every x seconds/minutes/hours or do I need to buy some equipment
to do this? Alternativly, could I get software for my PC/laptop which will take control of
my camera via USB cable and trigger the shutter release at specified intervals?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
02/13/2008 12:01:02 PM · #16
Originally posted by peterish:
Changing aperture/shutter settings in the middle of the shoot produces abrupt exposure changes when viewing the final movie; so is there a way to get a good exposure throughout the movie when shooting in a situation with gradually changing light levels like the sunset?


I would just shoot manual and take a meter reading before each shot (of course this might be too simple since I've never done this before).

I would think your color balance would also change. Maybe shoot a grey card in your shot somewhere so you can adjust the white balance.
 02/13/2008 12:16:05 PM · #17
Virtualdub can do what you want with the movie. It can assemble a lot of frames into an avi file, you can specify the compression to use (depending on the codecs installed on your machine) and you can specify an external wav file to use as a soundtrack. Best of all - it's free. I haven't done what you're doing, but I have used Virtualdub for other stuff (saving home movies from the camcorder, scientific animations and so on) and I find it a pretty good piece of software.
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