Help with time lapse settings please

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

07/24/2011 05:25:03 PM · #1

Hi All,

I am Driving from Manchester to Cornwall in the UK on tuesday and want to do a time lapse of the journey. What settings should I use. I was thinking a frame every 5 seconds, that would be 12 frames per minute which is about 1 second of video every two minutes.

Is this about right? or do I need to take them at shorter intervals for fluent movement?

I have a remote with a built in intervalometer. I can set the interval to anything from 1 second to 99 seconds. I just thought that 1 shot every 5 seconds played back at 24 frames per second should be about right, not sure though.

Just looking for some guidance from someone who has done a time lapse journey before and the settings used.

Don't want to drive all that way and find the timelapse does not work out.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Forgot to add :- I will be using a 1D MKIII with two 32 GB cards inside and plan on stopping to change the camera battery a couple of times as it's a four and a half to five hour journey and I ususlly get about 1200 images from a full battery.

Cheers

Ron

Message edited by author 2011-07-24 17:31:11.

GinaRothfels

Olympus 8mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko Digital ED Fisheye PRO Lens

07/24/2011 05:27:59 PM · #2

Why don't you test it on a short journey today or tomorrow? Then you'll know what works right for you.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

07/24/2011 05:29:49 PM · #3

I am going to test it tomorrow but wanted a ball park figure of where to start!

Cheers

Message edited by author 2011-07-24 17:30:13.

GinaRothfels

Olympus 8mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko Digital ED Fisheye PRO Lens

07/24/2011 05:46:48 PM · #4

Wish I could be more help, but I've never tried anything like that. My only halfway successful time lapse attempt was resuscitating a dried out plant and I forgot to write down my time settings. So I can't even help myself if the need arises.

I will keep watching this thread to see if you get any information I can use.

Tom

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

07/24/2011 05:59:48 PM · #5

Originally posted by rocket:

I was thinking a frame every 5 seconds ... do I need to take them at shorter intervals for fluent movement?

If you think about how much you drive past in 5 seconds, it's going to be a pretty choppy video since you're going to be missing so much of the scenery. For example, if you imagine going around a short curve, it might take less than 5 seconds and in the video you'll be facing one direction, and then in the next frame you'll be pointing a different direction. I would definitely recommend, at most, 1 second.

You should also have a little shutter drag (ie: shoot at 1/60 rather than 1/500), because it will blur the movement just slightly to make it even more fluid

07/24/2011 06:21:26 PM · #6

Thanks for the reply.

I was thinking more of the length of the finished video. Perhaps I should think more about the fluidity of the finished video instead. I should perhaps do a shorter journey first and then try a longer one after. Probably being a bit ambitious for the first one. As I said earlier just wanted a ball park figure to start with so I can work from there.

Thanks for the input. I will do a short journey tomorrow and see what happens with different settings.

Cheers

Ron