Camera Labs

Hello All,

I was experimenting TimeLapse photography.

Canon400D on a Tripod and connected it to my PC. This cam comes with nice piece of software. I gave instructions on when to take the pics.. and the cam took pics ever minute or so. (I exactly dont remember how many I took, since it is just more than a year old).

I used the QuickTime and here is the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VarwY9105HQ

I still have to get the concept of achieving right aperture during the sunrise...so that the brightness gradually increases with the sunrise and does not alter...

Will take any suggestions.

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Phani Kumar

60mm Refractor,
150mm Newtanion Reflector,
18-55 mm Kit Lens, 55-250mm, M42 MC Helios 77M-4 50mm F1.8
Canon 400D.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phani_astronomy/

Nicely done! I'm not timelapse expert though, so can't give any tips...

Hi Phani

It's funny that you ask about timelapses, I just got home a couple of hours ago after shooting one at the Castle of Bellinzona. I came home with about 1000 jpegs

Timelapse is a challenging situation, especially when doing it for sunsets/sunrises. I tried to look at yours but the playback was awful, I think it's a Youtube issue. Take a look at this one I made some weeks ago:

http://exposureroom.com/members/murdock ... 833c391a8/

Timelapses of sunsets and sunrise are more challenging because you have a change in light intensity and a change in color temperature. Generally, these rules will help you get good results (in case you are unaware of them):

#1. Set the camera to to aperture priority mode and select the widest possible aperture your lens can handle. More on this on the bottom.

#2. Set a manual ISO. You don't want your camera to start increasing the ISO as it gets darker and introduce flickering and noise on your images. I usually use ISO 200.

#3. Set a manual white balance. As the sun sets/rises, the color temperature of the picture changes and the camera, if set to auto white balance, will try adjust it and create strong flickering.

I set the aperture to the widest because, otherwise, on each picture taken, the iris of the lens will close and open at every exposure. These electronic devices are not perfectly precise, and so the iris will not close by the same amount at each exposure. Therefore, these small variations will create flickering on the final video. By setting the aperture to maximum, the iris does not close from its current position, so this problem is greatly reduced. This, of course, creates other inconveniences, like a shallow depth of field, so you'll have to plan for that.

The best timelapse done with DSLR's I have seen is from Phillip Bloom, check one of his here:

http://www.vimeo.com/8951807

His timelapse is almost flicker-free, but he uses a software (I forgot its name) that removes flickering very effectively but it costs like USD 1'600...

Hope this helps...

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

thanks for sharing the knowledge. Thats helpful!

Have got one more question. Which software is the best.. I tried with Quicktime pro.

Is there any other software which gives good results?

Here is one vid - which I found to be awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljHgSqa4 ... r_embedded

_________________
Phani Kumar

60mm Refractor,
150mm Newtanion Reflector,
18-55 mm Kit Lens, 55-250mm, M42 MC Helios 77M-4 50mm F1.8
Canon 400D.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phani_astronomy/

I think QT is enough. What I do is, I encode it at 24fps and Apple ProRes 422 HQ format, so I can re-process it later on final cut pro.

_________________
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

Ok... what speed (fps) should I use, if I only use QT?

_________________
Phani Kumar

60mm Refractor,
150mm Newtanion Reflector,
18-55 mm Kit Lens, 55-250mm, M42 MC Helios 77M-4 50mm F1.8
Canon 400D.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phani_astronomy/

His work is amazing, I have always wanted to try out time lapse photography, this video has really inspired me. I might give it a try in the summer

_________________
Joe
Canon 40D + BG-E2N Grip | 70-200mm f/4L USM | 50mm f/1.8 Mk II lens | 17-85mm IS USM lens | Canon 430EX II | Other bits
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