The Move to Motion – Speeding Up Time
Creating a Timelapse
A TIME-LAPSE IS essentially a sequence of still images captured at pre-planned intervals that are then melded together to create a speeded-up version of life. You don’t even need to work with a camera that offers a bespoke video function: if you have a stills camera that comes with an intervalometer, for example, you can essentially set it to shoot images at set periods that will suit the end result you’re looking to achieve.
A picture shot every couple of seconds, for example, will result in footage that’s much faster than real life, but still with a connection to the world as you see it. However, if you were to set the camera to fire every minute, for example, so sixty frames for every hour, then things will whizz by in your footage, with an entire day squeezed into just 1440 frames. Beyond that, if you’re filming a lengthy construction project you might only want to shoot a couple of frames every 24 hours perhaps, and so it goes on.
You make the call regarding what you want to capture and over how much time, and this governs your entire approach. Modern cameras make things simple, and you’ll find that some will offer an option to work with an intervalometer or a timelapse movie mode. The difference between the two boils down mainly to the amount of control you’re looking to take. With interval shooting it’s possible to set the time you want the sequence to start, how many images you want to take and the set intervals you’re looking for, and the camera will do the rest.
If your camera offers a time-lapse setting then you’ll set it up in much the same way, but then at the end of the sequence the frames Creating a Timelapse you’ve shot will be automatically combined into a video in-camera, creating a file that’s finished and ready to share.
Action cams such as the Go-Pro Hero 11 Black (CVP price £499.99) are well set up to work in this way, which can be useful for the professional looking to produce a time-lapse sequence that’s designed to be shown on the web, while mirrorless models such as the Canon EOS R6 come with the more prominded ability to produce both 4K and Full HD time-lapse video. Being an advanced model, the R6 will allow you to shoot a frame from as little as every two seconds through to 99 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. You can also set the number of frames you want to shoot, from just two at the lowest end through to as many as 3600 frames if required.
Other mirrorless models that are similarly worth checking out for their intervalometer and time-lapse performance are the Sony A7 III, the Panasonic Lumix S5, the Olympus OM-1 and the Nikon Z 6 II and Z 7 II.
The use of a super-sturdy tripod is a must since there has to be no chance of any movement of the camera in-between frames. You’ll also want to set a slower shutter speed – and might need to employ a ND filter – since this then enables a more blurred-motion effect, rather than the choppier look a faster shutter speed will create.
