Time lapse photo or video?

Reuben

Reuben

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Reuben
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Hi all,

Hoping for some help. I intend to do some time lapse of landscapes so probably over the course of a few hours at most I think.

I use imovie for editing video and could use the speed editor in there to achieve the effect. Or not?

Is there any reason why I can't just set the camera up to do video in manual mode for an hour then speed it up? Or should I be using photos?

Really appreciate anyone in the know giving me the pros and cons of each option.
Thanks
Reuben.
 
Firstly, Reuben, welcome.

Secondly, Reuben, you might get a better response in one of the digital areas of the forum, unless your video is only going to be 36 frames or about 1.5 seconds ;)
 
Oh dear... I misunderstood the 'meaning' of film:facepalm:

Can one of the mods move me please!
Many thanks
Reuben.
 
No worries, I've reported your request to the mods so it'll depend when one of them picks it up.
 
Reuben said:
Hi all,

Hoping for some help. I intend to do some time lapse of landscapes so probably over the course of a few hours at most I think.

I use imovie for editing video and could use the speed editor in there to achieve the effect. Or not?

Is there any reason why I can't just set the camera up to do video in manual mode for an hour then speed it up? Or should I be using photos?

Really appreciate anyone in the know giving me the pros and cons of each option.
Thanks
Reuben.
Click to expand...


Timelapse is done with stills. Speeding up video footage will not give you the same effect- you may be able to get a faux timelapse effect using AE with Posterize Time but it's not something I've had the need to do- I would imagine it's not that straightforward. Don't know much about Steve Jobs type software though and what you can achieve with it.

Personally I'd just use the right tool from the off and shoot stills then make your film.
 
Thanks. I haven't used After Effects so I'm not sure either. In imovie you can quite easily use the speed editor to do a time lapse effect. For landscape this works fine, but I heard that in city scenes people can end up moving a bit weirdly, (blurry) bit like photography with very dark ND filter.

In asking the question I was wondering if another reason (not to speed video footage) was the video file size (in HD) would be large if the time lapse was say 45 mins (real time video) compressed into 30 sec... Is this correct?!

I take the point about doing it 'right' in the first place (use stills) anyone (who uses apple) know if this is simple in imovie 10.0.2? Just trying to avoid buying an intervalometer and bit of software if I don't have too.

Many thanks
 
Your camera will record one full frame every second or so. The rest will be sent as difference signals. They are never designed to be viewed as individual frames.

As you slow the video, unless you choose the full frames, you'll see a big quality drop.
 
st599 said:
Your camera will record one full frame every second or so. The rest will be sent as difference signals. They are never designed to be viewed as individual frames.

As you slow the video, unless you choose the full frames, you'll see a big quality drop.
Click to expand...

Sorry there is a misunderstanding. I am wanting to speed up the video - not slow it. So I can catch weather moving across landscape, tides etc
 
Thanks for the link.

I guess the outstanding question I have is: Is there any reason I shouldn't just shoot video and speed it in post production to achieve a time lapse?

Answers very welcome:)
 
I would say it's worth a try. I use Final Cut not iMovie and I can do some interesting speed changes, to give different effects. However I don't know how good iMovie is at doing these. Try it and see. I'd also let it render the output before you commit to it as there can be supple changes between previewing and final output
 
Reuben said:
Sorry there is a misunderstanding. I am wanting to speed up the video - not slow it. So I can catch weather moving across landscape, tides etc
Click to expand...
No misunderstanding from me. You still can't assume that if you pick every 50th frame and use it, a 50x speed up, that you'll get all I-frames.
 
Reuben said:
Thanks for the link.

I guess the outstanding question I have is: Is there any reason I shouldn't just shoot video and speed it in post production to achieve a time lapse?

Answers very welcome:)
Click to expand...

Yes there is. See my earlier replies.
 
Reuben said:
Thanks. I haven't used After Effects so I'm not sure either. In imovie you can quite easily use the speed editor to do a time lapse effect. For landscape this works fine, but I heard that in city scenes people can end up moving a bit weirdly, (blurry) bit like photography with very dark ND filter.

In asking the question I was wondering if another reason (not to speed video footage) was the video file size (in HD) would be large if the time lapse was say 45 mins (real time video) compressed into 30 sec... Is this correct?!

I take the point about doing it 'right' in the first place (use stills) anyone (who uses apple) know if this is simple in imovie 10.0.2? Just trying to avoid buying an intervalometer and bit of software if I don't have too.

Many thanks
Click to expand...

It depends how sophisticated your video camera is but flickering caused by changes to the exposure is one of the biggest potential issues with stills such that using manual is often the best way to resolve. You may also get AF issues from your video camera so depends if these can all be resolved by having manual control over them- I'm assuming no DSLR as they can only shoot for approx 29mins in one take but if you are using a DSLR and are just resetting it- assuming you want 45min then you should be able to control it all manually although I'm aware different models may not always allow this.
If you are shooting at 24fps then after 45mins you will have 64,800 frames but I'm just not sure enough of what your software will be doing to get the effect of having done a timelapse. The bottom line is it's not timelapse so even pulling one frame out at set intervals still won't be able to deal with motion blurring needed for smooth transitions that stills can offer. This is probably why it's harder to get a faux timelapse effect with a city scene with people as opposed to a landscape although I am aware it's a complex area and as is often a case when you start looking there are many detailed reasons but I'm not expert enough to go into much more detail.

File size isn't really an issue although any old PC will not cut it for intensive HD editing unlike for stills where any old PC will generally be fine. My PC is pretty old now- must be 4yrs which is massive in tech but it copes fine- to be fair I did build it myself specifically for editing so probably one reason it still manages.

An intervalometer is around £20. I agree with not buying things if you don't need to but if you want to do timelapse it's your only option if the camera can't do it without one.
I would try and do a short city scene as a test as it's not going to hurt and if it doesn't give acceptable results then you know what the answer is and spending hours looking for a different one then comes down what your hourly rate is and whether it makes more sense to buy the right tool or spend £100 in time looking for an answer that doesn't exist- it's how I justify all my purchases:D

Not sure how much that all really helps lol- key point- just try it. If it works great, if not buy an intervalometer. Keep us posted with results:)
 
Phil Young said:
The reason why you wouldn't shoot a video is the file size: it would be huuuuge.

You could do though, in theory.
Click to expand...

No. The reason you wouldn't do it is inter-frame video coding artefacts and motion blur.
 
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