Have you ever shot sunset into night or night into sunrise timelapses?
If yes, you probably bumped into an issue called interval ramping.
Interval ramping is a situation when you change the interval during which your camera takes
one shot during a timelapse.
If you shoot a so called holy grail timelapse, you will inevitably have to change your intervals,
especially if your goal is to shoot the Milky Way in total darkness.
There are a few intervalometers that are capable of interval ramping.
However, they are not cheap and most of them require you having a wired connection with
your camera.
So when you want to do interval ramping, you have to be extra careful not to induce any
camera shake.
Today, I would like to talk about doing interval ramping on a budget with QDslrDashboard, which
is an app that lets you shoot holy grail timelapses with exposure ramping.
QDslrdashboard has a built-in intervalometer that lets you do interval ramping.
There are some issues with the QDslrdashboard intervalometer.
However, based on my experience, if you take certain precautionary actions, the app can
be a viable and very inexpensive option for interval ramping.
As a disclaimer, I am not sponsored by any of the companies or product developers mentioned
in this video.
This video expresses my own independent opinion.
First, let's get the definitions straight.
A timelapse interval can be divided into two parts: the exposure part and the dark time part.
During the dark time, nothing happens.
Exposure time is essentially equal to the current camera’s shutter speed.
To start shooting a timelapse with QDslrDashboard, first connect your camera to the app through
WIFI and then start its intervalometer.
I created a video where I explain how to connect the app on Android to Nikon D850, that you
can see by clicking on the link above.
After connecting your camera, press the LrTimelapse button and choose your desired settings for
the timelapse.
After that, press the intervalometer button.
First, you need to enable the QDslrDashboard intervalometer by choosing your desired interval.
I will use 5 seconds as a starting interval for this timelapse.
Then, press start.
After that, you can enable interval ramping.
There are three options here.
First is the ramping mode, which uses different functions during interval ramping.
I typically use the linear function, but on the QT website that I linked in the description
below, you can check out function curves for each option.
The second option is ramping duration, which is the time it will take the app to ramp the
interval from the current setting to the target interval.
For this example, I chose 15 minutes.
Finally, there is the ramping interval, which is a target interval to which the app will
converge during ramping duration.
I chose 8 seconds.
So all this means is that qDSlrdashboard will ramp up the interval from 5 to 8 seconds in
15 minutes using the linear function.
After that, press the start interval ramping button.
If you want to stop your timelapse completely, you will need to press the stop button under
the app's intervalometer settings.
Having said that, I must note that the app’s intervalometer has certain problems.
1.
The first issue is inconsistent intervals.
It may not necessarily take photos at your preset intervals, making certain intervals
longer or shorter.
However, there are certain mitigation actions you can take.
First, keep your phone as close as possible to the camera.
The closer the phone and camera are to each other, the stronger the WIFI signal is.
Then, have a card with as high write/read speeds as possible.
Also, shoot timelapse frames with raw plus the smallest JPEG size, which will minimize
file transfer and processing by both the camera and the app.
In addition, turn off long exposure noise reduction to minimize the camera’s processing.
Finally, have at least 2 seconds of dark time.
Experiment with your camera.
If you want to be absolutely safe, keep 3 seconds of dark time.
This should be sufficient for communication between the camera and the app to be completed.
The second issue is the battery drain when the app's intervalometer is used.
You can see here that the app induces a PC connection with the camera, which requires
more energy.
To mitigate this issue, have a battery grip with one more backup battery connected.
In my experience, it is possible that the app would suddenly disconnect or even shut down.
To mitigate this issue, I do a couple of things.
I always have a backup trigger, such as this wireless shutter release.
I have it always connected to the camera from the very beginning.
If something happens, you have a backup plan while you are reconnecting the app
to the camera again.
Then when I know that a timelapse needs interval ramping, I typically start shooting
with the dedicated intervalometer and when interval ramping is needed, I switch to the
qDslrDashboard intervalometer and go from there.
This will minimize camera battery drain as well.
Also, I recommend sticking with the app's intervalometer, once it is enabled, unless
there is an emergency.
I have had issues with trying to switch from the qDslrDashboard intervalometer to my dedicated
wireless intervalometer.
The camera starts hanging up due to the connection with the app, as I showed before, preventing
me to use a dedicated intervalometer.
So, my tip is once you switch to the qDslrDashboard intervalometer, just stay with it until the
end of your timelapse.
Then, there are interval ramping challenges.
The first problem is when you have fast moving objects.
To deal with this issue use the following rule of thumb:
3 seconds of interval ramping should last at least 15 minutes to create a smooth transition.
If you have a wide angle lens and movement happens in the far background, this is less
of a problem.
But if you have fast moving objects, like clouds in this timelapse, interval ramping
could produce visual acceleration if you do not have sufficient ramping duration of at
least 15 minutes.
The second challenge is to observe ambient light and shutter speed.
Keep an eye on how dark it becomes and how quickly your camera starts to lower the shutter speed.
In this timelapse, the camera went from 1/5 of a second to 2.5 seconds shutter speed in 10 minutes.
From there, the camera will begin to double the shutter speed in seconds quickly, so you
have to stay on top of interval ramping as it gets darker.
You can have qDslrDashboard ramp up aperture and ISO, when an upper ceiling for shutter
speed is reached, while you are ramping up the interval concurrently.
I typically begin interval ramping, when a shutter speed reaches about 1/50 of a second.
Finally, there is aperture ramping, which is more of a general challenge when doing
holy grail timelapses and not necessarily associated with interval ramping.
Unfortunately, if aperture ramping happens fast, you will have noticeable flickering
and possibly vignetting that most deflickers will have hard time dealing with.
Preferably, you would not want to use aperture ramping and keep it constant throughout your
timelapse.
But if you have to use it, you can try to deflicker it and perhaps cross-fade that problematic
section in post-processing.
Apparently you can avoid aperture flickering if you shoot your timelapse in live view mode.
This way the aperture does not close between shots.
I have not tried this method, but I see one big problem with it.
For long timelapses, you will need a large battery source.
Otherwise, your standard batteries will drain very rapidly, as you have to keep your display
on all the time.
Feel free to try this method and I would be curious to hear in the comment section about
your results.
In this timelapse, you can see vignetting and flickering that I was unable to deal with.
At the same time, here I used cross-fade in Adobe After Effects and there are no visual
effects from aperture ramping.
This is it for this tutorial.
I hope you find this video helpful, as I tried to show you how you can do interval ramping
on a budget with minimal equipment.
At the end, there is no substitute for practice and experience.
Feel free to ask questionsin the comment section if you need clarification.
Please like this video and subscribe to learn more tips in the future!
See you next time.