today I'm going to look at the differences between shooting a
time-lapse in essen queue mode on your a 73 and the traditional way with using an
intervalometer
since doing a few videos on time lapses and hyper lapses a few people have said
why not just use s and q mode so I'm going to find out what the differences
are with the older generation Sony cameras you can download the app which
allows you to build a time lapse in camera however I've never really done
that and I've always used a third-party intervalometer with the third generation
of Sony cameras like the a7 3 and the a7 r3 there's a new mode called s and Q
this is basically short for slow and quick it enables you to shoot slow
motion but it also enables you to shoot time lapses for me when I want to shoot
a time-lapse I want to try and get the best quality possible so using an
intervalometer and getting full size images seems the best way to do this
there are a few limitations so I'm gonna have a look at them and see the pros and
cons in shooting a time-lapse with an intervalometer and shooting it in s and
Q mode to shoot in s and Q mode go to the menu - and scroll down to s and Q
settings change the frame rate to 1 frame a second switch your top dial to s
and Q once you've got your settings where you want them to be press record
and then wait for at least 5 minutes for a 12 second time-lapse sequence when you
do it this way it'll have the time-lapse in your camera ready to go it basically
records it as a video but it just sets the video frame rate to one frame a
second so it's not taking any photographs that you have to edit
afterwards it's compiling it as a video you can just download it straight to
your hard drive once you get home and bring it straight into your editing
software to shoot with an intervalometer set your camera to manual mode and shoot
with a manual focus lens wherever possible to keep the aperture exactly
the same set your camera settings for the exposure you want focus where you
want to in the image plug in the intervalometer set the intervalometer to
the interval you want as well as a delay so you can put the m2 bolometer down
before it starts and then wait for the allocated time or allocated number of
shots to be taken then there is the post-processing import all the images to
your hard drive bring them in to your editing software
of choice and edit to the look that you want sync all
images output all the images as a JPEG sequence bring into Premiere Pro
Photoshop or After Effects and compile into a sequence resizing to the frame
that you want export as a video file import into your editing software of
choice and then edit it into your video so you can see shooting a time-lapse
with an intervalometer takes a lot of time and effort it's quick and easy as
long as you get the settings right in camera you can get a really good time
lapse it's perfect for run-and-gun situations there's no long drawn-out
post-processing you use a lot less memory you can shoot
at half second intervals whereas with an intervalometer you can't when shooting
at one frame per second you can't lower the shutter speed lower than 125th of a
second unless you change the smq exposure mode to manual once in manual
you can shoot at half a second shutter speed this means you'll be following the
180 degree rule if you're not sure what the hundred and eighty degree rule is
click on the eye in the corner this will take you to my time-lapse video with a
maximum exposure time of half a second this limit your low-light shooting
options just make sure you have a fast lens so you don't have to bump up the
ISO too much I shot this hyper lapse at 30 second exposures which is not
possible with s in cue mode also the bitrate is at 50 megabits per second so
you won't be able to push the image around too much I shot these two time
lapses off a bridge in the marina into the Sun smq mode struggles with the high
dynamic range of the shot whereas the RAW images taken with an intervalometer
can cope with it well you have the ability to shoot in RAW so you'll have
so much data to play with this is both a pro and a con you'll be able to crop in
as it will be the equivalent of a 6k image from a Sony a7 t3 we're almost an
8k image with the a7 r3 but you will be maxing out your memory cards after a
number of sequences and also you'll use up a lot of hard drive space in
processing you can shoot a lot longer intervals than just one second giving
you the ability to shoot things like ice melting
shadows moving and Astro time-lapses with snq mode is limited to one frame
per second but you can shoot at 2 frames a second and faster the workflow is
really long and drawn-out I've mentioned it already but if you shoot a lot of
time-lapse sequences you'll end up using so much harddrive space with s in queue
mode the time-lapse is ready and you can actually preview it in camera when
shooting with an intervalometer you can quickly flick through the photographs
but you won't have a preview of what it will actually look like you need to have
fast memory cards they do print a number on there but this is the read speed not
the write speed now I have these two cards
the Lexar one failed on a couple of time lapses I was shooting the buffer filled
up and the time lapse stopped working properly with the transcend card this
worked perfectly so I think the transcend one has a faster write speed
so after doing this test I've realized that s and Q does have its uses it's
really good for a running gun time lapse where you have at a limited amount of
time to shoot it and a limited amount of time to edit also if I want to reduce
the interval to half a second it's perfect for this with an intervalometer
I can't really do that as long as there's enough light about s and Q does
produce a good time lapse after testing these two different ways of shooting
time lapses out I'm definitely going to use s and Q mode in certain
circumstances when the dynamic range of the shot isn't too high or if you have
cars and people moving through the frame it's really good for this what's
especially good with cars and people is being able to set it to 2 frames a
second they seem to give a much more realistic kind of movement now if you
shoot with a camera other than a Sony you'll probably have an intro meter
already built into your camera now this is great because it means you don't have
to carry any extra bits of kit around with you now one thing I'm really
looking forward to is the a 73 firmware 3.0 update we've been told that this is
going to have an intervalometer built in so it'll be great to see how this 4
then once this option is available we'll have the opportunity to shoot in snq
mode or shoot a proper time-lapse in camera and that's about it I've been
shooting time lapses for years from doing hyper lapses using time-lapse
sequences to doing day-to-night time lapses there's a lot to them and they're
really interesting and great fun especially when you get a really good
looking sequence at the end of it I wasn't thinking that s and cue mode
would be any good but after doing this video I found that it does have its uses
you just have to apply all the principles that you would when shooting
a video over shooting raw photographs as always if you like what you see give me
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