Hi, my name is Joseph DiGiovanna. I'm a photographer and filmmaker and creator of the 30 year Time Lapse Project.
And I'm here to give you five tips on getting started shooting time lapse.
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Tip number 1 for shooting time lapse is that you always have to be thinking about control, power and data.
The interesting thing is, when you first get started, I recommend people start on a cell phone
because it's just a great way to literally push a button, and you're shooting time lapse.
For something like that, I would, you know, you love to have a little tripod like this,
and this just holds your phone, and all of a sudden you can take an extraordinary time lapse anywhere that you are.
And, if you want to go a little bit beyond that, I love to use a gimbal, like the Osmo by DJI,
because you could attach this to a tripod,
and now you can do a motion control time lapse with your cell phone,
which is like the most advanced time lapse you can do,
but you can do it with like little or no knowledge.
You just jump right in.
Tip number 2 is about power.
If you're shooting on your cell phone, and you were to bring one of these usb brick batteries,
you can plug in your cell phone, and that'll allow your time lapse to go pretty much indefinitely.
If you're shooting on a camera, or a series of cameras,
something like this plugged into your SLR has a dummy battery, which goes in,
and then, this will run an extraordinary amount of time.
I've shot time lapses on a battery like this up to 36 hours at a one minute interval.
And you can also jump into this plug here, and then you can power multiple cameras from the same battery.
Tip number 3 is about control, and this is where you're going to set your interval for your time lapse.
Depending on what you're shooting, you'll get used to choosing different intervals for different actions
The right kind of clouds, you could get a really incredible interval at, like, 10 seconds or even one second.
Or, if you're going to be shooting there all day,
you might only want to shoot, like, one frame per minute or every few minutes.
You'll feel it out as you go along.
But to get that interval, again, if you're using a cell phone, you don't have to think about it, you just hit record.
You do have the option on a cell phone, if you start to get really into time lapse,
to download a cooler app that'll allow you to choose an interval.
Some of them even allow you to shoot, like, a raw image, like, a totally full-resolution still,
and then edit it later, which is going to be really exciting if you're getting into time lapse.
For actually controlling the camera, you'll need an intervalometer
or some cameras have an app inside the camera.
Like me, you might find that the app has certain limitations,
if you're trying to do really crazy stuff, like 36 hour long time lapse,
or a 30 year long time lapse or something weird.
So, in that case, you're going to want to buy an intervalometer.
There are some that are, like, cheap and just get the job done.
There are some that are super crazy cool, like the LR Time Lapse Pro Timer,
that can do bulb ramping and all sorts of wild stuff. And it, like, links up to your phone. It's really great.
So, whatever you're doing, you're going to need to think about controlling the camera.
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Tip number 4, don't touch the camera...
And shoot with multiple cameras if you can.
I did a job for Snapchat down at Wall Street, and I had five cameras set up.
One of them was moving along the length of the sidewalk.
One of them was just locked off. One of them was panning down like this.
And I can't remember what the other two were doing... [laughs]
Bring as many cameras as you can because you're going to be there, watching the cameras.
Hire a friend to come help you, if you can.
And whenever you can, set up a little monitor,
so that you can always go to the monitor on the tripod because you're going to touch it.
But, if you were going over to the camera and you just pushed, like, so lightly,
you're probably going to end up affecting the footage.
So you want to avoid touching the camera at all costs.
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Tip number 5 is post processing.
Again, if you're shooting this on your phone, there's no post processing that needs to be done.
It's already all set up for you.
If you're shooting this on your camera,
you're going to have probably a few thousand images
that you need to bring into your computer and figure out what to do with them.
My favorite software to use for this is a program called LRTimelapse,
which bounces you back and forth between its software and Lightroom
and allows you to do really extraordinary things.
Fix a lot of things you wouldn't think you'd be able to fix,
and then, come out with an extraordinary final product.
Of course, there's a lot of different ways to do this.
There's a really simple program called Time Lapse Assembler, which is free and I recommend it.
It's on that internet place, and it just use this folder of pictures, make a time lapse.
That's all you need. It has a couple settings. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it's very simple.
Other than that, Premiere, After Effects.
In my workflow for the 30-year time lapse, I use After Effects every day to process those bits of footage.
And when I get into a project that needs a little bit more attention,
that's when I go into LRTimelapse, and I can start key framing.
So, you can say, if you have, like, street lights that are coming on, and they're tungsten.
And then you have the sunlight comes up, and it's sunlight, right?
So, you're going to need to find your way from street light color balance to sunlight color balance.
And LRTimelapse allows you to choose keyframes and go in.
You can even do more advanced things. Like, if you have some birds that keep flying through the time lapse,
you can take them out.
And there's good ways to do that, that don't take a million hours.
[electronic music]
Thank you so much for checking out my 5 tips on time lapse photography.
I would love to see if you have more tips on time lapse photography.
Please put them in the comments below, and we can chat there.
To follow my project, please check out
@NYC_Timescape
on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitch.
And you can check me out also and buy prints at nyctimescape.com.