This week we’re trying out three different ways to shoot time lapses.
So let's start with some core ideas that can apply to all time lapses. Firstly the camera
needs to be very stable - a tripod is pretty much essential. We can use sandbags if that’s
not enough, but I tend to have problems with the locations themselves - like this one,
whenever someone jogged past me, the whole bridge I was standing on literally shook,
which translated into the images. Same thing with this one, my floorboards were a bit loose,
so stepping on them would just slightly move the camera. So even if we have a heavy duty
tripod, we need to find a rock solid place to put it, and make sure we don’t touch it.
For exposure, we’re better off staying in manual mode as usual, but the difference is
that we have to try and anticipate lighting changes. This can be a real problem when the
weather keeps switching from cloudy to sunny, so sometimes we just have to come back on
another day when the lighting is more consistent.
I personally like to include sound wherever I can, I just think visuals feel so empty
without sound. So I like to bring an audio recorder to capture the sound of the entire
timelapse, and we'll be using that later.
Now, things like sunrises, sunsets, and clouds all lend themselves to time-lapses because
they move so slowly. Planning for these kind of shots, I used Google Earth so I could see
the exact path of the sun, and work out what time it would set. But what do time lapses
actually mean?
Let's look at Breaking Bad which is a fairly rare example of narrative fiction that uses
time lapses. On a basic level I think we could all agree that they show the audience that time
is passing, whether it’s transitioning to the next day, or going on a long drive. I
tried something similar with this shot, which we could use for a film about, maybe an Olympic
cyclist. This is just one of the many ways that we could communicate a character's dedication
to their cycling, as they work from day to night. I think the frantic movement in shots
like these certainly lend themselves to characters who are panicking or in a rush. But of course
we could go deeper, saying that the time lapses in Breaking Bad reflect how the character
changes so much in quite a short space of time. Changing from day to night so quickly
reflects the character changing from from a regular citizen into a criminal so quickly.
But enough with the analysis, how do we actually shoot timelapses? Well the easiest way is
to just shoot a long video, and speed it up in post. It really couldn’t be much simpler
which is why these kind of time lapses are all over YouTube at the moment.
But, there are better ways of shooting them. Instead, we could film at a lower frame rate,
like one frame per second. In that case it would playback 24 times faster than real life,
and the file would be 24 times smaller than if we’d been recording the entire time.
But the main benefit of shooting this way is that we can use longer shutter speeds if
we want to, which gives this effect, where things are blurry as if they are actually
moving quickly. I much prefer this look to the choppiness of a fast shutter speed, but
it’s up to you. Do bear in mind that if we are using those slower shutter speeds,
then we’ll probably need an ND filter because there will be so much light that this can bring
it back down again to a normal level. Aside from that, all we need is a tripod, and a
camera that can shoot lower frame rates. I’ve installed Magic Lantern on my T3i so I can
go as low as 0.15 frames per second, which will record one frame every about seven seconds.
However, taking a sequence of individual photos is the classic way to record a time-lapse,
and my personal favourite. For some reason most cameras don’t have a time lapse feature
built in, so Syrp, who have sponsored this episode, have sent me their Genie Mini so
I can control how often it takes pictures using my phone. It also allows you pan left
or right during the time lapse, you choose a start and finish point, and then over half
an hour or whatever you've chosen it will slowly move from the start to the finish.
You can even tilt a tripod head forwards, and then mount it sideways with an L-bracket
so that you can tilt up or down during the shot, as I did for this one.
So what about once we've finished recording? Let's look at post production. Now if we used
the first method, then we’ll have some giant video files that we can speed up, and in the
description I'll write out how you do this on different editing software.
But, if we recorded at a lower frame rate, then we don’t need to do any post production
at all, just drop it in and it works.
Now if we used the classic method, then we’ll have a ton of high res images that we can
drop into our software and change the duration of them to 1 frame each. Again I’ll put
the step-by-step process in the description.
So, I have to say, time lapses are pretty fun to shoot, going out on my bike, with a
backpack and a little travel tripod, just looking for good spots. Then you have at least
half an hour of just waiting around, which is quite nice actually, people often come
over and ask what you’re doing, you can have a little chat while you wait. Plus it’s
a great opportunity to take photos for Instagram… But probably the coolest thing about shooting
timelapses is that you never really know what it's going to look like until the very end.
My name’s Simon Cade, this has been DSLRguide, and I’ll see you next week.