today I'm going to show you how to shoot a hyperlapse sequence
a hyperlapse is basically a time-lapse but the difference is that the camera is
moving and it moves over quite a long distance so this is a time-lapse and
this is a hyperlapse now Instagram do you have an app called hyperlapse this
can create some really great sequences for Instagram but if you want better
quality for YouTube videos you need to make your hyper lapses with a decent
camera any DSLR point-and-shoot or mirrorless camera will work really well
you just want that a little bit better quality to produce a much better
hyperlapse there are several different ways to
shoot them the easiest way is to fit your camera to the inside of your car if
the road isn't too bumpy and it's quite a smooth tarmacked road you'll get a
really nice sequence alternatively you can be in the front of a train or maybe
even a bus because the vehicle is moving you make sure that the camera is locked
into place and you just keep firing a time-lapse as normal if you're not sure
how to shoot time lapses click on the eye in the corner or the link in the
description this will take you to another of my videos the other way to
shoot a hyperlapse is to do it manually you can either
shoot from a monopod a tripod or handheld in the example today I'm going
to shoot handheld the best way to start is to shoot in the middle of the day
when there's enough light about to shoot handheld without getting any motion blur
now with the time-lapse you'll keep the camera perfectly still if you move it at
all we tend to ruin the time-lapse with a hyperlapse you'll move with intention
you'll either measure out certain distances or take certain steps of the
same distance there is a trick to this and you need a little bit of rhythm but
it's quite easy and straightforward to do to start with I suggest taking even
size steps sideways this will ensure the gaps are the same between frames you
will feel a bit silly doing this but if you stitch the images together well and
you've shot a good sequence you can get a really good hyperlapse from it so this
is how I do it work out your settings in manual mode
the reason you do this is to keep the setting
exactly the same throughout the sequence I basically make sure my shutter speed
is fast enough to shoot handheld the ISO is as low as possible and the aperture
is about f/8 to f/11 I shoot no wider than 24 millimeters any wider than this
and the sequence starts to become hard to stitch because of distortion on the
edges of the frame work out the path that you'll be traveling along here I
walked a few hundred yards along the bridge
I'll make sure I've got a target point which I'll either keep on a crosshair or
where some of the grid lines cross then I'll keep that point on the crosshair
every time I take a photograph for instance in this shot I've lined up the
top of the building with this top crosshair to select grid lines go to
menu to page six out of nine I then select square grid so I have lots of
crosses all over the image so I can choose one of these and lock onto my
target next focus on your chosen subject and then set the focus to manual mode
for this sequence I was shooting with a manual focus lens I focused in to make
sure I had critical focus on my cityscape the reason why you set it to
manual focus is because you don't want the focus to hunt around while you're
shooting the sequence you set your settings and your focus to manual so
everything stays exactly the same just make sure you don't touch the focus ring
during the sequence for their next bit you need to get some kind of rhythm
going frame up your shot take a shot take a
step frame up your shot take a shot take a
step and then repeat you'll keep doing this for around about 300 shots then
this will give you 12 seconds of footage at 25 frames a second the two main
things that you need to do is keep your horizon straight and also keep that
target on the crosshairs that you selected as long as you do these two
things and be quite straightforward to build the sequence afterwards once
you've completed your sequence the next thing to do is process it your arms will
get tired when doing this and it'll feel a little bit like endurance photography
but if you stick with it you can get some really good looking sequences once
you get comfortable doing them this way you can try them
with a monopod we're off a tripod I've done one or two at night off a tripod it
did take about two or three hours to complete the whole sequence but I'm
really happy with the sequence that I got I use Lightroom and After Effects to
process my hypothesis if you don't have these and you want to try this out click
on the link in the description this will take you to a 30-day free trial so first
of all bring the shots into Lightroom make the Corrections for the lens that
you are using make any adjustments you want to make the image look a little bit
better sync all of the settings so they are all exactly the same then export as
full size JPEGs named in a sequence it's important that you get them in the right
order and name them as a sequence then after effects will have a much easier
time of working out the image sequence that it's going to process into a video
then export them to a separate folder so they are separated from any other images
you may have taken once Lightroom has processed the images open up after
effects once you've opened up After Effects import them as an image sequence
make sure image sequence is ticked it normally does this automatically when it
sees a sequence of images then drag the sequence down to this little square to
create a film strip when you initially play it on the timeline it'll be quite
jittery now it needs some stabilization click on effects and presets search for
warp stabilizer when you find it drag it onto your clip it will take a while to
process so now it's time to go and get a cup of tea or have a bit of a break once
it's processed select the timeline and press the spacebar
it will then render and play the clip now I've never had great results from
just doing one round of warp stabiliser maybe it's the way I shoot or maybe my
hands are a little bit shaky but I find this doesn't stabilize it fully there is
a way around this though right click on the clip click on pre-compose and select
move all attributes into the new composition
and then click ok you'll then be presented with another clip add warp
stabiliser to this clip again and wait for it to process I've done some hype
lapses that have been ok with just one layer of warp stabilization and I've had
some others that it's taken up to four rounds of warp stabilization to get it
perfectly steady just keep doing it and keep previewing the clip once it's
steady you don't need to add anymore the more careful you are when shooting the
hyperlapse the less stabilization you'll need so this probably needs one more
round of stabilization so again I'll pre compose making-of selected move all
attributes to the new composition and click OK then I'll add more
stabilization now you can see it is a lot smoother to output click on
composition and add to render queue I'm on a Mac so I'll change the output file
to a pro res file click on lossless format options video codec and Apple
ProRes for - to HQ and then click on OK and then ok again find a place to save
it and then click on render once it's rendered you can bring it in to your
normal editing software and add it to your video now there are a few things
I've learned from shooting hype lapses and sometimes it can be really
frustrating you know spend all that time getting the sequence and then you bring
it back onto your computer and it's got really big errors that are almost
impossible to get rid of so if you avoid these mistakes you'll get better looking
hyper lapses you want to avoid shooting into the Sun this will cause the lens to
flare and this lens flare will jitter around even when you stabilize the shot
the lens flare will still move around in the shot and it's almost impossible to
remove you want to keep your horizon as level as possible then warp stabiliser
will find it easier to process the sequence you don't want to shoot with
anything wider than a 24 millimeter any wider than this and it has a lot of
distortion either side of the frame any small movements will
exaggerated and then after effects we'll find it a lot harder to stabilize the
footage you also want to shoot the hyperlapse
when it's quiet the worst thing is when you're walking along a path and someone
else by the stops and takes a photo there or gets in your way and doesn't
realize what you're doing so you make sure you go at a quiet time and the path
is clear one thing to take into consideration when you're planning your
path is to make sure that nothing comes in front of your subject even though
this might cause a nice parallax sometimes warp stabler really struggles
when something comes in front of the subject it may lock on to that or the
stabilization might move around a bit so I tend to move around the subject and
have the parallaxing effect with the things behind the subject that I'm
shooting one last thing is to try and shoot with a manual focus lens if you
have one in an automatic lens whenever you take a shot with a smaller aperture
the aperture blades will close down you'll take the shot and they'll open
back up so they'll close down every time you press the shutter button as they
move backwards and forwards you'll get minor differences in the
aperture and this will cause a slight flickering with a manual focus lens
you'll set the aperture on the lens and it'll stay in that one position for the
whole time this tends to give a much smoother sequence and that's about it
hyper lapses do take a lot of time and effort but once you've created a few
they can get quite addictive you will look a little bit of a weirdo stepping
and taking a shot and people will look at you funny but it's well worth the
effort as always if you like what you see give me a thumbs up if you didn't
give me a thumbs down and for weekly tutorials hints and tips in photography
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