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Timelapse is a fun subject. Whether watching it or shooting it, it’s just fascinating to see the world in a new way. Yes, some things have become a bit clichéd now, but there are a lot of great timelapse films out there.
But how do you go about shooting one? In this video, Matthew Vandeputte walks us through everything we need to know to create one. We probably already own all the hardware, so Matthew shows us some free software to get us started.
Timelapse – Bending Time
Matthew begins by explaining what timelapse photography is. Essentially, it’s the opposite of slow motion. In slow motion, you shoot lots of frames per second, which then get slowed down when you watch them back at regular speed.
Timelapse goes in the opposite direction. With timelapse, you’re shooting at a low frame rate, often several seconds per frame, and when you play them back at regular speed, time appears to run much faster.
Shooting timelapse is a doddle these days, as many cameras have intervalometers built right into them. Nikon has included one in almost all of their cameras for at least the last 19 years – I know at least that long because that’s when the D200 was released, and I shot a lot of timelapses with that camera.
Interval Timer Shooting interface on the Nikon D850
If your camera doesn’t have one built-in – or you perhaps just want a little more control – you can buy external intervalometers. Intervalometers deal with timing the interval as well as firing the camera. Some external intervalometers will also control the shutter speed for when you need long exposures.
How often to shoot?
There’s no hard and fast rule on how often you should shoot an image for a timelapse. It really all depends on what the subject is.
For people walking down a street, you might only have a one-second interval. Or perhaps even two seconds with a neutral density filter for a long exposure to capture the motion blur. But I’ve had timelapse shoots in the past where I’ve had images as far apart as once every fifteen minutes or so.
A generic but solid intervalometer, typical of the many Nikon MC-36 Remote clones on the market.
If you’re recording something that happens very slowly, for example, growing plants from seeds – which is what I did when I needed 15-minute intervals at times – your intervals will be much further apart. But if it’s something that happens fairly quickly, like clouds flying through the sky, it may only be every few seconds.
Sometimes, the shutter speed required might dictate the shooting interval. At night, for example. You might require a 20-second shutter speed to get a good exposure. This means a 15-second interval can’t happen.
You’d need to add a couple of seconds onto your shutter speed to give your camera time to save the image and your intervalometer time to reset. So, in this example, you’d want to set your interval to 22 seconds or longer.
What software do I need?
There are many options out there these days when it comes to free software. Some of them are pretty awesome, but each of them is usually better at one thing than all the rest. And in the case of timelapse, DaVinci Resolve well and truly takes the crown for me.
Matthew recommends a method in this video that I’ve been using on my timelapse sequences for the last five years. I do have the Studio version of DaVinci Resolve, but this should also be possible in the free version, too.
Editing CinemaDNG RAW timelapse in DaVinci Resolve is a breeze
Essentially, you need two pieces of software. Of course, you need DaVinci Resolve, but you also need the Adobe DNG Converter. We want to convert all of our raw image sequences from whatever our camera’s native raw format is to DNG.
Why does it matter that we convert them to DNG? Well, once we’ve got a DNG image sequence, we can essentially treat them like a CinemaDNG video sequence. And while DaVinci Resolve might be a little sluggish reading Nikon NEF image sequences (although, it will do it), it’s lightning quick when it comes to editing CinemaDNG.
Note: Even if your camera shoots DNG, I’d recommend running those files through Adobe DNG Converter, too. Often, cameras won’t compress the DNG files as well as Adobe’s algorithms do. And other algorithms can make for laggy feedback as Resolve attempts to process it. Running them through the DNG Converter standardized them all to something Resolve can easily understand.
While creating this screenshot, I realised the last time I’d used it on this computer was for a timelapse
Now, suddenly, we’re editing 14-bit or 12-bit CinemaDNG raw video sequences inside our editor – and not 8-bit jpg image sequences. Even with the paid workflows out there, the ability to edit the raw video sequence right inside resolve makes colour correction and grading go a million times faster.
Is anything worth paying for?
There are, of course, some tools out there that may be worth paying for, depending on your needs. LRTimelapse is one example. It’s not one that I pay for, as it solves challenges I do not face, but if I was tackling those issues on a regular basis, I absolutely would.
Adobe Lightroom can potentially be worth it, but I’d probably only use it (or Bridge) for exporting out DNG sequences if you didn’t want to use the Adobe DNG converter. What it can be quite useful for is going through lots of looks very quickly to give you a visual comparison of different styles.
Adobe After Effects can also be worth it, especially if you want to start doing more advanced transitions or effects. After Effects holds a lot of potential that’s difficult to achieve in the Fusion tab of DaVinci Resolve. Not necessarily impossible to achieve in resolve, just not as easy or intuitively.
There are other desktop apps out there for both editing and shooting timelapse. There are a lot of timelapse calculators and other tools for smartphones, too.
But as you start to progress beyond the basics, you’ll generally discover them before you might need them. And by that point, you’ll know if you need them or not.
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