Welcome to Time Lapse Workflow
This site outlines a personal approach to producing time lapse video using an Interchangeable Lens Camera (ILC) such as a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera (DSLR) or Compact System Camera (CSC). In addition, software from Adobe Lightroom© & Panolapse© will be used.
Introduction
Time lapse photography is a way of showing accelerated motion in the world around us. It involves taking hundreds of individual still photographs over a relatively long period of time (anything from 20 minutes to several weeks or even months) and then turning those shots into a video which is played back over a relatively short period of time (typically 8-15 seconds).
Videos showing flowers going from completely closed to fully open in a matter of seconds are familiar to us all but are only one example of the art. Any scene in which there is motion provides possibilities for the time lapse photographer. The video on the right is one of my very first. |
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The example above is one of my early attempts and revealed fascinating movement which wasn't obvious when casually viewing the scene - watch the boats to see what I mean.
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This is a slightly later example. It was shot at Smailholm Tower in the Scottish Borders in March 2015. A total of 399 shots taken at 3 second intervals were needed to produce a 13 second video. The total time lapsed was roughly 20 minutes. Look at how the light changes over the period of shooting. It goes from bright, with high, white puffy clouds to dull with total cloud cover. Panolapse helps you cope with such dramatic changes in lighting.
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Getting StartedCompiling time lapse videos is easier and cheaper than you may think. If you own an Interchangeable Lens Camera (ILC) such as a DSLR or CSC then the chances are you are already fairly serious about your photography and probably own much of what you will need, at least in the way of hardware (see section on Equipment Needed). In addition, however, The Workflow suggested in here relies upon two pieces of specialist software, at least one of which is likely to be very familiar to you.
The first of these, Adobe Lightroom, is probably well known to you as a superb RAW file editor. You can use Adobe Lightroom on its own to produce a time lapse video but it is not capable of overcoming all of the challenges doing so presents. Landscape time lapse videos, for example, often undergo huge changes in the lighting conditions (and therefore exposure values) over the period of shooting. Imagine the lighting changes that will occur if you are doing a time lapse of a sunrise or sunset. In order to smooth out the exposure transitions between individual shots you will need some additional software. Similarly, producing time lapse videos can result in something called "Flicker". The topic is covered in more detail on the site but it is generally considered to be something you wish to eliminate from your final video. This is where Panolapse comes in. It helps smooth the transitions that occur as a result of changing lighting conditions and it removes Flicker. To make matters even better it has been designed to dovetail with Adobe Lightroom and so your workflow is simplified. |