Time Lapse advice

[scottishDiva]

Hi, I am thinkn ov makin a time lapse movie. How many frames each second shall I use? How many photos shall I take and how offten?

[D4VE 3LL]

First of all what are you intending to make a time lapse of?

[dblack1]

my suggestion.. make more time lapses... Its a learned thing. You might also become a frequent at a forum that specializes in time lapse (like me).

[Simpo Two]

25fps will give smooth results. Then you figure out how long the ting you're photographing lasts and do the maths. EG if it lasts for one hour and you want to compress it into 30 seconds, you need 30 x 25 frames = 750 photos. Spread evenly over an hour that's one frame every 4.8 seconds.

Last timelapse I did lasted for four months, outdoors, using four 35mm SLRs firing once per hour (daylight only) and was compressed into two minutes!

[LongQ]

Based on Simpo's advice (which I feel sure is sound) you may want to consider how many cameras you need. Check the rated shutter usage count for the body you expect to use.

I am, of course, taking you literally when you say you want to shoot a movie using timelapse.

[dblack1]

Simpos advice is good, but i say you should still go get some experience, because sometimes you wont capture what you wanted to (get the effect you wanted).

[daveake]

I agree with trying it first to see if you get the effect you want. I did some trial runs before this timelapse of driving from Sweden to Denmark via the Oresund bridge and tunnel. This was done on an Ixus 55 with the CHDK firmware which allows you to run a little macro that takes a photo, waits for a set time then repeats. I ended up reducing the delay to zero because even running at full speed it still took frames a bit slower than I would have liked.

Dave