Master Time-Lapse Photography
Posted by Gina Trapani at 3:00 AM on December 19, 2007
Want to make a fun, time-lapse photo film of your holiday cookies rising in the oven? Digital photography web site Photojo runs down how to master time-lapse photography, and make amazing creations like the year of photos from Bryant Park in New York City above. (Hit the play button to check it out—you won't be sorry.) Ever try time-lapse photography yourself? Post up the links to your handiwork in the comments.

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mk
Posted 1:31 PM 18/12/07
JpgVideo's the one.
mk
mk
Posted 1:29 PM 18/12/07
I just did my first time-lapse video of an old standard...putting up the Christmas tree. A few things they didn't mention in the article...the Canon EOS software will do time-lapse if you can tether your camera to a computer (ie. in the house). The software will work better if you resize your images or shoot in something smaller than large jpg. I shot with an 8 megapixel camera and both softwares balked and the processing until I resized the images to 600x400 (although I didn't size down incrementally so larger than that may have worked.) I used whatever the pc software suggested at the end of this article is (won't load right now and then used
DubIt to add music.
mk
Shoeb Ahmed
Posted 12:19 PM 18/12/07
Construction going on in front of my building. Started with a demolition.. so I took pictures when it was all there, when it was getting demo'd, etc.
Today it's filled with snow, and I've been telling myself how I need to take a new picture..and I finally took it.
Came back, sat down, opened lifehacker.. and this is the first post I see!
Scary, I tell you.
Shoeb Ahmed
The Bigger Unit
Posted 11:39 AM 18/12/07
@martyz: Leona Naess "New York Baby". Found by typing one line of the song into Google.
The Bigger Unit
martyz
Posted 11:26 AM 18/12/07
What song was that and by whom in the Bryant Park time-lapse video? It's snappy.
martyz
Destrox
Posted 11:18 AM 18/12/07
I've always wondered how to make those kind of videos. Thanks! I know just the person who would like to learn how to do this.
Destrox
LastVigilante
Posted 4:05 PM 18/12/07
My first time lapse was of a Lunar Eclipse back in December 2004, I made a flash animation and put it up on my DeviantArt account here: [lastvigilante.deviantart.com]
With the same photos I also created a photo montage, here: [lastvigilante.deviantart.com]
The 'Intervalometer' on my Canon S60 is probably my favorite feature. I also did a set of me raking Fall leaves from my yard, trying to stay out of the frame every 60 seconds as an exposure was taken, and now this is good motivation to finally make a movie out of them!
LastVigilante
tube013
Posted 12:47 PM 18/12/07
Virginia Tech has a cool one up from the setup, show, and tear down of the stadium for the "Concert for Virginia Tech" back in September:
[www.hokiesports.com]
tube013
unique172
Posted 8:12 PM 18/12/07
@LastVigilante: Oh, the Canon S-series...where hast thou gone?
unique172
Chef
Posted 10:34 PM 18/12/07
I meant open VirtualDub. Whoops. Did I mention you can run it portably?
Chef
Chef
Posted 10:33 PM 18/12/07
Taking time-lapse can be much easier and more brain-free than this - here's my no frills recipe for say, time-lapse photos of clouds during lunch using any digital camera.
The short version: Use VirtualDub to open your pictures, then save the video.
The long version:
1) Put the camera on a tripod or in such a way that it won't move too much. Aim it at the horizon or wherever the pretty clouds are.
2) Press the shutter button every now in then while you eat lunch. Sandwich in one hand, other hand pressing the shutter button wildly is fine. If your camera has a shooting buffer that fills up, take pictures more slowly. If you have a remote shutter release, use that.
3) Copy the files to your computer and VirtualDub, a freeware video editor.
4) Do File -> Open -> Files of type: Image sequence (it's a dropdown at the bottom of the dialog) and select the first image of your shooting sequence.
5) File -> Save as AVI... and save the video sequence as an uncompressed AVI file.
I'm not going to go into converting the AVI file to your preferred format as there are many tools to do that for you.
Hmm. Guess I should do an imaged version of this on a blog sometime.
Chef