PDA

View Full Version : Time Lapse Photography



Jim Young
12-20-2006, 5:49 PM
A while back I saw a video of a guy building something in his garage. He somehow had a video recorder do time lapse. I looked at my camcorder's owners manual and couldn't find out if it has this ability (not very electronically smart). Has anyone here had any experience with this? Is it maybe done with a camera?

Joe Pelonio
12-20-2006, 7:05 PM
I used to do it with film, Super 8mm, and have done it on an old VHS. You can do it the hard (old fashioned) way. Merely place it on a tripod and make sure no one goes near it. Every so many minutes press the button and just go a few frames. Unfortunately you'll have to leave it on all day or you may get some fluttering in between intervals, so use your AC adapter. Experiment with it first and see how long to go each time, or see if it has a setting for taking individual frames and do 3-4 or it will go way too fast.

Jim Becker
12-20-2006, 8:07 PM
The "new fashion" way to do this is with a web cam and software that does a timed capture...I'm hoping to do this for our addition project, but am still doing research about how I want to accomplish it most cost effectively considering the location the camera would need to be is not convenient for direct attachment to a PC.

Jim Young
12-20-2006, 8:48 PM
The video I saw had a guy building a bookshelf in his garage. It was really cool to see how it progressed. The pictures were taken probably every 10-15 seconds. You could actually track his mocement across the shop. I saw some more on youtube of a guy turning. Very interesting stuff.

Dave Richards
12-21-2006, 6:41 AM
The other day I came across some freeware that would let you take a series of JPEGs and convert them into a video clip. They had a link to a video that showed the tide rising on a beach that was pretty cool.

Jim, in my shop one picture a day would suffice for a time lapse video of me building a bookcase. :D

Doug Arndt
01-02-2007, 4:44 PM
The other day I came across some freeware that would let you take a series of JPEGs and convert them into a video clip. They had a link to a video that showed the tide rising on a beach that was pretty cool.

Dave, what software was it that you found ?


My son's camera (a Cannon) has a time lapse setting that allows taking a picture every 60 sec. We used it when we painted a room. Later, he combined them using the Microsoft Movie maker (that comes with XP) into a film clip. Worked great.

Dave Richards
01-02-2007, 4:55 PM
Sorry, Doug. I've been trying to find the link to the site I had been looking at. No luck. There do appear to be a number of freeware applications that can take JPGs and make an AVI from them. You might try one of them.

Jim O'Dell
01-02-2007, 5:17 PM
My first JVC VHS-C recorder had this capability. You could adjust the time between pictures from 1 to 60 seconds. I set the camera on a tripod and video taped our first litter of pups back in '95. We're talking 1 to 2 days old. I couldn't believe how much they trucked around the whelping box! Mom would just lay there for the most part, but the 6 pups were all over her, around her, across her. It was simply amazing. The replacement JVC doesn't have that feature, at least not that I've found yet. Jim.