I am pretty easily swayed by the ability to make time lapse sequences. Like a boy with a hammer looking for nails, I blindly charge in with my camera and laptop and think that anything that moves should be filmed. Here are a few things that I’ve learned about avoiding some of the common mistakes that lapsers make:
- Avoid flicker – this is mainly caused by automatic mode on the camera selecting a particular ISO and white balance for an individual shot / frame. The trick is to pick an ISO and white balance setting, and use this consistently across the shots. In addition you can leave the aperture set on your automatic lens, or trick your camera into thinking you have a manual lens. This is a bit more advanced, and involves unscrewing your lens a little after setting the aperture. See “the lens twist trick” on this great video.
- Use deflickering software on your sequence if you’ve used Aperture Priority mode to allow changes to shutter speed at a fixed aperture and ISO setting. This is useful if the lighting is going to change, for example if you have a shoot that lasts during sunrise or sunset. Free software includes LRTimeLapse.
- Never forget that time lapse photography is essentially the key to time travel.
- You can use fancy cameras, lots of equipment and make stunning videos – you can tilt, pan, zoom, shoot multiple exposure things for HDR time lapse (I think I just shivered at the prospect). Or you can use a little device that does a basic video for you. Looking at the Amazon reviews of the Brinno, that might be the kiddo for me. It looks like the TLC100 has no viewfinder so was getting poor reviews, but the TLC200 is well thought of. I just ordered mine, so time, as they say, will tell.
Well I just got my time lapse camera and it’s pretty good fun. I need more sunsets to get to. It really is delightfully simple to use, and it provides me a little LCD screen to figure out which way to point it. I’ve got it mounted on a board now, waiting for the right balcony and sunset to make a time lapse.