Low Budget Time-Lapse Photography

[marathon]

I've wanted to try out Time-Lapse photography for a while and wanted all your input. Since I don't really have the extra cash to buy one of those gadgets that automatically trigger your camera to go off on certain intervals, I'm sticking to using just my camera, a tripod, and a lot of patience.

Can anyone give me tips? I've never tried it before, but I'm making a few assumptions, like the camera has to be set in Manual mode so exposure is consistent. How long should intervals be between shots? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? 1 minute? I've tried calculating... if I took a picture every 10 seconds for one hour, that would amount to 360 pictures. If I play that back at 24 frames per second, that would be 15 seconds worth of time-lapse. Does that sound about right? I plan on doing this downtown near a busy street just to see how time flies in an urban setting.

[fivefish]

If I play that back at 24 frames per second, that would be 15 seconds worth of time-lapse.

Doesn't have to be... you can have 1 photo be equivalent to 1 second (or 1/2 second or something) of video when you import it into your video editor.

I strongly suggest buy the Canon remote timer for your Camera. It's worth it. It also doubles as a remote trigger so there's no camera shake for long exposures.

[Refemall]

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the EOS software bundled with the camera have an option to allow you to control this from your computer?

Hmm, doing it downtown with a computer might cause a little bit of a problem. I think your best bet would be with a timer remote.

[gjl711]

like the camera has to be set in Manual mode so exposure is consistent.
Yup, it helps, otherwise you will get very annoying flicker as each frame re-adjusts itself.

How long should intervals be between shots? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? 1 minute?
All depends on what you want to time lapse. Corn growing is going to take a much longer interval than cars driving down the street.[/quote]

I've tried calculating...
The math is simple frame rate * time = number of frames. For video quality its 30 fps, movies are played back at 24, old 8mm home movies is generally 18, and once you get below 15/16 frames it no longer looks like a movie, but a jerky series of photos.

I plan on doing this downtown near a busy street just to see how time flies in an urban setting.
Actually a busy down town you want a fairly fast frame rate otherwise things just turn into a jumble. Think of it this way. One individual covers about 5-7 feet a second walking and a car maybe 10-30. If your frame rate is once every 10 seconds each individual will move 50 feet per frame. If you don’t care about individuals but are interested in shadows on buildings a shadow moved about a quarter of a degree every minute. If you want to get from sun up to sun down say 12 hours. If you want to make your video last a minute at movie quality its 1440 frames or one frame every 2 minutes.

Two other points, remember that this is video and anything more than 640x480 is wasted so shooting on the smallest setting is fine. Secondly, if you do not have the software to trigger the camera, might want to do a Google on 555 timers. There are some very simple astable circuits one can build for just a couple of bucks.

[fivefish]

Gotta have the pic at least 720x480 px for NTSC. (or 720 x 576 if PAL) for suitable use in DVD format.

[gjl711]

Gotta have the pic at least 720x480 px for NTSC. (or 720 x 576 if PAL) for suitable use in DVD format.

Good point.

[Transit]

Guy I know photographed a section of beach every day for over a year...
coastal ecologist...made a movie of the beach growing