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Advice on time lapse project

Rudi Herbert

Rudi Herbert

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Gentlemen,

Yet again, I need your help. I need to shoot a time lapse piece of a store renovation over the course of 4-5 days. I'll be shooting from a high angle and have the option of either shooting the entire thing from a fixed position or use a slider and add some motion. Before that, I need to decide a few things:

- Should I use a DSLR or a Sony EX-1? I know the EX1 well and its intervalometer capabilities, but I'm wondering whether a Canon DSLR would make more sense? Do I need an intervalometer add on with these cameras or can they shoot time lapse on their own like the Nikons? Using a DSLR would allow me more mobility, a lighter slider, etc

- The final piece is to be between 60-90 seconds, and the shoot time 32-40 hours. What sort of shooting ratios should I be looking at, in terms of total frames to be shot, interval of shots, etc? I've never done time lapses longer than a few hours, and I'm not sure of how to approach something this long. Should I shoot for double or triple the final time and still speed up the footage at the end for more fluidity, how many frames per second should I go for?

Help is appreciated,
 
I think you've answered most of this yourself already.

Definitely use a DSLR. You'll need an intervalometer if you're using Canon. And yes, go for the extra frames - it will give you more options in post.
 
Hi Rudi

Although I can't answer all your questions, I do want to advise you to go the dslr route if you can get a camera set up properly with the right interval. We've just finished a timelapse project and we did a lot with dslr as many shots were taken in difficult light. The extra resolution of a dslr compared to the ex1 allows you for some subtle pan and scan over the frame of the shot. Although not the same as a dolly shot it can yield some nice results as well. Or even better: also set up the ex1. Then you can make a few cuts as well :)
 
This sounds somewhat familiar to a job I did in January, where I captured in timelapse the construction of Pee Wee Herman's stage set at the Nokia Live theater in LA over 4 days. Basically, for this type of shoot, I would recommend using two DLSRs, at least, to cover your bases, in case one fails. Maybe use a slider for one, and lock the other off for safety.

For power, buy AC adapters for the cameras, and make sure you are plugged in to a socket that will not be turned off at any time, for any reason.

In terms of exposures, aim for 1 second. This puts enough motion-blur into the film to keep it from looking all choppy and staccato. For my Pee Wee gig, I had the camera firing off one frame every 30 seconds, and then for the final result, I simply sped the footage up. You could also get away with one frame every minute, for example.

I almost always shoot RAW, but in this case, I would say just use JPEG. You can calculate the number of frames you think you are going to end up with (say, 7,000 frames), then calculate how large your CF card will need to be based on how large an average JPEG file is on your camera. (Keep in mind that file size will go up when there is more detail in your shots, so don't shoot test frames of a blank wall.) Pretec has 128GB cards now, and most other manufacturers have 64GB cards.

In terms of pulling this off physically, the camera needs to be very, very secure, and also blocked off from people interfering with it. For my Pee Wee gig, we used some of that "CAUTION" yellow tape and blocked off the entire area around my 5D2.

Hit me up with any questions if I can be helpful, Rudi.
 
I can loan you the intervalometer

I can loan you the intervalometer

I have one of those for the canons. Bought it but never used it so you'll have to figure it out! :)
 
I think Tom give you the right answer, but I will go with 4-5 cameras, as Matthew said.
 
Tom's post is good, I have done this a lot and his advice spot on. Another thing, you'll need some ND, probably as much as 6 stops or more because you want to use fairly wide iris along with a slow shutter. The wide iris helps to hide sensor dust, for example f11 or smaller will give you a lot more dark little dust spots to deal with later. Another benefit of the slow shutter speed is less flicker, fast shutters, 250th. and such can cause inconsistencies in exposure and create a flicker effect. Shutters down around 1/4th. a second and slower create smoother looking movies.
 
Thanks all for the help!

I was so stuck with the "Canon is the only DSLR with good video" that I forgot I can use my Nikons for time lapse. Nikons have an intervalometer built in so I don't need a remote trigger or any other wired accessory. I'm not sure about the 4-5 camera thing though, I mean, I've been shooting on these cameras since the D1 came out in 1999 and have taken them everywhere and put them through hell on each and every one of those places, and I have yet to have a camera failure. So quadruple or quintuple redundancy is just too much for me. But, having said that, I'll go for two cameras and keep track of them regularly. And let's not forget that the Nikon D-5000, which has beautiful Gen2 image processing, the same as the D3X, Nikon's best camera ever, and comes bundled with a pretty decent 18-55mm lens including Vibration Reduction, can be had for all of $650! So I'm ready to march to the photo store and snap a couple of those if I need to. I'll be doing some tests today, but I don't think I can run at very wide iris openings from where I'll shoot, I won't have good, sharp focus if I do, so let's hope dust and other imperfections are hidden by all the motion and blurriness of the time lapse itself.
I think I'm going to go with a 3 to 1 ration, so I'll shoot 270 seconds for my final 90, so 6480 frames over 32 hours, or one frame every 15 seconds. I will do 1 second exposures as per your recommendations, and yes, JPEG will do. Thanks all for the advice, and Tom, I thought of you immediately, but did not want to bother you with how busy you must be mate. Long live the art of throwing thousands of huge frames on a timeline and making them look like motion :-)
 
Be careful with the Nikons and which models you use. Many Nikon models lock their intervalometer at 999 exposures, some models even less. So you will still need a remote trigger intervalometer if you want to shoot lengthy time-lapse pieces.

I shoot most all my time-lapse with Nikon. Having shot some warehouse pieces, manufacturing / industrial type time lapse stuff, I would go for a minimum of 2 cameras. The suggestion for 4 or 5 isn't bad, but one also has to be practical. How many cameras can you realistically take the time to set up and then manage in post? I would think one or two cameras in a fixed position as well as one other you can shoot on a slider or other movable platform would work well. Depending on the intended finish of the piece, you can also pan and scan the across the images too since you will have images larger than 1080p or similar that you will probably finish to. It just depends on what you're doing for the final piece.

If you can get access to your location to do some tests before the actual shoot, that would be good to.
 
One thing to consider is to use one of your cameras as a "roving" angle. Maybe one with a longer lens that can be moved around (while staying out of the view of the fixed cameras) to pick off interesting angles of things that are happening.
 
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