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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Question about time-lapse on the red

Does anyone have any suggestions where I can use my existing v mount batteries and combine them where I have longer run time on my camera? I also talked to RED about what would be the best way get the right exposure on a long time lapse. They mention to me that I should try to get the histogram centered so in post I have a little bit of bandwidth to change the exposure. What are your thoughts or techniques? What do you think the best frame rate would be?
 
Until we figure out a way to implement bulb ramping on our Reds, that's probably a good way to handle exposure. You can predict which way the exposure will go in some situations, like a sunset or sunrise time lapse. I overexposed the sunset time lapse a bit, just being careful to avoid clipping.

The best frame rate varies a lot based on what you're shooting, and how much you are looking to accelerate the apparent motion. There are books and resources on time lapse photography that make for a good start, but there's no substitute for just trying things out and learning for yourself. It's an art form; there's really no one particular formula, other than as a starting point.
 
Frame summing Etc is cool..

BLack balance

Don't use LOw light OLPF for TL

DSMC2 and mx sensor cameras have more stable blacks when doing 1fps stuff..

Shoot 1fps at 360 shutter works nicely as 0.5fps with a natural shutter if you rip out every other frame in post.. this is modest TL and works well for people.

Double check you have carefully BLack balanced
 
Björn Benckert said:
what is especially cool with red when time lapsing are 3 things.

Hi Bjorn,

1. HDRx you simply can get a short exposure whitin your exposure.
2. 360 shutter. Simply you can use this to later compile multiple frames in post to get variable exposure and speed of your clip without getting steppiness in your motion blur.
3. In camera frame suming and frame adding functions somthing not seen in many still cameras which is a great way to increase exposure times without added brightness / frame average or frame adding that increase the exposure by adding frames together.

shooting red also gives the possibility to have instant playback when done.

And the 1tb mags and compressed raw gives pretty outstanding posibilities for clip lenghts / runtime.
Click to expand...

Very interesting points, but would like to get soem additional info on this:

1 - Using HDRx means that you have two separate clips at the same time. I guess you mean that if you prefer a non-timelapse clip you just use the shorter exposure one (X frame)?

2 - Why 360 shutter and not 180? Can you elaborate a bit on that post processo to have that stepless motion?

3 - Some examples on when you find its better to use frame adding or frame average?

Thanks!
 
Yes,Bjorn .thanks a lot by advance if you can elaborate the frame summing or averaging mode.
 
Rui Guerra said:
Very interesting points, but would like to get soem additional info on this:

1 - Using HDRx means that you have two separate clips at the same time. I guess you mean that if you prefer a non-timelapse clip you just use the shorter exposure one (X frame)?
Click to expand...

No. If you are doing a timelapse during an eclipse (where there is a considerable change of lighting value), you can use the long frames to get much less noisy pictures while the sun is blotted out, and you can use the short frames to get much better control of highlights when the sun is not blotted out. Similarly one can use the same approach--exclusively within the timelaps--for the different lighting values before/after sunrise/sunset, effect of clouds, etc.

2 - Why 360 shutter and not 180? Can you elaborate a bit on that post processo to have that stepless motion?
Click to expand...

You clearly understand that motion blur looks natural at 180 degrees. What is 180 degrees when shooting a timelapse compressing 10 seconds into a single frame? The answer is simple: it's 5 seconds on, 5 seconds off. How do you get 5 seconds on? 5 continuous 1-second exposures. How do you get 5 seconds off? Skip the next 5 frames. If you shoot with a 180 degree shutter and then try to compose 5 frames into a single frame, you'll see the stutters.

3 - Some examples on when you find its better to use frame adding or frame average?
Click to expand...

Frame adding can be accomplished very simply: take your timelapse clip, duplicate and offset it 5 times, using the composite mode Add. Turn that into a compound clip, then speed up the Compound clip by 10x. Each frame of the compound clip will be the sum of 5 frames, followed by another sum of 5 frames, 10 frames from the start of the first.

Averaging is a little trickier: you have to add and then divide by the number of frames you are adding. Since most systems don't have a good way to do division, you need to multiply by a value that's 1/#frames you want to average.
 
Hi Michael,

Thank you for the detailed explanations.

Regarding the last part (frame adding and averaging), there is also an in-camera frame processing to that, at least according to the name. Have you already try it? Do you have some advice about in which situations one can use each of those kinds of in-camera frame processing?

Thanks for your precious help!

Best,
 
Rui Guerra said:
Hi Michael,

Thank you for the detailed explanations.

Regarding the last part (frame adding and averaging), there is also an in-camera frame processing to that, at least according to the name. Have you already try it? Do you have some advice about in which situations one can use each of those kinds of in-camera frame processing?

Thanks for your precious help!

Best,
Click to expand...

In-camera frame processing is good for some things, but it is useful only in context. What I explained was a general way of thinking about motion blur in time lapse photography. From there you can use frame averaging to get even longer shutter times, but that limits your post-processing flexibility rather than increases it. I tried to explain the most flexible solution that is most general.
 
I shoot a ton of time lapse.

I generally only bust out the Red cameras for time lapse if I need more than 1fps. I usually only use them for big sun big moon timelapses, that is long lens shots of moon and sun setting or rising. Generally I want over 1fps for long lens time lapses so that things can play out more slowly.

For most all other time lapse I suggest getting a sony A7rIII and use the built in time lapse mode on there. They have an auto exposure (low, med, high) mode that does pretty flawless day to night transitions right in camera on low or med. The A7rIII really is the worlds best time lapse camera IMO. It's crazy how much information there is in each image and it does such a great job of auto metering. Plug in a dummy battery with a dtap and you can run the thing off one vmount for days.

If your bored check out some my time lapse work :) - https://www.youtube.com/user/timelapseearth
 
Yes Daniel, DSLR is more versatile. I've also done TL for years, always with a DSLR.
But having a RED camera, the goal is to explore it at 100% even for time-lapse. The DR is amazing. And, many times I have the RED with me but not a DSLR so in many situations doing TL with the RED will be the only option any way.

One of the down sites of RED for TL is the limited autonomy of the battery. Although I use Pag Link that can be plugged together for increased runtime, it will also add weight and will always be more limited then a DSLR's battery. The solution for this will be to use a belt clip battery support connected to the V-Lock Expander.
 
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