Will it help my camera to make timelapse videos?

Many people are surprised to learn that most videos are made timelapse photo to photo. They think that the author has videotaped over a longer or shorter period of time, and then simply accelerated images. The truth is that many of those timelapse that could have been done perfectly well.

Make timelapse video has a number of advantages and of course, drawbacks. A favor that there is no type of wear on the equipment used and against the inherent limitations of these systems in terms of power consumption, volume of data recording and subsequent transfer to the editing team, teams are usually more bulky especially regarding the price-quality imaging devices used.

Furthermore, photographic equipment with a minimum of “amateur” can obtain a stream of high-quality images that help us to develop our video “picture to picture.” The main advantages of creating these films by obtaining the photos are higher resolution images, the lowest price of photographic equipment in front of the video, a greater freedom in choosing targets, and the possibility of shoot with exposure times “long” that allow us to obtain images in low light.

Thus the camera to shoot a series of photographs to create timelapse videos can be considered the best option for creating movies accelerated. There is one “but”: the erosion of the shutter.

Although it may seem incredible that in the XXI century is a piece of our latest Japanese camera that is worn, this is so. The shutter consists of a sheet undergoes wear every time we shoot a picture with our camera. In this link you can find an article where I write about the duration of the shutter. Fortunately, the shutter is a relatively cheap piece it can easily be replaced in the service.

Will it help my camera to make timelapse videos?
The first thing we need to know when we prepare to make a timelapse video is if the camera model we have is the ability to shoot pictures at fixed intervals of time. Should consult the camera manual and find that option.

Unfortunately today there are very few cameras that include shooting function at intervals of series: some models of compact cameras and a couple of models of SLR cameras like the Nikon D100, D200 and D300. If your camera is not one of them, then we must resort to some alternative solution. Fortunately we have several to choose from.

Option 1: intervalometer software.
In the event that our compact camera is a Canon brand, we can use to install on the memory card free software, which includes the functions of a lapse video camera.

This software, called CHDK, you can download it free from the Internet and to install just copy some files on the memory card from the camera where you save the photos. This will avoid having to “touch” the camera’s internal memory, and simply pop out the card where you have installed the CHDK for the camera to work again with the official software of the mark.

In these pages you can read a specific article, interval by Canon compact camera software on the CHDK firmware, which includes all the necessary links to the files you copied to your cart.

Option 2: External intervalometer
Option 2 is to connect our camera to an external device, also called interval timer, which is responsible for sending the order to our camera shot past the time you’ve specified. If this is the case, first make sure that we make a intervalometer compatible with our camera. It should be set primarily in that the connector type is specific for our camera model as a visual-lapse models are very similar.

In Spain we can find shops intervalometer official mark of our camera phallicity outweigh the price a hundred euros. Indeed for some popular models of these brands, like Canon G10, 450D or 500D is not even possible to find an official mark intervalometer suited to the type of connector on the camera. Canon has released only a model-lapse camera higher and with a bit of DIY can adapt it to our camera. On the Internet it is easy to find models with the same functions clone for less than half the price and already adapted to the specific type of connector for our camera. In timelapses.tv forum have written extensively on the subject.

Option 3: intervalometer on your computer
The third option is the heaviest. We connect our camera to a PC via the USB port and from a specific computer program gives the order to the camera shutter. Typically when buying a digital camera usually bring a CD with programs and utilities, among which we can easily find any application to fire at intervals.

The downside of this approach is that we will have to be loaded with your computer wherever you want to put our camera. The beauty of using this system is that we can go see the pictures immediately go on a hard drive recording.

What is a timelapse video
The end result offers a timelapse video, video is a movie in which events happen at a speed well above that were recorded. This sense of speed is achieved mainly by eliminating intermediate images. The normal speed recording of a video camera is 25 pictures per second. If we removed these images for example the odd, would have a short video where the action appear accelerated.

We will use a camera unable to capture these 25 frames per second to capture a video camera. But to do timelapse much better, so we saved the step of having to remove some intermediate images to create the effect rapidly.

If our camera photographing any action as the passage of clouds, movement of people and vehicles, etc.. and schedule our lapse video camera or to shoot a photo every few seconds, then we believe our movie with the images obtained, we will see a timelapse video where events happen at a speed higher than were recorded.