Time lapse

[Chris Stones]

I'm about to shoot a short by the coast and want to open with some time lapse to represent the days passing the protagonist by (and as it looks cool).

 

I'm shooting the main body of the film on 16mm, Fuji F-64D (probably) but was told it would be easiest to shoot the timelapse sequences on a digital SLR, is this correct?

 

Is there anything I should do to help the two formats match? What format should I set the digital camera to?

 

Plus do any of you have any other advice on how to do this? How long should the intervals between shots be? (I know this depends on the length of the final sequence but is there an average?)

 

Thanks

[Sean McClellan]

As far as the resolution goes, a digital SLR such as a NIkon D80 or D200 will definitely match as they can capture up to 4k resolution. It can be pretty easy to match this with your 16mm film stock. As long as you get your exposures right they should cut together pretty seamlessly. The only thing that will be different is the latitude of your different formats as digital SLRs have around 7 stops of latitude and probably around 11-13 stops on the Fuji stocks? Im not too familiar with any of the Fuji stocks as I use Kodak vision 2 and 3. As far as the frequency of shots taken: if you are doing cloud shots a good time to interval is about 1 shot for every 15 seconds. Now you can set how many shots you actually want to take but to put this into perspective: 250 shots taken at 15 seconds apart=about 1 hour played back at 24 fps. If you want to check out the timelapse I have done here is the following link: http://vimeo.com/930001

 

Best of luck on your film,

 

Sean McClellan

[Sean McClellan]

250 shots taken at 15 seconds apart=about 1 hour played back at 24 fps. If you want to check out the timelapse I have done here is the following link:

 

250 shots taken at 15 seconds apart=about 9 seconds played back at 24 fps. (Actual time catptured: about 1 hour)

 

Sean McClellan

[Christopher Arata]

Look at this page and download his info it will help you get started. http://www.tkcinematography.com

 

All the best.

 

-Christopher Arata

[Sam Wietzman]

Using a digital still camera is definitely the best way to go. You?ll need an intervalometer if it?s not built into the camera. You simply attach it to the camera and dial in your frames per second rate. The digital still camera I use [ Canon D-20] can be set at 1600 asa with no loss of quality or added grain so night exposures are very nice. You can easily drop these files into a final cut timeline choosing how many ?video? frames each time lapse frame occupies thereby doing a step frame effect if desired. It's also very easy to do tests with a digital still camera.

[monday sunnlinn]

i bought a D200 expressly for this purpose. if the clouds are moving fast no more than 3 to 4 seconds between shots, or you will get a choppy movement of the clouds, obviously try it and see before the shoot. get an idea of what kind of fluidity you want out of it.

 

i have an 8gb flash card that will take about 480 shots in raw format. i use raw because i like to be able to fix any errors in the shots, especially when you spend hours sitting and babysitting a camera all day for a 20 second sequence.

 

things you will need/ or should keep in mind

 

turn off all auto features.

 

cover the viewfinder of the camera to keep light from getting in.

 

a single battery in temperate climate will last about 5 or 6 hours of time lapse, at the most.

 

rocksolid, immovable tripod is a must.

 

if you're shooting raw, you can underexpose and play with it later, test it if possible to see the limits of the lighting from the sun rising and setting. this is the hardest time of day to get time lapse done well...

 

bring an ipod, food, water and a bottle to pee in if you don't have an assistant

 

you can program a start time in on the D200, not sure about any other model.(in case you don't want to get up at 5am)

[David Auner aac]

you can program a start time in on the D200, not sure about any other model.(in case you don't want to get up at 5am)

 

You can do that on the D80 and D300 as well. I assume the D2x and D3 have the same feature though I can't check that right now. IMO the on-board time lapse isn't all that great since you're limited to 999 exposures. If you want to cover 12 hours of something being built for example, it's a good idea to shoot one frame per minute for around 30 secs of playback, 30 seconds intervals yield a rough minute.

 

So I usually use a computer attached to the camera and Nikon's Camera Control Pro software. A friend and I are currently in the process of designing and building custom enclosures for camera and computer that you just have to set up on site and plug power into. These will be meant to cover several months to years of time.

 

Cheers, Dave

[monday sunnlinn]

wow, how long until that is available and what's the price?

 

let me know when it's available please...