I did something crazy yesterday: Time Lapse

The sky is now clear since haze attacked few days ago. And, I thought it’s a good chance for me to attempt something crazy. So, I went off with my gears packed, and hoping for a good sunset in the evening. Since reading Louis Pang’s entry on “Creating Time Lapse Movie with your DSLR” in his Wedshooter.tv blog.

How can I not resist taking some shots for HDR pieces? As usual, these HDR shots are generated from Photomatix Pro.

HDR made of 3 exposures: 0ev, -2.0ev and +2.0ev

I brought all my gears, as usual, but all I really need in this project was my camera, a wide angle lens (I only have 18-50mm in this case, with 18mm being my widest choice), wireless remote trigger (or you can also use one with chord.) and of course a sturdy tripod. Louis did a very good job explaining how the filming was done, and I merely just followed through his steps.

Louis was using a D3 in his shots, and he has this automatic interval shot function in his camera, but I don’t have that in my EOS 50D. So, I will have to resort to a manual trigger. Again, I followed his tips, triggering a frame every 10 seconds. I started my shooting approximately at 5:50 p.m., and I shot the last frame at about 7:15p.m. The whole stretch took me about 1 hour and 25 minutes. I used Av mode to shoot, with my aperture set at f/7.1. I have to tone down the exposure over the time, as the sky or the scene loses light over the time. Honestly, throughout the shoot, I had doubts at certain point, I was wondering if this would work. Well, the result says other wise. All photos used here have not be enhanced. I dumped all the photos straight out from camera to process the image sequences. I had 512 images recorded from 5:50 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. But, of course, I did messed up with the timing in between, for example, 2 frames captured within 10 seconds, or maybe missed out on 1 or 2 frame between intervals. I’m human after all, no?

I had to use Quicktime Pro to generate the image sequence, I wish I have a better video editing software, which later I applied finishing touches with iMovie on my Macbook. As for the frame rate, I used 30 frames per second for the time lapse image sequences. Who knows, I might look into video market in future. It’s fun!

It was crazy but the result was quite rewarding. I reckon doing a time lapse just before rain falls would be quite interesting as well. So who says, photography is just about clicking the shutter?

Here’s the video: