Jan 03, 2009 TimeLapse is the professional choice for creating and editing great time-lapse sequences on your iDevice. TimeLapse is the complete time-lapse workflow on the go. FEATURES Best in class time-lapse camera:. Flexible and easy to setup - define your capture session any way you like. Numbers for mac templates free. Record 4K video (or HD). Record RAW photos (or JPEG). TimeLapse is the professional choice for creating and editing great time-lapse sequences on your iDevice. TimeLapse is the complete time-lapse workflow on the go. FEATURES Best in class time-lapse camera:. Flexible and easy to setup - define your capture session any way you like. Record 4K video (or HD). Record RAW photos (or JPEG). Apr 15, 2013 TimeLapse is a solid app, but bare bones for post-shooting editing features. Like other time lapse apps, it offers great options like locking the exposure and white balance to avoid lighting and color jumps over the course of the chosen time lapse period (especially important at dusk, for example). Oct 30, 2012 Time Lapse Assembler 1.5.3 - Create movies from a sequence of images. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at safe and trusted MacUpdate.
A video is made up from 25 single photos per second, that, when placed back-to-back, trick our mind into seeing motion. But what would happen if we only took one photo every minute, and then played them back at 25 frames per second? The result is a magnificent hyper-realistic compression of time.
We call this a timelapse, and I’ve created a video that will explain all the steps you need to know so you can make your very own.
I started off in the beautiful Louvre courtyard in Paris, focusing on the Pyramid, and hoped to capture some engaging clouds passing by. One must remember when framing a shot that video does not have the same picture ratio as a standard still image. My Nikon D500 produces a native 3×2 image format, being three parts wide, to two parts tall. Video, on the other hand, works in a widescreen ratio, which is, as the name suggests, wider than a standard image.
I changed the shooting mode on the back of the camera from live view photo to live view video mode, and by doing that, it produced black bars at the top and the bottom of the image, so I knew where the edge of my 16×9 image lay.
Although 25 frames per second is the standard in European and Commonwealth countries, you will notice that there are also 24 or 30 frames per second options, which are standard in North America… because they just have to be a little bit different. In the end, it only equates to a minute difference, but when shooting for minutes and hours, it will make a larger difference in the overall length of the film.
Lastly, I needed to think about how to physically make the timelapse video. There are two main ways, an easy way, and a not so easy way.
If you have a camera such as the Nikon D500 like me, then you will have an built-in timelapse feature in the video menu. It will work through all of the complex equations, put all the photos back to back, and spit out an MOV movie file automatically.
If your camera doesn’t have a timelapse option, it isn’t a huge problem. You just need to take a series of photos at a constant interval, then put them into an external editing software to make those still images into a video. If you are shooting this way, I would not recommend shooting in RAW. When you are taking hundreds of thousands of photographs, RAW images will unnecessarily consume a lot of card space. We don’t even need to shoot in a large JPEG image either. HD video is 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, so most “small” JPEG images will be far greater than that, meaning there will be zero quality loss when downsampling.
Before I invest the full 20 min for the time-lapse, I want to make a quick test of 1 min. This way I can quickly see if there are any mistakes—exposure, focus, framing or anything else.
A common mistake is to leave your focus set to automatic. The result might mean the automatic focusing system will try to find the focus each time before shooting. This will create breathing problem if the lens doesn’t focus at the exact same place each time, and deliver an uneven final product. To avoid this, first, set your focus and then turn your camera’s focus off. I do this by switching mine into manual focus. Once I was satisfied with my test, I reset my time to 20 minutes and pressed start.
For the second timelapse in this tutorial, I chose the back of the Notre Dame Cathedral. The concept was to shoot during sunset to have the beautiful sunset colours and see the scene changed from daylight to street light.
I used two cameras for this example—one set in manual mode and the other in aperture priority mode with exposure smoothing set on. The result was two very different sequences. The Nikon D7000, which was set in manual, kept the same exposure through our the sequence and got darker and darker until it just fell off into blackness. Whereas the Nikon D500, set to Aperture Priority, continually re-compensated for the amount of light available, always giving me an even exposure.
How many photographs do you need for the perfect timelapse? This all depends on what you are shooting and how long you want your final video to be. For this shot, I knew I wanted the complete sunset, so I set the shooting time to one hour.
Fortunately, Nikon takes the guesswork out of my equation. If we enter the shooting duration and interval between shots, it automatically calculated the output time.
If you need to do it manually, it is a little more confusing. First, figure out how many seconds you will be shooting for. Then divide the shooting duration by the interval, giving you the total frames for our output video. Finally, divide the output frames by 25 (because there are 25 frames per second) and you will have the total output length in seconds.
In this case, it is as follows:
I went to the Eiffel Tower, the most iconic structure in France and, possibly, Europe for my last timelapse of the tutorial.
I wanted to make something that combined long exposure night photography with our time lapse, so I found a beautiful carousel that would create delightful light streaks. Because I shot photos and did not just speed up a video file, it meant that I could drag out the shutter speed to two seconds. This allowed me to capture the light trails I desired in the image. As a bonus, there was a little bit of traffic as well, which added some more motion to the shot.
In regards to settings, I shot at an ISO of 100 to minimize the noise, had a shutter speed of two seconds so I could have enough time to streak the carousel as it spun, and let my camera suggest an f/8 aperture, which looked good to me. I shot in manual mode because I did not want any of the lights to pulsate. I also switched my White Balance onto fluorescent to counteract the green glow of the street lights, this meant it would remain a consistent temperature throughout the sequence.
Finally, I was careful not to shoot at an interval quicker than the shutter speed. The shooting duration was 20min, with 5-second intervals, which was more than the 2-second shutter speed. Running the same math as before, this gave me a 10-second output video. The result, I think you’ll agree, was quite pleasant.
The hyper-realistic passing of time lends itself to timelapse photography. Anything with motion will look great—flowers blooming, the sun setting, or a construction project. As long as you have motion and movement, it will be a perfect subject.
Now that you have all of the knowledge to make an excellent time-lapse, go out and shoot some beautiful sequences. Let us know how they went by leaving a video in the comments below.
About the author: Alexander J.E. Bradley is the founder of Aperture Tours (formally Paris Photography Tours) and heads up the tours in Paris. A professional photographer for over a decade Alexander enjoys shooting the surreal by mixing dreamlike qualities into his conceptual images. You can view more of his work on his website.
You can find more photos and articles like this on the Aperture Tours website, or by following Aperture Tours on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This post was originally published here.
As smartphone cameras are getting better each year, you are able to do much more with it than taking photos. Earlier we talked about the best animation and stop-motion apps for Android. And as you can guess from the title, today, we’ll take a look at some of the best apps to do time lapse on your Android.
This is the most stripped down version available in the Play Store. The app made the list because it is free, there are no ads, and is really easy to use. You can set duration and the recording will stop automatically.
You can reset the fps after you have shot the video and the app will render a new video. This is what I did to improve the quality of the video I shot.
Though it is free and easy to use, it is not without issues. During the tests, I found that the resolution of the time-lapse video was not up to mark. There is no way to use the front camera as well.
Verdict: The app is free and comes without any ads which are good for people who are looking for free alternatives with no in-app purchases and minimal bells and whistles.
Install TimeLapse (Free)
The app name will show as Time Spirit when you download it. Not sure why some developers change the name, makes it confusing really.
That said, when you open the app, there are two primary options to choose from. One is photo lapse and the other is video lapse. In the former, you can take photos, every day or whenever you feel there is some progress, up to a max of 30, and the app will create a photo lapse out of it. It is good for gym stories where you can show your transformation over a period of time.
The video lapse option works better when you want to shoot something then and there. The developers call it video lapse so that users can differentiate between the two. It’s cool by me.
Read:Best Free Video Editing Apps For Android Without Watermark
You can add audio files like music in both the format, choose a max resolution of 1920×1080, and choose a duration between 1 minute to 12 hours. There is a start time which will come in handy if you want to be in the video, and you can set frame intervals. There are a number of filters to choose from. You can shoot using both the front and back camera.
I wish the app worked in the background though. You will have to keep the app open when shooting. Also, you cannot turn your screen off. The timer is only available in video lapse which I don’t understand. The screen dims when you begin recording. I think this is done to save battery since recording can take a lot of time, but sadly, there is no way to control it.
Verdict: The app is completely free and there are no ads which are really cool because it comes with quite a bunch of useful features that you will find useful.
Install Time Lapse Camera (Free)
Lapse It is probably one of the most famous time-lapse camera apps in the Play Store. It is one of the few apps that are capable of doing time lapse and stop motion videos and is actually good at it.
You can use existing images or videos to make a time lapse of the same which is something I liked. It offers more control over the speed of the video. Some features that previous apps were missing but should have been there like focus, exposure, modes, and white balance are there.
The pro version, at $2.99, will add the ability to shot HD videos, add music, remove ads, add filters, and allow you to stop and resume capturing at different times and locations.
Apart from this, there are a lot of cool options like timestamp, trimming and editing, playing the video backward with the ability to export them in different formats. There is no restriction on the length of the video.
Verdict: Lapse It is one of the most feature-rich time-lapse video apps for the Android platform. While the free version does leave out some features like HD recording and ability to add music, as we saw in the previous app which was free, Lapse It is better if buy the pro version.
Install Lapse It ($2.99)
Hyperlapse is a simple little app from Microsoft. It is free to use and comes with no ads whatsoever. The moment you launch the app, you will be asked to begin recording your first time-lapse video.
The app is bug-free and works great but offers a limited number of features. You can adjust speed, choose between different resolutions and stabilize the audio at 1x while the video is recorded in time lapse.
Unfortunately, there is a watermark which I didn’t like at all. There is no way to remove it either. The app is popular among users because of its simple UI and direct approach. I wish it had more features for advanced users.
Verdict: Hyperlapse is a cool little app that will get you started with your time-lapse video on your Android in no time. The app could use more features though.
Install Microsoft Hyperlapse (Free)
Framelapse is another time-lapse video maker for Android that is comparable in features and price to Lapse It above. There are features like frame interval, a timer to begin and end recording, zoom, and focus, exposure and color effects, set orientation and video resolution.
It supports only MP4 video format but supports both front and back facing the camera. The pro version will remove ads, allow you to set custom video duration and frame interval, and lock exposure. Download free flash player for mac os x 10.4.11.
One thing that I liked is that Framelapse will allow you to record with your screen off (sleep mode) which no other app allows. I wish there was 4K support and ISO support for people who use DSLR. Still, no app that does it so far. It also lacks manual focus.
Verdict: Framelapse is a nice app that takes things further by adding sleep mode which works beautifully. It really helps save battery life.
Install Framelapse ($2.99)
Installing this app on your phone before an actual Time-lapse app because it can calculate parameters of a time lapse. Now, this app comes in handy for both amateurs and professional photographers as it has a detailed set of parameters like Shooting interval, Shooting length, Shots count, Result Clip Frame Rate, Result Clip Length, Photo Size, and Total Size.
You can simply upload your requirements and the app would calculate how many frames would be required to shoot the clip, how much time, and how much space would it consume.
Verdict: This is a must-have app for all the people who want to optimize their Time-lapse shoot. It calculates crucial information which you would have to otherwise guess.
Install TimeLapse Calculator (free)
If you are looking for a free time-lapse app for your Android smartphone, I suggest Time Lapse Camera because it is free and comes with more features than Hyperlapse. If you have the money and want to go professional, Lapse It and Framelapse are both good. The former has more features but the latter offers sleep mode. Depends on the situation you will be shooting in.