Creating a good time-lapse depends on a few elements.

If you have the capabilities and you’re capturing only an hour or so, try and roll video rather than shooting a picture every few seconds. The result will be cleaner and more fluid. There IS value to a real time-lapse, shutter capabilities, and other tweaks you can play with. I’ll get to that later.

Establish a foreground that doesn’t flicker. Find something interesting to put in front of the camera that won’t move. The clouds, sunset, or whatever you’re trying to capture will end up much more stunning if there’s an interesting constant.

Clean up the final edit. Go through and cut the frames where a bird flew by, a car drove by, an alien popped in for a second, the camera shook, a branch wavered. The video will be much cleaner and more appealing if there isn’t a distracting flash/pop of something in the frame.

The attached video I took out of my apartment window. You’ll see there’s a fun voyeur vignette play with the framing and silhouette. Nothing special, but the practice of rolling on the beauty around you can be a great asset to playing with light AND an excuse to whip out your camera. The entire process took me 5 minutes to set up, 10 minutes of editing, and the rendering/uploading (incredibly simple) and truly if you want to be a master of camera and light nothing beats PRACTICE.

***If you spend money on a piece of equipment, don’t let your closet have it. USE IT***

Music: “Heofonsteorra” - Skyler Butenshon

A Lights and Camera Life

Posts tagged with carnegie-hill

Lapsing the Time