In this article I'm going to explain, with images, how I take the time lapse video footage and compile it.
By reading this information, you agree that neither the site, nor author can be personally be held responsible for any injury or damage cause by following these instructions. The instructions are purely here for reference and have no warranty or guarantee associated with them.
Equipment Used
The main piece of equipment I use to take the footage is a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera. The camera I use is a Canon EOS 400d (also known as Rebel XTi). I use this camera mainly because the image quality is very good for my requirements, the camera is relatively good value at £400 ish (probably less now as it has been replaced by the 450d) and mainly because it is on loan from Bat Pro Ltd. (the company I work for). Most DSLR cameras will work fine as long as they have exposure times up to 30s.
A sturdy tripod is necessary for any night time imaging, due to the nature of the exposures, up to 30s each, the camera needs to be very still to prevent any wobble which would blur out and ruining the image. I use a Benbo Classic tripod, this is bulky and sturdy and I believe quite old, but it gives me a massive scope of adjustment, putting the camera at almost any location desired, whilst still being rock solid.
Another vital piece of equipment is an automatic shutter timer, also known as an intervalometer. The one I use was purchased through eBay for around £40. These automatically trigger the shutter at regular intervals, you can do this yourself using manually triggering the shutter, however this is tedious, cold and generally inconvenient for 5 hours recording. Just clicking a few buttons and going to sleep, letting your gadget do its work is incredibly useful. Also some cameras can accept modified software to do this automatically so it may be worth checking yours using google.
Finally if you plan on taking images over a long time frame, the built in battery of the camera will probably not be suitable (up to 6hrs recording maximum ), you can either purchase a battery grip (which can double your battery life by packing two batteries in the grip), or as I use, an AC adapter, these enable “unlimited” power as long as you are near a power socket.
Lastly a high capacity memory card is needed to take enough images, 4GB should be enough for the 400d at low quality for almost 48 hours at 31s intervals, with the AC adapter, this is the only limiting Factor.
The final issue is weather. Check your local weather using a reliable weather source (BBC is what I use however I also check with metcheck, MSN and the met office on occasions). Also assuming you will have a relatively clear night, the temperature could drop rapidly. This can cause condensation to build up on the lens. A hood for you camera and a fan blowing air over the lens can reduce most of these problems.
Method
Assuming you are familiar with the equipment at hand this should be no problem. Once the camera is mounted on the tripod safely and the shutter timer is plugged in you are ready to go.If you have an option on the camera to disable continuous numbering do this now, as it'll be easier to compile later. Also remember to set the time on the camera accurately.
I recommend using a 31s interval on the timer, set the camera to automatically set the exposure (no flash setting works fine on 400d) and depending on card space set the camera to take low or medium quality images in fine mode.
Finally decide where to point the camera, I usually use Stellarium (found here) and run a simulation of the whole time the camera will be taking photos to see what stars will be shown, and whether the moon will be in the way (if you dont you can end up like this Here).
Once that's done, put in the card, switch on the camera, remove the lens cover (trust me this is easy to forget at night) and start the timer, (assuming you hear a click or two, its going fine!).
Compiling and Uploading
To compile the video I try to use free or open source software. I'll explain how to do this on MS Windows however I may add a Ubuntu/Mac OS method later on.
MS Windows Method
Software needed: Virtualdub (Here), Xvid (Here).
Copy files from the camera card into a new folder on hard drive or high speed removable device. Ensure these are numbered correctly something like IMG_XXXX.jpg, IMG_XXX(X+1).jpg, IMG_XXX(X+2).jpg (if this is not the case, select all files, sort by date modified, right click on first and rename, this will automatically rename the files with continuous numbers)
Firstly Install xvid, this will enable virtual dub to compress your videos to a reasonable size.
(install first or run from zip folder) Run virtual dub and accept the license agreement.
Go to File > Open Video file > and select the first photo (ensure automatically load linked segments is enabled).
This should open all the photos as individual frames. Next go to Video > Filters > Add.
The filters needed are as follows:
- resize ( I use Precise bicubic A=-0.75) at 1280 x 720 and crop to aspect ratio (16:9)
- temporal smoother (at setting 4)
- (optional) brightness/contrast to suit the video file
After this go to video > frame rate and set to 15 or 25 depending on how long and smooth you want playback.
Then Video > compression and select Xvid MPEG-4 Codec
Once done you can save these settings (file > save processing settings) and not have to play with them again (just load them at file > load processing settings).
When you are ready to render go to file > save as AVI and then wait for it to complete.
Congratulations on successfully rendering your first time lapse video.
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