Any experience of timelapse cameras?

[StewartR]

We're going to be undertaking a major building project on our house and I thought it might be fun to try to make a timelapse video of it. I'd appreciate any advise from people who have done something similar.

The construction will last about 6 months. So that's about 1000 hours of work. I'm thinking of using one camera and placing it in a suitable place each day to capture what's happening that day from a suitable angle. If I set it to take a photo every minute, that's 60,000 photos which would run for about 40 minutes at 25 frames per second. That seems reasonable to me. I expect there will be days when things seem to happen slowly and I'll want to assemble, say, every other frame into the finished video. Or maybe I should aim to shoot say 3 frames per minute, so that I have finer granular control over the effective playback speed: I might plan to use every third frame on average, but when it's a bit slow I could use every 4th or 5th frame, and I could create a sort of "slow mo" timelapse effect by using every 2nd frame or even every frame at times. That's far more control than I'd have with just one frame per minute.

So anyway: has anybody out there done anything like this?

What sort of hardware should I use? I have various DSLRs, but I'm not confident that they could shoot for a whole day, and I'd have to worry about weather protection. Would I be better off using something like a GoPro? Or a dedicated timelapse camera? Any recommendations?

 

[admirable]

You can hire proper time lapse cameras

 

[StewartR]

You can hire proper time lapse cameras

Yeah sure, but that wasn't the question. And for a six month project the economics of hiring make no sense whatsoever.

Have you used one? Are they any good?

 

[Willid1]

Not quite sure what you are having done but we are in the middle of a major building project and once the outer shell of the house is up and the roof on the apperance doesn't change much from day to day. But inside as partitions go up and things get plastered etc the changes are constant, so are you thinking about time lapse from multiple sites????

Good luck with the project, despite our best efforts to plan and arrange before hand it's been a bit of a trial.

David

 

[Jolyon Ralph]

Three options here...

1) GoPro - but your big issue here is battery life.
2) If you have an old Canon DSLR you may be able to install Magic Lantern software on it to enable timelapse recording. You still have to figure out powering it and weatherproofing it though.
3) Dedicated camera, such as this one (I have no connection to seller) - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brinno-BC...roject-Pack-/391149193873?hash=item5b124f0a91

 

[Nawty]

You can get power adapters for some Olympus cameras and some of the cameras are weather proof but if you don't have one it will cost you more than the dedicated one linked to above.

 

[allanm]

I've used a GoPro for time lapse, but nothing like the length of time you are talking about. You can get power leads for them, so powering it shouldn't be a problem, and they come with a waterproof case. You may need to buy a separate tripod mount for it though.
Time lapse videos also look good if you move the camera a little every now and again, perhaps in a slow arc, bit Ken Burns'y

Edit, the Brinno camera in Jolyons post looks brilliant

 

[Kaolin]

I have used Cam-do time lapse controller with a Gopro2 and it worked very well. It allows you set a time lapse interval (minutes to hours) and turns the camera on and off to lengthen the battery life.

http://cam-do.com/GoProTimeController.html

 

[Jolyon Ralph]

If it were me I'd buy the Brinno and sell it on ebay again once the build is complete.

 

[pingu666]

think i read a article on petapixel or diyphotography on doing a timelapse of some fields of grapes for wine, used solar powered go pros i think, and too fast a shutter speed so looked badin video

 

[pingu666]

http://petapixel.com/2015/04/03/a-year-in-a-vineyard-with-a-gopro-time-lapse/

 

[rclarke80]

You can run a gopro off a battery cell for approx 9 hours, battery cell could then be swapped if needed longer. Problem then is it is no longer weather sealed as need access for the usb cable.
Frame rate, I'm not sure but I guess it be better to have more and chop afterwards than realise should've shot more afterwards!

 

[StewartR]

Not quite sure what you are having done but we are in the middle of a major building project and once the outer shell of the house is up and the roof on the apperance doesn't change much from day to day. But inside as partitions go up and things get plastered etc the changes are constant, so are you thinking about time lapse from multiple sites????

Yes, absolutely. Camera outdoors when interesting stuff is happening outdoors. Camera indoors when interesting stuff is happening indoors. I don't want to muck about with multiple cameras so my plan is just to liaise with the builder about what will be happening on any given day and place the camera accordingly. I'll probably miss some things, because it won't go 100% to plan, but that's not critical. It's for my entertainment, not for any legal reason.

If my frame rate varies from say 3 per minute to 1 per 5 minutes depending on how fast the action is (ie I shoot 3 frames per minute and then use every Nth one where N could be as high as say 15), then one day's worth of video would last from about 4 seconds to a minute. I think that might work from a directorial point of view.

 

[StewartR]

Three options here...

3) Dedicated camera, such as this one (I have no connection to seller) - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brinno-BC...roject-Pack-/391149193873?hash=item5b124f0a91

If it were me I'd buy the Brinno and sell it on ebay again once the build is complete.

Mmmm. I'm coming round to that point of view. The Brinno seems to have an awful lot going for it.

Just need to check whether the Brinno can do JPEG output as well as AVI. I know it would be a lot if frames to manage, but as far as I can see it's the only way to be able to choose the playback speed after the activities have been captured.

 

[StewartR]

http://petapixel.com/2015/04/03/a-year-in-a-vineyard-with-a-gopro-time-lapse/

Interesting. In that piece the photographer started with a dedicated timelapse camera but thought the output wasn't good enough. But using the GoPro, with car batteries being swapped regularly, was quite a lot of work - more than I'm prepared to put in.

 

[pingu666]

i dont know if a solar panel indoors would provide enough to get a gopro through the daytime more or less ok or not

 

[StewartR]

Thanks everybody for their input.

Well, I've decided to buy one of the Brinno cameras. The technical pre-purchase support from Brinno UK was excellent. They were willing to beat any price being offered by a retailer, and they use Interlink Express for delivery. So I should receive it tomorrow.

The only downside is that the Brinno cameras don't have the capability to save each image as a separate JPEF; they build the AVI in the camera. But I think the other features are sufficiently compelling. I'll try shooting 3 frames per minute to start with, and using a video editor to make it run faster if necessary.

Getting quite excited...

 

[gman]

40 mins is a long time to watch a time lapse video. I would be looking at more 5-10 mins to be honest.

 

[StewartR]

40 mins is a long time to watch a time lapse video. I would be looking at more 5-10 mins to be honest.

But it's not your house that's being rebuilt!

Seriously though, I expect you're probably right. The thing is, if I err on the side of too much data capture, I can edit it down; but if I don't have enough frames I'm stuffed.

The technical consultant at Brinno recommended 1 frame every 10 minutes for construction jobs. That turns each working day into about 2 seconds of video, assuming 25 fps playback, so a 6 month project comes out at 4 minutes. Fair enough for a record shot, I suppose. But I expect there will be some days when a lot happens and I'll want the day to last more than 2 seconds.

I'm going to have a big editing job at the end of this, I can see!

 

[lostsoulal2]

Thanks everybody for their input.

Well, I've decided to buy one of the Brinno cameras. The technical pre-purchase support from Brinno UK was excellent. They were willing to beat any price being offered by a retailer, and they use Interlink Express for delivery. So I should receive it tomorrow.

The only downside is that the Brinno cameras don't have the capability to save each image as a separate JPEF; they build the AVI in the camera. But I think the other features are sufficiently compelling. I'll try shooting 3 frames per minute to start with, and using a video editor to make it run faster if necessary.

Getting quite excited...

I was looking at these and there appears to be accessories that allows you to shoot a separate JPEG or it to be activated on motion to generate an AVI ( ATS110, ATM100), but as you say not a stream of JPEG's, I would be interested to hear your opinion of the Brinno quality (are you getting the wide-angle F1.2 version?) once received and you have had time to set it up please.

 

[StewartR]

I would be interested to hear your opinion of the Brinno quality (are you getting the wide-angle F1.2 version?) once received and you have had time to set it up please.

Will do.