Cheapest way to get a timelapse video of a renovation

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MrMcMillan

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Hi, I'm interesting in doing a timelapse video of a renovation we're doing to our house and would appreciate suggestions about what equipment I need to do so.

Constraints:
* Frame rate - 1 frame per 20 or 30 seconds
* Battery life - must survive at least 1-2 weeks on a charge, since there will be no reliable electricity in the house and I need to mount it in places where electricity won't be available
* Wide angle
* No network (storage must be local, on the device itself)
* Small
* Reliable

Any suggestions?
 
MrMcMillan said:
Hi, I'm interesting in doing a timelapse video of a renovation we're doing to our house and would appreciate suggestions about what equipment I need to do so.

Constraints:
* Frame rate - 1 frame per 20 or 30 seconds
* Battery life - must survive at least 1-2 weeks on a charge, since there will be no reliable electricity in the house and I need to mount it in places where electricity won't be available
* Wide angle
* No network (storage must be local, on the device itself)
* Small
* Reliable

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

There's several companies that make premade solutions for this, sadly none of them or any DIY solution will be particularly cheap,
 
If your looking for a cheap option that covers all the criteria then use a GoPro Hero 2 camera. The only thing that doesn't hit is the battery life but you can charge it via a usb cable to a laptop battery when it needs topping up. It comes with a wide range of mounts so placing it in that out of reach corner won't be a hassle. Its wide angle and can be set to take a photo from half a sec all the way through to 1,2,5 and 10 min intervals.

Have a look at the results it produces timelapse wise here:

https://vimeo.com/41430107
 
Add a solar USB charger to keep the phone topped up?
Or just a normal external USB battery, then you can plug/unplug it without moving the camera.
 
GoPros aren't designed to be used over longer periods really :( Limited range of frequencies to take photos, and the heat and components aren't really designed for it.
 
Apart from the 2 week battery life, most recent Nikons will do all of that. They have built in intervalometers.

Don't know of any camera that will shoot for 2 weeks on a single charge.

Even if you only have it active for 12 hours a day, that's about 20K pictures and I don't know any camera that will do that either :(

I'd look into and external powerpack for a Nikon.
 
speaking of gopros... this looks like a very cool way to do long term timelapses using a gopro - they're meant to crap out after a while if you just plug them in and leave them on long term.
Pretty affordable too:

http://cam-do.com/GoProTimeController.html
 
That GoPro time controller is a smart piece of kit and would be ideal, its great to see people coming up with different mounting systems and external circuits for this camera. Ive used them alot for timelapse and found the quality, even in low light to be usable although the longest Ive used it for is about 6 hrs.
 
Grizu said:
That GoPro time controller is a smart piece of kit and would be ideal, its great to see people coming up with different mounting systems and external circuits for this camera. Ive used them alot for timelapse and found the quality, even in low light to be usable although the longest Ive used it for is about 6 hrs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely, there's quite a few times that I've even chosen a gopro over an slr for timelapses, lack of flicker is perfect
 
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