Time Lapse photography - damage to your camera?

foodpoison

foodpoison

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Sean
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I would like to give this a go, and considering you can get a cheapo time release remote off ebay, I think it's worth doing.

I've completely fallen in love with it recently, I think the videos/moving stills that are created through time lapse photography (with careful consideration) evoke emotions that are completely different to still or moving image.

However, I'm concerned as to the damage that could be done to my camera by taking thousands of photos in a short period of time.

I've heard of shutter actuations being limited roughly to 150,000 in XXD models, and taken a picture a second at a 40 minute football match equates to around 2,500 photos - 1/60th of the camera's lifespan.

If I'm going to be doing it regularly, that's only 60 ish timelapse films I can make before my camera dies...
 
I haven't done it with my 40D but used the 350D for it loads of times, must have shot a good 30,000 frames of timelapse stuff with it. It can't do it much good to be honest, but it isn't showing any signs of not liking it! It does make you wince after a while hearing it clicking so often, but you get use to it :p
 
Get a Canon PowerShot, put CHDK on it and use the interval meter. Just a thought. :)
 
Shutter count has been done to death - the numbers quoted are useless as they have no indication of variance or whether the number they provide is mean, median, mode or any other statistical figure. That could even be the upper 95% confidence inteval from the mean + 1.96 standard deviations

1, 1000 and 1999 have the same mean and median as 999, 1000 and 1001.

I'd go for the second camera but no manufacturer releases that information
 
I would love to do timelapse stuff but it would wear the camera out quite quickly. Since it's a video you wont be needing a high resolution (1080p is only 2mp) so you can get away with older cameras which arnt too expensive.
 
I had a d70 that has done in excess of 250,000 clicks and is till going strong (my bro has it)

I had a d200 that died after less than 100,000.

Sample variation and all that.

I personally wouldnt do it.

Not cause I'm worried about my camera. I just think it's another **** hackneyed cliche like HDR/selective colouring/mono conversions/water droplets/fake tilt shift that people do when they run out of ideas to take proper photos.

Sorry. If you wanna do timelapse invest in a cheapy video camera and drop every few frames or so post prod. just as good and wont knacker your camera!
 
Gandhi said:
I had a d70 that has done in excess of 250,000 clicks and is till going strong (my bro has it)

I had a d200 that died after less than 100,000.

Sample variation and all that.

I personally wouldnt do it.

Not cause I'm worried about my camera. I just think it's another **** hackneyed cliche like HDR/selective colouring/mono conversions/water droplets/fake tilt shift that people do when they run out of ideas to take proper photos.

Sorry. If you wanna do timelapse invest in a cheapy video camera and drop every few frames or so post prod. just as good and wont knacker your camera!
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That's fair enough mate, horses for courses and all that. Personally, I like it.
But it's all subjective and contextual. Doing all of those techniques for the sake of it or in the wrong context is pointless. I don't intend on doing time lapse for the sake of it, I have a few ideas that I'd like to try out.
 
Mancunian Lee said:
What D60 setting do you use? I dont see any options on mine.
Click to expand...

There aren't any settings mate.
You just take a series of photographs at the same location over a period time.

A simplified explanation...
You may want to capture clouds moving over a building for example, so you would put your camera on a tripod and fire your shutter every 15 seconds or so for however long you wanted. (say an hour)
You would then put your photos into a movie editor and play them back at your desired speed.

Similar to stop motion animation.
 
Busby said:
There aren't any settings mate.
You just take a series of photographs at the same location over a period time.

A simplified explanation...
You may want to capture clouds moving over a building for example, so you would put your camera on a tripod and fire your shutter every 15 seconds or so for however long you wanted. (say an hour)
You would then put your photos into a movie editor and play them back at your desired speed.

Similar to stop motion animation.
Click to expand...

I think he was talking about automating it - which you can do with the D90 upwards I think....
 
Cheers :) Ive got a remote trigger so will use that, id of thought they would have an option to fire the shutter ever x seconds though.

Edit - Yes outlore, thats what im after, I paint murals you see and wouldnt mind doing a time lapse on it.
 
Didnt mean to diss you mate or knock your knowledge, hope I didnt come across as a tit. My camera is pretty much always in the car and I think id get sharper images using it thats all.
 
Mancunian Lee said:
Didnt mean to diss you mate or knock your knowledge, hope I didnt come across as a tit. My camera is pretty much always in the car and I think id get sharper images using it thats all.
Click to expand...

:lol: I know...I can imagine it'd have a different look to it! I was merely putting in an outrageous suggestion to stir up the mix :) Relax :D
 
Hi Im Purpleclouds and you might remember me from threads such as "Who are worse, bridzillas or pro wedding togs?" and "Canon or Nikon, which owners are cooler?"

troy.gif


:lol::lol::lol:
 
Mancunian Lee said:
Cheers :) Ive got a remote trigger so will use that, id of thought they would have an option to fire the shutter ever x seconds though.

Edit - Yes outlore, thats what im after, I paint murals you see and wouldnt mind doing a time lapse on it.
Click to expand...

As I say, some of the higher specs have it - my D200 does, you set the time between each shot, how many intervals there should be and the number of shots each time and off you go. The only thing it's short of is setting a number of shots, and total amount of time required, but you can't have everything (and you can work it out and then programme the right numbers in)

Someone somewhere on here was creating a device to do it via USB IIRC... might have been Cowaski, Cowsaki ah WTF something like that. :thumbs:

Other option is to find someone else from the forum who is local and willing to help - you don't want to be worrying about setting up a camera if you're painting... Might be worth starting a thread in the meeting forum?:thumbs:
 
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