time lapse
by macclassic44
on
Oct 13, 2005 at 8:31:11 am
I did some time lapse of a sunset using my XL2 camera controls, i.e, half a second every 30 secs and the results were dissapointing - jerky, not at all smooth . Any one got ideas how to use FCP to achieve the smoother results.
Re: time lapse by macclassic44 on Oct 13, 2005 at 12:55:54 pm
Hi Shane
That sounds a lot of sense - just like real film. Unfortunately the camera does'nt single frame, but I thought there was something in FCP, or at least, a third party application that did the cutting of the frames? Also is smoothing between frames implicated?
Re: time lapse by Matte on Oct 13, 2005 at 10:57:35 am
Prosumer Video cameras simply do not have a smooth time-lapse feature.
They can be set to record short SECTIONS of video every few minutes as a "pseudo" time-lapse.
But the SMOOTH time-lapse associated with watching clouds speed by, or sports crowds rushing into a stadium, or a flower bud opening... cannot be captured directly to tape by a DV camcorder.
This type of true time-lapse has traditionally been done with FILM as it is a simple matter to expose only ONE FRAME at a time.
In prosumer video, the camera does NOT record a single frame per exposure, but in fact SEVERAL frames (a second or half-second) of standard 30 fps (25 PAL) moving video per "timed" exposure.
And the time BETWEEN these exposures cannot be precisely set (there are but a FEW pre-set times.)
All this creates very uneven "pulse-like" time-lapse than, as Shane said, must be carefully EDITED to create a smoother look.
There is a better, more direct way to achieve smooth Time-lapse with a video camera by using computer-capture software like "BTV Pro"
Re: time lapse by Don Poe on Oct 13, 2005 at 4:33:41 pm
I use my PD150 all of the time to do timelapses. In FCP, I dige the clip and speed it up 1500% - which takes the 15 frames that are recorded and ends up using only ervery 15th frame. All smooth and very simple to edit. An example can be see at http://www.muteelation.com/video/DonPoe-Coil-WhiteRainbow.mov - about 40% of the way through. This was a fun video I made for no real huge reason.
Re: time lapse by Matte on Oct 13, 2005 at 7:59:54 pm
[Don Poe]"I use my PD150 all of the time to do timelapses."
My response was also in consideration that with film and "BTV" (or similar) capture, you can record for many HOURS, DAYS, even MONTHS, without disturbing the camera.
And that is what's required for many protracted time-lapse events.
(i.e. life of a flower, construction site, seasons changing.)
The multi-frame (rather than single-frame) recordings (which use up the tape at a 15-to-1 faster rate) coupled with the severely limited number of "in-between time" settings on DV camcorders makes them useless for all but relatively short-term time-lapses.
Re: time lapse by Tom Matthies on Oct 14, 2005 at 1:35:31 am
I'm running a Firestore FS-3 disc drive on the back of my JVC-DV700 camera. It has a built-in time lapse record feature that is pretty nifty. You can set it to capture a single frame of video at just about any time interval up to 24 hours. It will grab a series of video frames and save them, as a Quicktime movie (or whatever) to it's removable hard drive. All that is required then, is to simply copy it to your editing computer and import the clip into FCP.
That's all there is to it.
I've used the feature a number of times and got great results without burning up a lot of tape or camcorder heads.
Tom
Re: time lapse by Phil Balsdon on Oct 14, 2005 at 9:19:06 am
Could try iStopMotion.
I've used this successfully but you need to firewire out of the camera into laptop then set your frame rate and record direct to the hard drive and export as Quicktime.
Demo and samples available here; http://www.istopmotion.com/
Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
http://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/
Re: time lapse by Mark Suszko on Oct 16, 2005 at 4:59:05 am
I agree with much of the previous posts, esp. about using stop-motion capture. The cheap cameras fake interlometer settings and grab too many frames: you'd do better shooting normally, and speeding up the playback and perhaps introducing some strobing effects.
I did an article a while back in DV mag on different ways to do timelapse; there are clip-on intervalometers for rent for broadcast cameras, one was for betacams and was the size of a pack of cigarettes, but they aren't too common anymore. If the resolution is not HD-critical, webcams are great for this: Axis makes a webcam that takes decent pics, has a built-in webserver, stores up a bunch of sequentially numbered jpegs then forwards them to your computer, when you just drag them into the timeline, done. This is great for long term projects like construction jobs, long as you can get power and a phone line to the camera.
But to get back to the question, I think the better tool to use is not a camcorder at all, at least not an SD camcorder. A 4 megapixel or better digital stills camera would do this way better, using less power, less accompanying gear, and giving you more resolution, which you can use to add some re-framing, panning and zooming in post if you like. Intervalometers are now pretty common in the better digital stills cams, it's usually a menu setting.
I think it's a Panasonic DVC pro 50 camcorder I saw, takes digital stills, lays them to the removeable flash menory card, then whan that's full, it spins up the tape transport, lays down the grabbed frames to tape, spools down the transport and heads, then blanks the card and continues the process. You could really get a LOT of time lapse on one tape this way!
As to FCP, I'm just a beginner on it, but the latest version of the OS has an automator function on it, I wonder if it couldn't set a chron action to call up the "Log and capture now" box in FCP, while you feed a free-running source tape or live camera feed into it. You'd probably have to treat the setup as an uncontrolled source.
