PhotoLapse 3

Time-lapse video can create beautiful scenes that condense hours or days into mere seconds. Shadows drift across skyscrapers at sunset, the moon rises and sets, and morning crowds cross a street en masse.

You could speed up video footage for similar results- but don’t accept that subsitute. Camcorder scenes are limited to the length of a full tape, and they lack much of the aesthetic charm you can create with a well-placed still camera.

First, pick a subject and plan the shot. Consider different scenarios: flowers opening, ice melting, a construction project rising. Such examples will look fluid, but you might also consider scenes without any beginning or ending, like cars alternating at an intersection, children running in a playground, or a snowstorm swirling outside your window. You’ll shoot each frame of the video, so use some simple math to make a plan. It’s a bit involved, but worthwhile.

For smooth motion, aim to capture 30 frames per second. Think about how long you want the final shot to last, and factor in the length of the event. for example, if you want a 10-second video at 30 frames per second, you’ll need to take 300 frames to get the shooting rate (in this case one photo per 0.066 minute). Multiply by 60 to turn that rate into one photo every 4 seconds.

Many cameras have a time-lapse mode that shoots automatically on an interval. Alternatively, you can manually fire the shutter yourself. just be sure to mount the camera on a tripod, and position it out of the way of the action that you’re photographing – you don’t ever want to have to move your camera during the process. To save effort later, set the camera to shoot JPEGs at a resolution of about 1024 by 768 pixels.

Impost the digital images to your computer, and store them in a single folder. Next, download and run the free PhotoLapse 3 which creates .avi movies from collections of .jpg files. Select your folder, and click Load files from current folder. After the app finishes, set the FPS (frame rate) to 30, and click Create Movie.

At the Video Compression prompt, leave the setting at Full frames (Uncompressed) if you’re going to import the video into an editing program. Otherwise, you can reduce the final file here. Click OK. Depending on the number of frames and their sizes, the process could take a few minutes to complete.