Quick Guide for Shooting and Processing Time-lapse with DSLR.

This guide is based on using Canon 60D DSLR and Premiere Pro

  Shooting

1. Ensure battery is fully charged and plenty of memory is available.
2. Turn on camera
3. Set the Quality to JPEG (2592 x 1728). This provides for HD video quality plus some “headroom” for cropping.
4. Set the focus to Manual
5. Turn the Image Stabilizer Off
6. Set the White Balance to Manual or an appropriate pre-set (not Auto)
7. Turn the dial to M
8. Place the camera on a solid tripod
9. Remove the lens cover
10. Frame the shot – allow for cropping to 16:9 (see notes)
11. Set the ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed to suit
12. Take some test images and adjust settings to suit (see notes)
13. Attach Intervalometer to camera
14. Set the desired interval (see notes)
15. Press stop/start to start
16. If practical, run a short test, pressing stop/start to finish
17. Review and adjust the interval if necessary, the start again “for real”
18. When the desired time has passed, press stop/start to finish (see time guide)
19. Do not forget to restore settings to “normal”

What Interval?

Most cameras allow intervals to be set from 1 second upward. Ask yourself how much action (time) do want to catch, and how long do you want the final clip to be. Then do the maths.

Time Guide
Interval (seconds)	Frames per minute of shooting	Seconds of playback per minute of shooting	For 10 seconds of playback shoot for (seconds)
1	60	2.4	4.17
2	30	1.2	8.33
5	12	0.48	20.83
10	6	0.24	41.67

Remember, though, that shorter intervals provide faster/smoother output and shorter shooting time, but require more images (and memory). Longer intervals can appear jerky. 

A one second interval may be OK for a sunset (suggested range 1 to 5 seconds), while for a street scene, this might be too fast. For a flower to bloom, you might use intervals of 30 seconds or more (and a good deal of patience).

Processing using video editing application (see notes)

1. Load to computer
2. In video editing program, set length of still images to 1 frame
3. Import the images and place on time-line
4. Open effects for the first image
5. Straighten, crop to 16:9, correct lighting, colour, etc as required.
6. Copy/apply attributes to all other images
7. If multiple sequences are available (EG Premiere Pro), open new sequence and import the previous sequence
8. Adjust timing to suit
9. Render and export.
10. If multiple sequences not available (EG Premiere Elements), and timing is to be adjusted, render and export and then import as a single clip, then adjust timing.

Notes:

• Foliage invariably shows slight jerky movements, even in minimal breeze
• If motion blur is desired (eg car headlights), lower ISO, close down aperture and/or lower shutter speed
• Anticipate changing light conditions and provide “some” adjustment to settings if necessary (eg sunrise/sunset, cloud movements)
• Processing can be accomplished in a variety of photo and video applications, singularly, or in combination. This guide relates to solely using a video editing application.