Grahame Loc: Fiji

It appears that this may be your first attempt at timelapse and the duration you are intending to record is quite extensive. I would advise that you first undertake an experiment at producing a short 8 second video/200 shot approx trial. There would be nothing more frustrating than shooting thousands of images over a few hours only to find that when producing your movie you got something wrong.

In addition if you can advise what your subject/scene is some additional tips may be possible.

TMcL

I don't have a specific application in mind. It's one of the functionalities of the camera that I have not used, and was curious about.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

The last part is very easy, all you need is to know at what frame rate your video will run, than you can just figure very easily how many pics you need to fill a specific run time!

PercussiveMaintenance

One thing to keep in mind with time lapse, if your lens has a vibration reduction feature, turn it off. With it on your images will shift slightly that will make your video have little jumps.

For length there are calculators out there, but general guidelines if you want smooth video is to figure 30 frames per second. So if you want a 5 minute video it would be 30 x 60 (seconds) x 5 (minutes) = 18,000 images. If you want this to be over 4 hours then 18,000 / 3,600 (seconds in an hour) = 5 seconds between pics.

1DProphet

Variable nd is what you need, use it to control light entering your equipment, you do not have to adjust anything other than the nd to maintain a centered exposure, so your dof (aperture), blur speed (shutter) and iso need no adjustments, when not using automated camera control we always use remote intervalometers so you can bump it to check metering and limit touching the camera other than adjusting the nd to maintain centered exposure, key is to initially adjust your camera for your darkest expected exposure, one helpful tip is to record image number at each nd change, helps if you need to blend out exposure goofs, just keep your meter centered, good luck!

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Whilst this method could be used for reasonably constant bright day light conditions (disregarding the 'movement' risks) I can not see how it could be used at 'sunset' periods. If I was to be initially setting my camera for my darkest expected exposure I would not want to be using the same settings, high ISO for the pre sunset period.

Or am I missing something?

Jesu S

Does this result in 18,000 shutter actuations?

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Yes.

1DProphet

Think about like this, your going to photograph a process being performed on a structures exterior, the structure is lighted at night as many things are, the event requires a 4pm afternoon bright daylight start time and runs around the clock till 10am the next morning , so you’ll encounter bright sun, the golden hour sun, tungsten blue dusk, black of night and back to blue hour and sunrise to harsher morning light, plus you have manage the structures artificial light, sounds impossible, simple as a hand held drive by test shot for the exterior of the structure (your subject) for the worst case dark image settings, then set up your equipment when the day arrives, take a quick shot for daylight, do your math night vs day settings and you’ll have a start point for your nd settings, then as project progresses you watch your meter and slightly advance the nd to lighter settings until it’s wide open allowing for your worst case darkest exposure, as daylight returns reverse the process, this implementation uses no camera setting adjustments, we setup in full manual body and lens once we are ready and never have to touch anything other than the filter, lock down your equipment tight, weight your support equipment, tape your lens, then just set back and monitor the meter, more than a tenth and you’ll have exposure flicker, the nd is infinite where as your camera is thirds at best, for general conversation six to eight stops handle this process, try that with camera adjustments and your client will be in litigation with you, one point to consider is people confuse time lapse and stop motion, they are different and use slightly different techniques, what is written above is something we do every year, it’s a 5 sec rate a will encompass thousands of images, so you want as little adjustment in post as possible, and you don’t want the subject to have any characteristics change. Long winded I know but folks will make things hard in post when they could have it a lot easier, these things are work, don’t short yourself of the enjoyment of the final product.

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

One way to deal with a changing light condition is to use the program, LRTimelapse. This program works in conjunction with Lightroom and generates keyframes that you process in Lightroom and LRTimelapse interpolates between the keyframes to generate files that Lightroom uses to export all the processed files.

Your recording time is 5 hrs x 60 min/hr x 60 sec/min = 18000 sec. For a 10 minute video at 30 frames/sec, you need to record 10 min x 60 sec/min x 30 fps = 18000 frames. This works out that you need to shoot at an interval of 1 sec. The problem is that your video is too long. If you shot even 10 sec, then the number of shots is 5 hrs x 60 min/hr x 60 sec/min / 10 sec = 1800 frame that will last 60 sec at 30 fps.

georgeretired Loc: Manitoba Canada

Nice video....it was a surprise when the second flower opened. Couldn't imagine watching a 10 minute time lapse video unless it was really "neat".

Cheese

You CANNOT shoot a 10 minute time lapse video using a 5D Mark IV. The max number of time lapse shots with a 5D Mark IV is 3600. At 30 fps, this equals a playback time of (3600/30=) 120 seconds, or 2 minutes.

1DProphet

remote intervalometer is what allows open ended capture and gives a mechanism to adjust your nd to keep exposure centered

brontodon

I've always wondered this about timelapses: do you set the camera to autoexposure, which will maintain a constant brightness of the scene, or do you set the exposure to manual, which will allow the images to get brighter or darker as the lighting changes? It seems that the latter approach might result in a more natural-looking video.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

I don't think there is a straightforward answer. What you don't want is 'flicker' in your finished movie and whilst there are programmes to deal with this, e.g. 'LRTimelapse' I suspect as with most photography the aim would be to get the best you can in camera.

For shooting sunsets (from 20 min before to 20 min after) I have used both manual adjustment and auto adjustment for exposure. I found the auto adjustment results were fairly smooth and far quicker to deal with in post but that was for a specific type of scene.

In auto exposure your camera is always going to be attempting to expose at mid grey (loosely used term) so your 'darker' period shots are going to come out overexposed slightly from reality.