jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, alignment could be a major problem unless the camera was securely mounted on a secure tripod. I've taken dozens of random shots of a structure collapsing outside, but there's no way they could be turned into a time lapse.

Stardust Loc: Central Illinois

Any video software can do this. You can set the time of display (in seconds), than use a Fade Transition between each, 1.5 to 2 seconds is ideal. I do this all the time, export to .wmv or .mp4 video I post on YouTube or can email.

pgiraudin3

Unfortunately, Picasa (no longer supported or available) would do this with a simple request in the menu. All you had to do was select the images you wanted to use and click on enter. I have managed to keep Picasa active on an older computer (and I back it up regularly), and will still upload my photos to it. Picasa made maintaining my photos so easy. They are stored by a title, in chronological order, and you can even do some simple corrections; color, brightness, shadows, crop. Once this computer dies, I will truly miss Picasa.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

If the application provides it, use a fade out and in as the slide/frame transition. That would smooth out the view changes.

Stan

NikonRocks Loc: Sydney

You didn't say what make and model camera you are using to take the time lapse sequence of photos.
As a matter of interest I do use my Nikon D7200 to take a series of time lapse photos. At the end of the series of photos the camera automatically assembles them into a movie which can be played back on the camera and the mov file stored on the card in the second card slot can subsequently be copied ones computer. Just recently I created a time lapse of the light show projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House which featured as part of the VIVID light festival in Sydney over the past fortnight.
I set the camera to take 1 shot every second for 20 minutes. That amounts to 1200 shots. After the last shot fired off, the camera processed the 1200 photos into a mov file in a matter of seconds. The movie when played takes 48 seconds to play back. It is most important to have the camera mounted very securely so that movement between shots is minimised as much as possible if you want quality output.

mikenolan Loc: Lincoln Nebraska

The photos are taken with my iPhone 12 Pro, one per day taken in late afternoon or early evening, so lighting should be similar (depending on cloud cover).

The issue isn't making a slide show, which many packages can do, it's aligning the photos so that there's a smooth flow from one to the next. They're all taken from pretty much the same place and at the same angle, but a simple slide show is noticeably jerky. Photoshop may be the way to go, but I was wondering if there were other packages that could align multiple images to smooth out the flow from one shot to the next.

A separate issue is transferring a large number of photos from the iPhone to a PC, I emailed a few of them to myself to build a simple slide show using Irfanview as a test, but I've got about 30 of them already, and many more to come. Apple seems to make this difficult, though I suspect transferring them to a Mac would be a breeze.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

I think a wooden 4 x 4 would be the ticket. Attach a 6 inch to 10 inch metal spike at the bottom. It should be fastened by solid screws predrilled into the wood to prevent splitting. On the top, mount an Arca Type plate and screw the camera there. Now you have a steady piece of wood inserted into the ground, and at a specific height. You have elimined twist of the variables to a time released photo set. For rain and other precipitation, use a standard umbrella. You could even attach different lenses and color filters to add interest to the series. That is only if you won’t think it would distract. Good Luck!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

The iPhone sends the photos to iCloud Photos. There exists a free program that allows you to access the iCloud from a Windows platform. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283. You have to log in using your iCloud username and password, but you are able to select photos from your iCloud photo album and download them to your Windows computer. When you have multiple images being downloaded they wind up in an iCloud.zip file on your Windows computer, but it's easy to unzip them and place them where you want them. HEIC files are converted to JPEG and MOV.

That gets them onto your computer but you still have to align them. As I said, it's simple in Photoshop but since you don't have Photoshop you will need another solution. I haven't used GIMP in a while, but it's freeware and it's the program I used 20 years ago to learn about layers and masking. GIMP will produce animated gif files that can be used to produce a slideshow, but I don't know if it has the capability of aligning images.

Is there a GIMP user out there who can answer that question?

Of course that means you have to install GIMP and learn how to use it. GIMP has a learning curve you will have to deal with, but when I did it the curve was not as bad as learning Photoshop.

Given a set of photos taken over a month, I suspect you will never be able to eliminate jumpiness entirely since you have to deal with things blowing in the wind and moving around from day to day or just plain background plant growth/decay. And there's also lighting variability due to weather.

mikenolan Loc: Lincoln Nebraska

I like the idea of a fade from one day to the next, that should be something I can do. Because the garden is growing, there SHOULD be differences from one day to the next, that's kind of the point of doing a time-sequence shot. :-)

Stardust Loc: Central Illinois

Yes, and with a fade the slight change in position is not important. Use Fade, not Fade In or Fade Out or you will have darkness between each photo.

steinr98

You probably should use a tripod- you might think you are in the same plane but even with good software it might not be able to match up the photos correctly. You could leave the tripod in position in place and take the camera off if needed- Just a suggestion. Sounds like you need some software classes- You can try U-Tube but it is a learning process- no free lunch in Photography!

steinr98

You probably should use a tripod- you might think you are in the same plane but even with good software it might not be able to match up the photos correctly. You could leave the tripod in position in place and take the camera off if needed- Just a suggestion. Sounds like you need some software classes- You can try U-Tube but it is a learning process- no free lunch in Photography!

mikenolan Loc: Lincoln Nebraska

I'm not sure using a tripod fixes the 'same plane' issue, unless I leave it in place for several months. This is outdoors, would you leave your tripod out in the weather for several months? Would nobody knock into it?

I could hang an iPhone bracket on the side of the garage, I suppose, but that might just get in the way the rest of the time (as would a tripod.)

Setting it up every day is likely to change the angle and placement as much as my holding an iPhone up does. I'm going to try the fade idea, to see if that is a reasonable approach.