Time-lapse in pils

Everybody knows what a time-lapse video is. Who doesn't probably simply doesn't know that time-lapse is its name.

Anyway, earlier this year I made a video to be shared jst with close friends and relatives. Even though I wasn't completely satisfied with the final result, I got quite some positive feedbacks about the overall outcome.

Leaving aside the subject of the video, but barely speaking about the technique, people were mainly interested into knowing how I made some time-lapse sections. The one that probably impressed people the most was a very short one made in Frankfurt International airport, in the tunnel underneath the runaways.

So, following the question how I made it, I decided to create this very short tutorial based on a bunch of pictures I took while driving between Luxembourg and Italy a while ago.

First of all you should set-up your gear. Some of my first experiments with time-lapse videos were done using my Nikon D3200, but late this summer I got a GoPro Hero3+ just with the intention of making time-lapse footage. Independently of what you use, you’ll have to take many pictures - and I really mean a lot of them! - during a certain time frame of the same subject, or somehow slowly changing your subject.

Consider that one mounting the final video you'll need roughly 25 frame (picture) for each second depending on the framerate you're working with.

So assuming you're making a video with a rate of 30 frames per second, and you want a 2 minutes video, you'll need 3600 pictures.

But when should you take those pictures? Well, it depends on your subject. If it’s something moving very fast you could also take a picture every second, something very slow (like the stars at night) maybe 1 every 20-30 second. Driving around? I usually chose something in between 5 and 10 second.

Ok, so you got all your pictures, and now?

Load them in a video editing software - lately I use for time-lapse video the GoPro software (free for download from GoPro website, very easy to use and works with whatever camera you used for taking your pictures).

And that’s it! The software will make almost everything, you're left with just final retouching and editing!

Easy, isn't it?

Well, then you should still chose the right soundtrack, cut the scenes, mount them properly and so on… but that’s another story!