Timelapse shots have achieved ubiquity, yet it’s still a technique I get asked about on the reg. I’ve touched on the timelapse How-To in past posts, but I’m touching base again with a new look at what has become must-have.
I love using timelapse in my work. Alternating between real time, slo-mo and timelapse contributes to the temporal tug on the viewer, which keeps them present and guessing. Cloud movements and dipping suns over beautiful landscape is the norm, so we’re always looking to change up our style and try something a little different.
Adding camera movement is one way to do that. In the vid above, we use a slider, a motor, and a 5D to pull back and reveal some stunning Icelandic beauty. Keep the last in mind as I break down the equipment we used, because I come back to this again and again: more than the gear in your bag, it’s your vision and execution that matter most. In our case, we had Iceland’s ridiculously photogenic land and light working in our favor. Scouting the site, we found a cool ice formation and decided on a shot you don’t see daily. I’d say the gear we use is secondary. Which is why I’m mentioning it second.
Anatomy of a timelapse:
_Kessler Pocket Dolly v2.0
_Kessler Elektra Drive – set to slowest speed in “continuous mode.” The Elektra drive is the motor that moves the camera up/down the dolly, giving the shot movement.
_Intervalometer – set to shoot a picture every 3 seconds. We let that baby go for about 20 minutes.
Add’l equipment:
_Canon 5D Mark III
_Manfrotto support
_Viking 12 oz
You can see how we integrated timelapse footage into our Iceland edition of chasejarvisRAW. If you want more Iceland in your life, check out some of the stills that convinced us to put Iceland in our list of 10 Spots to restore your creative juices.
Music by Small Face.
The Dynamic Perception products are much better and far cheaper. They also use commonly found aluminum rails that can be used to expand your system, for just a penny to Kessler’s dollar. Taped intervalometer, that’s pretty ghetto. Especially when using a premium priced gadget.
adam. not sure if you’re a pro or just coming up but it’s actually way more common for the pros I know to use things like gaf tape and just get the shot and move on than have some fancy piece of bs gear to do every little thing. that’s just my experience. we have a lot of gear – but little widgets that do thing gaf tape can do are usually a waste of $ and time.
that said – i will check out the Dynamic perception gear. not familiar with it… thx
v cool. couple of tech questions. why did you opt to go with the 5dmk3 being a nikon user, and knowing how the nikon has the sweet built in intervolometer (sp)? not that i’m judging, being that I sold a kidney and bought a 5dmk3 myself 🙂
secondly, what are you using to stitch the images together? there was alot of exposure stepping going on so i wasn’t sure if you just loaded them up in quicktime or used something like LRtimelapse?
thanks again!
The only piece of gear that I can actually afford right now is that can of Viking..
Thanks for posting Chase! I enjoy the behind the scenes 🙂
Looks like there’s a bit of flicker in your shots. As you use a Canon (doesn’t work on Nikon), hold down the DOF preview button, and screw the lens off about 15 degrees. This will lock the aperture at a set value.
Basically the aperture is never exactly the same size between photos, so you end up getting small differences in exposure which cause the flicker.
cool tip – will check it. most often use GoPro these days for timelapse unless cropping needed 😉
or shoot wide open, so there’s no aperture fluctuation… (then you lose on DOF unless that’s the effect you are going for / LRTimelapse can also rescue flickering)
Hey guise, Nikon shooter here. Even if I’m in manual ISO/aperture/shutter I still get some flickering. Any tips?
Try saving it in post. Use a program like LR Timelapse (http://lrtimelapse.com/) to analyse everyshot. The program will mark/highlight the shot’s that stands out, then you bring those to e.g lightroom and fix the exposure settings (check out this tut. -> https://vimeo.com/71484282)
Hope this works out for you man! 🙂
You beat me to it… Arrgh.. 🙂