shot 24fps-want slomo

[Andrew J. cifelli]

Looking for best results shooting with Varicam time-lapse.
How many frames and how often?

[Gary Adcock]

[rock- paper -scissors- shoot!] “Looking for best results shooting with Varicam time-lapse. How many frames and how often?”

the varicam can only do 10 frame bursts, with the external Hardware FRC you can get down to one frame.

John or C.R may have a better answer.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[John Sharaf]

Rock,

There is no one answer to your question; the proper interval rate is determined by two factors, the ultimate length of the shot you want to create and the period of the action you wish to compress.

For example if you wanted to show a building being built that will take six months (180 days) and you want the shot to last one minute, you’d take one burst of ten frames (the minimum) every three days (presumably at the same time of day so you wouldn’t have to change the exposure).

On the other hand if the action is shorter, say for example, the sun traversing across the cityscape, where the action might take six hours (you begin six hours before sunset) and you want the shot to last 30 seconds (30×60 frames per second) it would be five bursts of ten frames each minute.

One thing to remember is that this type of photography really beats up your camera; the heads are spinning constantly and each burst of recording requires an insert edit where the deck backspaces, and you’ll have a post production chore creating a sequence by pulling one frame from each burst of ten,

I think a more common method these days of accomplishing HD timelapse is with a high quality difital still camera; some of which like the Canon’s have an intervalomenter accessorie. This methos is in many cases more appropriate than leaving $60000 camera mounted and unattended over a long period. Also when long shutter speeds are required, such as doing an interval recording of stars at night, this becomes the only method to do so.

JS

[Gary Adcock]

thanks john

I knew you had more options that I could think of off the top of my head,

I find the P2 cameras interval recording to be simpler to use since it actually can record a single frame at a time.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows