Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Cinematography smooth timelapse pans and dolly moves

  • smooth timelapse pans and dolly moves

    Posted by Bob Cole on April 5, 2008 at 3:16 am

    Has anybody discovered a nice inexpensive device for:

    (1) smoothly, slowly panning a camera for timelapse?
    (2) smoothly, slowly moving a platform along a dolly track, for timelapse?

    I know there are very expensive devices — I’m looking for that other one that does more than it should. I don’t need anything as sophisticated as motion control plus camera control (i.e. move-stop-shoot- move-stop-shoot).

    Thanks!

    Bob C

    MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
    Kona LHe
    Sony HDV Z1
    Sony HDV M25U
    HD-Connect MI
    Betacam UVW1800
    DVCPro AJ-D650

    Dan Brockett replied 18 years, 1 month ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Jason Jenkins

    April 5, 2008 at 5:29 am

    If you use a digital still camera for the time-lapse you can have enough resolution to pan and zoom in post. Obviously you can’t do dolly moves though…

  • Bob Cole

    April 5, 2008 at 11:30 am

    Absolutely, and I thought that would be enough too, but my cameras are 5 megapixels, and so I can’t really pan and zoom all that much. It does help with the reframing though, because it’s hard to predict the “good parts.” And zooming and pan still seems sort of flat — like zooming and panning stills in After Effects. I would love to add the fluidity of a move to the timelapse.

    MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
    Kona LHe
    Sony HDV Z1
    Sony HDV M25U
    HD-Connect MI
    Betacam UVW1800
    DVCPro AJ-D650

  • Dan Brockett

    April 8, 2008 at 4:12 am

    No cheap way to do real timelapse dolly shots but I recall seeing a bunch of posts a long time ago from guys using telescope motors to pan and tilt their Nikon D80s and getting some pretty awesome footage doing it.

    Can’t recall which of the dozen production sites I frequent that I saw this post on. Just Google “timelapse telescope motors” and see what comes up.

    Dan

    Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy