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time lapse
I did some time lapse of a sunset using my XL2 camera controls, i.e, half a second every 30 secs and the results were dissapointing – jerky, not at all smooth . Any one got ideas how to use FCP to achieve the smoother results.
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12 Replies
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You need to have 1 frame of each half second for a smooth time lapse. Right now you are showing 15 frames and that is why it is jerky.
Does the camera shoot 1 frame at a time? YOu might have to take your shot and ramp up the speed (APPLE-J) and get rid of the extraneous frames.
Or lay down one frame at a time from each 15 frame chunk. But that is tiresome.
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Prosumer Video cameras simply do not have a smooth time-lapse feature.
They can be set to record short SECTIONS of video every few minutes as a “pseudo” time-lapse.But the SMOOTH time-lapse associated with watching clouds speed by, or sports crowds rushing into a stadium, or a flower bud opening… cannot be captured directly to tape by a DV camcorder.
This type of true time-lapse has traditionally been done with FILM as it is a simple matter to expose only ONE FRAME at a time.
In prosumer video, the camera does NOT record a single frame per exposure, but in fact SEVERAL frames (a second or half-second) of standard 30 fps (25 PAL) moving video per “timed” exposure.
And the time BETWEEN these exposures cannot be precisely set (there are but a FEW pre-set times.)All this creates very uneven “pulse-like” time-lapse than, as Shane said, must be carefully EDITED to create a smoother look.
There is a better, more direct way to achieve smooth Time-lapse with a video camera by using computer-capture software like “BTV Pro”
then importing those files into FCP.
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Hi Shane
That sounds a lot of sense – just like real film. Unfortunately the camera does’nt single frame, but I thought there was something in FCP, or at least, a third party application that did the cutting of the frames? Also is smoothing between frames implicated?
Rod
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Shane – Matte
Sorry chaps, reitterating myself. I suspected there was a third party application, but nothing in FCP as such then.
Any ideas on the interference patterns I get on the edges of moving images. Is this a feature of camcorders rather than film.
As you can guess I am new to camcorder technology. Last time my images moved themselves was in the eighties on 16mm.
Rod
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As Matte ssaid, BTVPro does a great job on timee-lapse.
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I use my PD150 all of the time to do timelapses. In FCP, I dige the clip and speed it up 1500% – which takes the 15 frames that are recorded and ends up using only ervery 15th frame. All smooth and very simple to edit. An example can be see at https://www.muteelation.com/video/DonPoe-Coil-WhiteRainbow.mov – about 40% of the way through. This was a fun video I made for no real huge reason.
Don Poe
Mute Elation / People Productions -
[Don Poe] “I use my PD150 all of the time to do timelapses.”
My response was also in consideration that with film and “BTV” (or similar) capture, you can record for many HOURS, DAYS, even MONTHS, without disturbing the camera.
And that is what’s required for many protracted time-lapse events.(i.e. life of a flower, construction site, seasons changing.)
The multi-frame (rather than single-frame) recordings (which use up the tape at a 15-to-1 faster rate) coupled with the severely limited number of “in-between time” settings on DV camcorders makes them useless for all but relatively short-term time-lapses.
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Have to agree, BTV Pro.
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Time lapse aside, BTVPro is an all-around handy little app. Very versatile capture tool, lots of settings to work with.
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I’m running a Firestore FS-3 disc drive on the back of my JVC-DV700 camera. It has a built-in time lapse record feature that is pretty nifty. You can set it to capture a single frame of video at just about any time interval up to 24 hours. It will grab a series of video frames and save them, as a Quicktime movie (or whatever) to it’s removable hard drive. All that is required then, is to simply copy it to your editing computer and import the clip into FCP.
That’s all there is to it.
I’ve used the feature a number of times and got great results without burning up a lot of tape or camcorder heads.
Tom
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