time lapse video from DSLR photos

[Mike Kujbida]

The following assumes that each image will only be on screen for 1 frame and then on to the next, etc. as you’ll be creating an image sequence with this method.
Make sure all of them are in the same folder and are sequentially numbered.
File – Import – Media, browse to the folder where the images are, click on the first one in the sequence, click Open still image sequence at the bottom of this window, click Open, make any necessary adjustments in the tab that comes up and click OK.
The sequence will now be sitting in your Project Media waiting to be added to the timeline.

Since these are coming from your DSLR, they’re probably pretty large in size (i.e. pixels).
You may want to re-size them closer to project size so that you don’t put much of a strain on your CPU during rendering.
IrfanView (it’s free) has an an excellent and fast batch re-sizing option.

[Kent Clark]

Thanks for the help Mike, I never knew about that import procedure. Your comment about image size was one thing I was wondering about. The camera is a Canon 30D which produces an image 3504 x 2336 pixels. With Pro 8 I’m not going to be doing HD rendering although this may be a reason to upgrade to Ver 10. Besides the extra load on the PC are there any other reasons why downsizing the image is preferred? I’m thinking that with the larger images I could pan/crop and introduce movement. But my PC is a quad core Intel Q6600 cpu with 4 gb ram running XP Pro 32 bit, that may not be enough to process that many images. Any reason why I couldn’t process smaller chunks of raw material and then stitch those chunks together into the final product?

[Mike Kujbida]

“With Pro 8 I’m not going to be doing HD rendering…”

Why not?

“…although this may be a reason to upgrade to Ver 10.”

Unless there are features in Pro 10 that you really want, just stick with Pro 8.

“…are there any other reasons why downsizing the image is preferred?”

It’s been the experience of some users that letting Vegas do the re-sizing for you (especially on really large images like yours) can result in annoying stair-stepping, especially on straight lines like houses, fences, etc.
Reducing the size of the images blurs them ever so slightly which helps to reduce this problem.

” I’m thinking that with the larger images I could pan/crop and introduce movement.”

There’s no reason why you can’t do this.
Unless you’re doing deep zooms or pans, the usual recommendation is for your images to be no larger than 2X your project size.
For example, if you’re making a DVD (regular, not Blu-ray), down size the images to 1440 x 960 (NTSC).

“But my PC is a quad core Intel Q6600 cpu with 4 gb ram running XP Pro 32 bit, that may not be enough to process that many images”

I have a similar machine with only 2 GB. of RAM and, as long as I don’t have 500 really large images on the timeline, I have no problems doing zooming and/or panning.

” Any reason why I couldn’t process smaller chunks of raw material and then stitch those chunks together into the final product?”

None whatsoever.
This is a recommended process if you start to get complicated/fancy.
When I do grad videos, I break it up into 5 sub-projects.
When it’s time for the final render, I import the 5 veg files (this is called “nesting”), drop them on the timeline and render as desired.
Each veg file imports as a single video track and a single stereo audio track, no matter how many tracks were in the original one.
If you find that you need to edit one of them, right-click it and select Edit in Vegas (ProjectName.veg).
This opens up a new instance of Vegas allowing you to make your changes.
Save and exit and your existing project is instantly updated.

[Kent Clark]

Thanks for taking the time to give such detailed explanations. My remark about Pro 8 was me thinking that HD wasn’t available in that version, but up to now I’ve never used HD so my impression appears to be wrong. I’m not at my editing desk right now, I’ll have to look more carefully once I have a chance. Again, thank you for helping me out.

[Roger Bansemer]

I’ve imported a group of still images and have set the “use custom timecode” box to 00:00:00:01 and the resulting video clip doesn’t seem any shorter than if I set it for 00:00:10:00.
What am I missing?
Thanks as always.
Roger

[Mike Kujbida]

Roger, for that option, the online help menu says “Select this radio button to specify a beginning value for the timecode” which is why it’s not working the way you thought it would.