WACTAC has an event next week called Don’t Sleep on It, taking place during Art-a-Whirl. The gist of the event: over the course of 24 hours different groups of artists will transform a gallery space, destroying and re-building the art many times over the period. At the end of the event, they want to show a time-lapse video of the transformation.
Making a time-lapse movie is not hard. While it can be done using a video camera, it’s easier to use a digital still camera. You take a series of images at predefined intervals and stitch them together using software like After Effects, or, even simpler, Quicktime Pro. We’re using a Canon G10 and the Canon Remote Capture software to take photos every 10 seconds. I set up a test in our office just to make sure it would run correctly and without incident. Here’s the result:
Flickr VideoTaking one photo every 10 seconds over 24 hours generates 8640 frames, creating a video just under 10 minutes long. We may end up dropping every other frame to create a shorter movie. The nice thing about using a digital still camera for this is that it produces a video well beyond even 1080P HD resolution.
In the above video, you can enjoy watching me look up documentation on Django, read a book about symfony, and my be mesmerized by a screensaver.
This is AWESOME. We always outsource our timelapses (expensive) but now I’m inspired to try this out. Maybe I’ll set one up near our office candy bowl….
Comment by Rachel — May 7, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
Looks like great fun! I can’t wait to see the results of the rest of the project. May I be a bit off topic and ask about your vertically oriented external display?
Comment by Martha — May 7, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
@Rachel: Time lapse is super easy to do. An older computer and camera work just fine, which is what I’m using here. Not sure about other brands, but Canon has pretty good support. If you’re on a PC, you might check out PSRemote or DSLRemote Pro, which support Canon cameras too.
@Martha: It’s just a Samsung 21″ Display that has a good viewing angle and can be rotated. I’ve changed the rotation angle in the Displays preferences in OS X. I like it a lot for working on websites. Makes it really nice to have Firefox open 1680px tall, giving plenty of room fore Firebug at the bottom.
Comment by Justin Heideman — May 11, 2009 @ 1:41 am
If you have a mac with a built in iSight camera, another easy way is to use a program called iStopmotion, which gives you good control over things like interval and so forth. I’ve set my macbook on a shelf several times and watched what my dog does at work this way.
Comment by Ryan Lee — May 11, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
How did you use Canon Remote Capture with the G10? this software will not recognize my G10? I am on a Mac. I need to take photos at predefined intervals too, but i can not find a software to allow me to do that.
Any Help will be much appreciated.
Comment by Colton Potter — June 4, 2009 @ 11:12 am
@Colton Potter:
Ack, too many camera names that are all so similar. I actually used a 10D for this test, not a G10. The 10D works great with the Canon Remote capture software. We have a G10, but I did not test it using the canon software. It will work, however, with PSRemote, which runs on a Windows, to do timelapse capturing. In our final test, I ended up using a G9 and a 10D. The G9 ran with a newer version of the Canon Remote capture that came on the CD with the camera. The 10D ran using the old version of Remote Capture. The G10 might come with the same software as the G9, and it might work, but I didn’t test that combo…
Confused enough? Me too.
Comment by Justin Heideman — June 4, 2009 @ 5:27 pm
For my time lapse photos, I use the Canon Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3 which allows me to remotely fire off pictures and the programmed interval. This beats the need to carry around a PC. Check it out, it’s great.
Comment by david — June 5, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
Thanks for sharing this. I have always wanted to do a time lapse video, but never knew how to or what software to use. This is really awesome :)
I have a digital camera, but nowhere as clear as your video. What camera did you use to get such good quality?
Comment by Jose Carrion — July 5, 2009 @ 9:05 am
That’s a great way to document the building of an exhibition! I’ll hunt through our boxes with discarded cameras and see if I can’t find one that works for this. Thanks for the tip.
Comment by Fredrik Skog — August 28, 2009 @ 1:05 am