Today i have come up with an interesting photography technique named “Time-lapse Photography”. It’s somewhat related to Long Exposure Photography, but here all the individual shots are combined together to form a slow motion video. In Time-lapse Photography, the same subject will be captured which will spread out over a period of time. Each frame thus captured at a slower rate are then smudged together to form a single video.the When the video replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing.

Time-lapse Photography helps you to see the subject which will take much time to complete in a shorter interval of time. For example, If you want to admire the sky from sun rise to sunset, you need not wait till the whole day. With the help of time lapse photography you can create a video of 1 min duration or even less which will cover all the changes occurring during the entire day. Isn’t it interesting to hear? Let me explain you the process of Time-lapse photography step by step.

How it Works?

First of all we need to switch the camera into manual mode. Use your test shots exposure information to set the aperture. Be sure to pick a shutter speed that will give you a good time lapse effect. If you have a shutter speed that is too fast you’ll end up with a choppy looking video. Although based on the subject you are shooting the shutter speed will vary. The length of the event is really a major factor which you must consider while selecting the speed and the number of shots. If the event takes 1 year to complete, then you must try to take few shots with a reasonable number of shots. However if you want to create a smooth and seamless video then the shutter speed must be high.

Set your camera to use JPG and at a size that you think is reasonable. If you don’t it will make your post processing more difficult as you’ll have to convert all your RAW images to JPG and then re-size them. Auto-white balance can change and fluctuate, especially if you’ll be shooting something for a while and the light gets brighter or dimmer over time. Setting it to manual helps ensure all your photos keep reasonably the same look. And also set your camera’s exposure manual as well. Once the camera settings are over, place the camera in a tripod inorder to avoid blur effects. If you don’t have a tripod then make use of some other base supports. Remember while taking the shots, the camera must be stable and fixed without any disturbances to get the perfect effect.

If the time interval of the event is high and you want the camera to make shots automatically then make use of Intervalometers. With an intervalometer (or timer remote controller), you can program your camera to shoot at certain times and at certain intervals such as 1 frame every 5 seconds, 1 frame every minute, and so on. This leaves you free to go do something else, when you’re ready.

Leave the set up undisturbed till the event is finished completely. Once you have finished taking all the images, now import them to a PC and edit the images to adjust the brightness, contrast, size, etc. Inorder to create the video, I suggest you to use Quicktime Movie Pro. QT movie Pro is cheap ($30) and it can provide you all the necessary settings which are needed to produce a perfect video file. Make use of the below tutorial to learn how to create Time-lapse photography better.

How to do Time-Lapse Photography

Here is a tutorial which shows you how to use the camera to take the shots and how to create slow-motion videos. Hope this tutorial would be very useful for all beginners.

Time-lapse Photography Pulse Night shots

Time-lapse photography by Jason C.S. Chen.

Time Lapse Tour of Yosemite National Park

Timelapse tour of Yosemite National Park. See one of my favorite places in the world.Tunnel view, Valley View, Cook’s Meadow, Bridalveil Falls, Nevada Falls, Mist Trail, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, and much more.

Time-Lapse Photography of the German city

Time-Lapse Photography of the German city Stuttgart showing 20 Locations in 24 hours. Shots are taken on the Canon EOS-1D Mark II

Timescapes Timelapse: Mountain Light

These shots are taken during the trip in August to California’s White Mountains and Yosemite, all shot on the Canon 5D2.

Time-lapse Photography : Singapore Awakens

A visual tale of Singapore as it awakens to a new day. Shot with the Canon 5DMKII using Time Lapse Photography, this short film was shot entirely in Singapore during the month of April 2010. During the filming I used a Canon 24mm Shift & Tilt lens, a 100-400mm Zoom, a 24-105mm zoom, a 50mm f1.4 and a Lee 10 stop filter. These filters are glass and while fragile, deliver a really nice clean image with very little colour cast.

The Forest of Dean – Time-lapse 03

Taken in the Forest of Dean January 2010. The time-lapse image was taken over a period of 1 Hour using a Canon 5D still camera. One frame was shot every 30 seconds using a 10 stop filter to give 25 second exposure with 5 second intervals between exposure. The long exposure time was used to try and smooth the effect of the uneven lighting caused by the sun passing behind the trees.

Time Lapse in Motion

Motion Time Lapse Cinematography by Aidan Maguire

Aurora Borealis – Iceland 2010

Time-lapse video of the northern lights.

HDR time lapses in and around Essex

Last year the photographer decided to set himself a bit of a project / challenge – and that was to shoot a series of HDR time lapses in and around Essex. Well, one thing or another got in the way of that project and only part of it was actually completed.

Time Lapse Reel

This is a compilation of some of our Time-Lapse Photography taken in 12 cities in the United States.

Feast of Northern Lights

Most of this is done on Canon 40D but some is done on Canon 400D.
Canon 400D is now preferred camera for time lapse as he only produce medium sized jpg files (easy to process and I get more frames per memory card). Most of these shots were taken with a 15-20sec exposure. He has been doing this for about a year now and he am keen to learn how to get better quality video.

Nuuanu Pali Lookout | Time Lapse HDR

An HDR time lapse video from 318 HDRI images. Soundtrack is “Hale Ipukukui” by slack key guitar master John Keawe.

Diamond Head Time-lapse

Time-lapse shot in Waikiki under the full moon. The long exposures and light from the moon make it feel like daytime. I did a bit of grading in MB Looks to get the cool blues, the gold buildings are pretty close to what they looked like straight out of the camera.

Filmed on Canon 7D, exposures timed with the Satechi Intervalometer. Used the Tokina 11-16 lens for the wide look on this piece.

Mindrelic – time lapse summer/autumn

Tilt Shift Time Lapse Video

This video was created while on a balcony in down town Reykjavik, Iceland for 2 whole hours. 3 different lenses from a Canon 500d were used to shoot this video.

Oh Yeah | Time Lapse HDR

241 bracketed exposures were batch processed into HDRI images in Photomatix. Slideshow created with Memories on TV Pro.

Nature Time Lapse by mockmoon

It is a video dome by Nagano, Gunma and Saitama from Japan using a Nikon D3 Fujifilm S5pro. They have a great use of color and show several beautiful clips of nature. The music really ties this together as well.

Palma de Mallorca’s Bay, a 24 hour Timelapse

I love Timelapse Photography. I especially enjoy looking for the patterns that show up when time appears to be moving faster than usual. I first felt in love with it when I watched the films “Baraka” and “Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance”, where it is used heavily to show everyday life from a different perspective. For some time I wanted to create a Timelapse of Palma de Mallorca’s Bay, in Spain. There’s magic in this Bay and after 24 hours and 4320 photographs, (and a little help from the weather gods!) here’s what came out. Filmed with a Canon DSLR 7D, and a 17-40mm lens. One photo taken every 20 seconds remotely with a intervalometer. Put together in Quicktime Pro, and final edit in Final Cut Pro.

Time-Lapse with Nikon D60 by Inofaith

A time-lapse sequence with my new Nikon D60 SLR camera.

Timelapse Northern Lights And Startrails

A storm on the surface of the sun known as a “coronal mass ejection” pushed billions of tons of superheated gas into the solar system, which is now appearing over some parts of the northern hemisphere in the form of aurora borealis. The Telegraph reports: “Dramatic auroras were seen in Denmark, Norway, Greenland, Germany and across the northern United States and Canada” Tuesday night. Watch in HD! 2900+ still images taken with Nikon D40 through a Sigma 10-20mm f4 lens and nikon 35mm f1.8. I used Camera control pro for some clips, but most of them were taken only using the Nikon ML-L3 remote since D40 doesn’t have a built in intervalometer. One clip is taken in Bergen, Norway, the remaining clips are taken in Levanger, Norway. Some aircraft navigation lights and even a few meteors are captured in this timelapse.

Startrail Timelapse Compilation – Nevada Nights

Here is a short timelapse from stills taken with my Nikon D3 & Nikon D300. The stills from each scene were then combined to create star trails photos.

Any Suggestions?

I hope that i have tried to collect the best Time-lapse Photography available. If I missed any of your works, then do let me know via comments. I will be glad to add your works along with a backlink to your site. At the same time, please use these photography inspirations to make a memorable album cover.