12 Creative uses of time-lapse photography (and 4 ways to create it)

By admin on June 10, 2008 8:24 AM

1. Track flight patterns

2. Document the reconstruction of a Katrina-ravaged home

3. Capture the excitement of a carnival

4. Watch a fire burn

5. Shorten a cross-country trip to four minutes

6. View the progress of a winter storm

7. Track the activity in a busy parking lot

8. Watch the sun set

9. Journey through the Panama Canal

10. Visualize 8 years of aging

11. View the wonders of underwater sea life

12. Roll out the fog of San Francisco

…and how to create time-lapse photography

• Most newer video camera models have interval recording built into the camera, a detailed rundown of which can be found at Photography Today. Those that don’t can make use of SingleFramer, a free software that captures individual frames from DV cameras, either manually or automatically.

• Time-lapse software Flix is a great option for those projects that can be captured on a webcam (like the winter storm video above). The software is $10 after a trial period and also works with digital cameras.

• Instructables has a detailed description on how to use a graphing calculator to determine mathematically correct intervals to create time-lapse videos from photographs. An example of this method can be found at Digital Photography School.

• If calculators aren’t your speed, the Pclix LT100 works with compatible photo cameras to shoot images at pre-determined intervals, anywhere from 1 second to 100 hours, according to the manufacturer. At $140 plus the cost of cables, the tiny device is a little more expensive than a graphing calculator, but its certainly better for the mathematically challenged.

For more on time-lapse photography, read this previous post or for more inspiration check out the Flickr “timelapse” pool.