IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
(music playing)
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Hi there, I'm Tim Grey.
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I'm passionate about photography.
But I'm also passionate about helping
| | 00:10 |
photographers produce better images.
I do this through workshops around the
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world, a variety of books and magazine
articles, and also a number of different
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video training titles with the help of
Video to Brain.
| | 00:21 |
In this particular video training title,
I'll guide you through the concepts
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related to time-lapse photography.
Time-lapse photography is interesting
| | 00:28 |
because it's a hybrid between still
photography and video.
| | 00:31 |
We're capturing still photographs, but
then using those photographs to create a
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final video that's the method for sharing
our time lapse.
| | 00:38 |
The core concept of time lapse relates to
time compression.
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We're taking a relatively large amount of
time and compressing it down into a
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relatively short video.
In time lapse photography, we're using
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the tools that you probably already have
in your camera bag: a camera, lenses, a
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cable release, preferably with an
interval timer function, but the key is
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knowing how to use these tools properly
for time lapse.
| | 01:01 |
We'll start this course with a look at
the tools that you'll use in time-lapse
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photography and how you'll best put them
to use.
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We'll explore a variety of different
concepts to help ensure you have a solid
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foundation on which to build.
We'll then move on to a series of
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time-lapse projects.
We'll photograph some fast-moving
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subjects, some relatively slow-moving
subjects, and we'll even take an
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opportunity to do a time-lapse on the
move, where the camera itself is moving
| | 01:23 |
through a scene.
One of the things I find most interesting
| | 01:27 |
about time lapse photography is that you
never really know what you're going to
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end up with.
You can take the time and care to set
| | 01:33 |
everything up perfectly, but you really
can't predict what's going to happen in
| | 01:36 |
front of the lens once you start
recording the frames of your time lapse.
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I encourage you to embrace this adventure
and have fun as you explore time lapse photography.
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|
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1. Getting Started with Time-Lapse PhotographyEquipment for time-lapse photography| 00:01 |
As we get started on this video training
course, I wanted to take a moment to show
| | 00:04 |
you the tools I'll be using in the
projects that we'll work on together.
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Chances are you already have all or most
of these tools in your camera bag.
| | 00:12 |
Being photography, of course, we'll start
with a camera and a lens.
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And in time-lapse photography, you can
really put just about any lens to use
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that you like, wide angle, telephoto.
Anything can be employed, if it's a good
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photograph, it can probably become a good
time-lapse video.
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We also want to make sure that that camera
has plenty of power.
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And that means carrying spare batteries
and making sure your batteries are fully charged.
| | 00:36 |
In some situations, you might even want
to use an adapter, so that you can
| | 00:38 |
literally plug your camera into the wall,
so you have continuous power available.
| | 00:43 |
I also encourage you to carry plenty of
digital media cards so that ideally for
| | 00:46 |
each time-lapse you record you can start
with a fresh card.
| | 00:50 |
It's not mandatory, but it's very helpful
from an organizational perspective.
| | 00:54 |
One tool that you might not think about
carrying in your camera bag is tape.
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Ideally, masking tape or painter's tape
so that it won't leave residue and this
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can be used to tape up the lens so that
the zoom setting and focus won't change
| | 01:04 |
throughout the recording of your time
lapse captures.
| | 01:09 |
One tool that's especially valuable for
time-lapse photography is a cable release
| | 01:12 |
with an interval timer function.
Some digital cameras have an interval
| | 01:16 |
function built in to them, but if not,
this cable release can be very, very valuable.
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It allows you to program how many
seconds, or minutes, or hours you want to
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interval between individual frames in
your time-lapse.
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It automates the process of capturing
those images.
| | 01:30 |
You could also use a computer for that
purpose.
| | 01:33 |
I could connect the camera via USB
directly into my computer, and then, use
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software to actually trigger the camera.
That obviously requires, in most cases,
| | 01:41 |
that you have a power source.
In other words, that you're photographing indoors.
| | 01:44 |
But that is another option available to
you for time-lapse photography.
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Because time-lapse photography involves
capturing a series of frames from a fixed
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position, at least in most cases, it's
also very important that we utilize a tripod.
| | 01:56 |
It provides a stable platform from which
to photograph the frames in our time-lapse.
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And also helpful is a backpack or a bag
of some sort.
| | 02:04 |
Obviously, it's helpful just to put all
of our equipment and carry it around.
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But this can also be hung from the center
post of that tripod to help ensure an
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even more stable platform for the
time-lapse photography.
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So now that you have an idea of the
equipment that I'll be putting to use,
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we're ready to get started on our
time-lapse projects.
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| Finding a time-lapse subject| 00:01 |
As photographers, we tend to always to be
on the look out for a good photographic subjects.
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And that habit will most certainly serve
you well when it comes to time-lapse photography.
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But time-lapse photography is actually a
little bit unique.
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You do want a subject that is good
photogenically.
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In other words, a time-lapse scene that
would look good as a still photograph.
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But you also need to think about the
element of time, since we're capturing
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images over a period of time.
And then compressing those into a final
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time-lapse video.
Sometimes, great time-lapse subjects
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won't be entirely obvious.
For example, I'm standing before a
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beautiful mountain scene.
I've got the sun casting shadows across
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the face of the mountain and some really
nice clouds developing above the mountains.
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When you stand here looking at the scene,
it doesn't' seem like anything's moving.
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But of course over a period of time,
those clouds will develop and possibly dissipate.
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The shadows will continue to move across
the face of the mountain.
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We'll see a lot of change over time.
You need to think about this time element
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when looking for great time lapse
subjects.
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Sometimes the change in the subject will
be very, very obvious.
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It's a fast moving scene for example.
And other times, it won't be quite as apparent.
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The key is to think both about the
aesthetics of the scene as a
| | 01:06 |
photographer, but also about the time
lapse element, about the change over time
| | 01:10 |
in that scene.
By focusing on both the subject and the
| | 01:15 |
time element, you'll be able to produce
great time lapse video's.
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| Why not just speed up video?| 00:01 |
Considering that the final result of time
lapse photography is a video file, you
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might wonder why you would capture
individual frames as photographs rather
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than just capturing video in the first
place.
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It's a good question but there actually
some very good reasons that you'll want to
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capture individual frames rather then
video.
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Today's digital SLR cameras, of course,
do enable you to capture video, and it is
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possible in post processing to drop
frames.
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So, for example, we would usually record
video at 30 frames per second, but if you
| | 00:27 |
were using a one-second interval we could
certainly adjust the video after the fact
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so that we only have a video with one
frame per second.
| | 00:35 |
And that would give you the same effect
as a Time-Lapse.
| | 00:38 |
However, with a digital SLR, you're
usually limited in terms of how long a
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video you can record.
In my case, for example, my limitation is
| | 00:45 |
a ten-minute video clip, which might work
for some time lapses, but not for most.
| | 00:50 |
I also don't want to deal with those very
large file sizes.
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If I'm capturing a video at 30 frames per
second, and ultimately only using one
| | 00:57 |
frame per second, I'm creating a file
that's 30 times larger than I need it to be.
| | 01:03 |
And even if I were capturing at 15 frames
per second, that's still 15 times more
| | 01:06 |
information then I really need.
And it's more work to deal with in post processing.
| | 01:12 |
With a digital OSR, capturing individual
frames, I can also utilize some very nice lenses.
| | 01:17 |
And that helps to improve the file
quality.
| | 01:19 |
Although, of course, the way we typically
share videos usually that higher
| | 01:22 |
resolution and quality, is really not
that big an advantage.
| | 01:26 |
So, you might think about getting a
full-fledged video camera, so that you
| | 01:29 |
don't have that 10-minute video clip
limitation, for example.
| | 01:32 |
But then you've got an additional piece
of equipment, a relatively expensive and
| | 01:35 |
bulky piece of equipment that you'd have
to carry around with you.
| | 01:39 |
And not necessarily the ideal optics,
relative to what you might use on a
| | 01:42 |
digital SLR.
So, even though the final result is
| | 01:46 |
video, in most cases, it's really best to
make use of a digital SLR to capture the
| | 01:50 |
individual frames and assemble them
later.
| | 01:54 |
It just makes a lot more sense in terms
of the economics of those file sizes, and
| | 01:57 |
the cost of your equipment
| | 02:00 |
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| Time-lapse calculations| 00:01 |
At the heart of time lapse photography is
the concept of time compression.
| | 00:05 |
We're taking a relatively long period of
time and compressing it down to a
| | 00:07 |
relatively short period of time.
And how we approach that depends upon the
| | 00:11 |
particular subjects that we're
photographing.
| | 00:14 |
It might be a fast moving subject such as
bicycles going by on a path or a
| | 00:17 |
relatively slow-moving subject such as
the shadows moving very slowly across a
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landscape as the sun transitions across
the sky.
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That means we're going to have to do a
little bit of math and so I like to use a
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notepad just to make some notes and to
help do the math and figure out what my
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interval should be.
For the time lapse in other words how
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frequently am I capturing the individual
frames that will be assembled in to the
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final video.
There are essentially two ways that you
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might approach this.
The first is to think about a particular
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period of time that you might want to
represent.
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With the shadows here for example they're
moving very, very slowly so maybe I want
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to cover the transition across a period
of about three hours.
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Well if I'm trying to put three hours'
worth of time and compress it into, let's
| | 00:59 |
say, about 30 seconds' worth of video.
So let's take a look at what that math
| | 01:03 |
might look like.
If I want to compress three hours into 30
| | 01:06 |
seconds, I can take my three hours And I
will multiply that by the number of
| | 01:09 |
minutes in an hour; that's 60, of course.
And that gives me a total of 180 minutes
| | 01:15 |
during which I'll be recording my time
lapse.
| | 01:18 |
I then need to convert that into seconds,
so 180 minutes Times 60 seconds per
| | 01:22 |
minute, gives me a total of 10,800
seconds in the period that I'm going to
| | 01:26 |
be recording.
I now want to figure out how many seconds
| | 01:31 |
per image.
So I can figure out the interval.
| | 01:34 |
So 10,800 seconds of time that I'm going
to be recording, and I want to compress
| | 01:38 |
that into 30 seconds, and that means that
I'm going to need to record an image
| | 01:42 |
every 360 seconds.
Of course my intervalometer doesn't let
| | 01:48 |
me set an interval of 360 seconds so I
need to figure out how many minutes that
| | 01:51 |
might be.
Fortunately the math is very easy in this case.
| | 01:55 |
I can take my 360 seconds, divide that by
60 seconds in a minute.
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And I come up with my six minute
interval.
| | 02:02 |
So for this situation if I'm capturing a
three hour time lapse to compress into
| | 02:06 |
thirty seconds with the shadows moving
across the landscape, then I would use an
| | 02:10 |
interval of six minutes.
One capture every six minutes.
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Of course in some cases, my interval is
really dictated by the subject.
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With a fast moving subject for example, I
might need to use a 1 second interval,
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there just might not be any other option,
if I want a relatively fluid final result.
| | 02:28 |
So, now I need to think about how long
will I record my time-lapse in order to
| | 02:32 |
produce, let's say 60 seconds, in the
final video.
| | 02:36 |
So, if I'm capturing at one frame per
second, and we'll multiply that by 60
| | 02:39 |
seconds in a minute, that means I'm
capturing 60 frames per minute.
| | 02:45 |
And of course, I'm going to produce my
final time-lapse at a rate of about 30
| | 02:48 |
frames per second, so 60 frames per
minute divided by the 30 frames per
| | 02:51 |
second in the final result.
That means, that every two seconds in the
| | 02:57 |
final time-lapse video represents a full
minute in real life.
| | 03:02 |
Of course, the problem we might run in
to, when the interval is really dictated
| | 03:05 |
by the subject, is not recording for long
enough.
| | 03:09 |
For example, if we were to only capture
for five minutes at a one second
| | 03:12 |
interval, that might feel like a long
time when you're standing there letting
| | 03:15 |
your camera do all the picture taking for
you, but that actually only translates
| | 03:18 |
into a 10-second video in your final time
lapse.
| | 03:23 |
Sometimes of course you might come upon a
scene where there's something really
| | 03:25 |
exciting happening and you're eager to
get started recording the time lapse.
| | 03:29 |
In that situation, go ahead and get
everything set up.
| | 03:32 |
Use a 1 second interval.
It's always a safe bet.
| | 03:34 |
We can remove frames later if need be.
And then take the time to do the math
| | 03:38 |
while the images are being captured.
You're just waiting for the camera to do
| | 03:41 |
all the work.
So you can spend a few minutes
| | 03:43 |
determining how long you should expose
that particular time lapse for.
| | 03:48 |
Even if math isn't your favorite subject,
it really pays to take some time, do the
| | 03:51 |
calculations, to help ensure that your
time lapse will be of an appropriate
| | 03:55 |
duration and with a good interval.
| | 03:58 |
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| Power considerations| 00:01 |
In many respects, time-lapse photography
is just photography.
| | 00:03 |
Certainly, the final result is a video,
but we're capturing the individual frames
| | 00:07 |
for that video with our camera.
The trick with time-lapse photography is
| | 00:12 |
that we're capturing a lot of frames.
In many cases, thousands of frames.
| | 00:16 |
And sometimes, even tens of thousands of
frames, depending on you particular aim
| | 00:19 |
for a given situation.
And that means, we need to really think
| | 00:23 |
about battery life.
We need a lot of power to operate the
| | 00:25 |
camera for an extended period of time.
Now, part of that is just understanding
| | 00:29 |
the behavior of your camera.
You need to understand how many frames
| | 00:32 |
you can capture under typical
circumstances before you deplete the battery.
| | 00:37 |
And of course, in some circumstances,
you're going to deplete that battery much
| | 00:39 |
more quickly.
For example, when it's very cold, the
| | 00:42 |
battery is not going to last anywhere
near as long.
| | 00:45 |
Most of the time, I actually get by with
a single battery without any difficulty
| | 00:48 |
at all.
But I do make sure that that battery is
| | 00:51 |
fully charged.
So I'll charge the batteries overnight,
| | 00:54 |
but I also carry along at least one spare
battery.
| | 00:58 |
Of course, if my interval is very short,
I might not be able to swap the batteries
| | 01:01 |
out too quickly, but if the interval is
longer, I'll probably have plenty of time
| | 01:04 |
to switch batteries in between.
But even with the one second interval,
| | 01:08 |
you can switch that battery relatively
quickly without too much trouble even if
| | 01:11 |
you do miss a frame or two in between.
Of course, you'll need to keep in mind in
| | 01:16 |
that case, that you're going to need to
restart the capture on the camera.
| | 01:19 |
Another option is to make sure that you
have a little bit of extra power
| | 01:23 |
available and using a battery grip
provides exactly that benefit.
| | 01:27 |
With a battery grip, we typically have
two batteries, for example, so I've got
| | 01:31 |
double the power.
My camera will be able to capture images
| | 01:34 |
for a longer period of time.
Of course, if we're capturing over a very
| | 01:38 |
extended period of time.
Let's say for example you are
| | 01:41 |
photographing a flower blooming.
Well, that might take for example a week
| | 01:45 |
in order to capture the entire process,
and so that really requires a lot of time.
| | 01:50 |
It's not just about how many frames we're
capturing now, but how long the camera is
| | 01:53 |
actually going to be turned on.
For that type of situation, we can use a
| | 01:57 |
power adapter, for the camera.
So I'll insert the adapter, it's
| | 02:01 |
essentially a battery replacement.
I'll put it right into the battery slot,
| | 02:04 |
weaving the cable out the outside here.
And then I can close that battery door.
| | 02:10 |
And now, I have a power plug for the
camera.
| | 02:13 |
I can literally just plug the camera into
the wall.
| | 02:15 |
Of course, here in the outdoors that's
not going to do me very much good, unless
| | 02:18 |
I've got a generator or an extension cord
that I can plug into a nearby building.
| | 02:23 |
But in situations where you need to
operate that time-lapse over an extended
| | 02:26 |
period of time, over many hours, or even
days, or weeks, you'll need to have that
| | 02:29 |
additional power source, so that's a
very, very important consideration.
| | 02:34 |
But overall, it's simply important to
think about power with time-lapse photography.
| | 02:39 |
We're capturing many frames possibly over
an extended period of time and that
| | 02:42 |
requires a lot of power for the camera.
So think about those batteries, make sure
| | 02:46 |
the batteries are charged, utilize a
battery group if possible.
| | 02:50 |
Or, in circumstances where you're using
an extended time-lapse, make sure to have
| | 02:53 |
a power adapter for your camera.
| | 02:55 |
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| Setting up the tripod| 00:01 |
In Time Lapse photography our final
result is actually a video, but we are
| | 00:04 |
capturing the individual frames of that
video using a camera.
| | 00:08 |
Generally speaking video will be played
back at about 30 frames per second, so we
| | 00:12 |
are going to capture each frame
individually.
| | 00:15 |
Videos actually consisting of still
frames, they are just captured in rapid succcessions...
| | 00:20 |
We want to capture those images from a
very stable platform.
| | 00:23 |
Obviously if we're presenting the final
result as video we don't want to have
| | 00:26 |
that video bouncing all around, generally
speaking at least.
| | 00:30 |
There's certainly some exceptions, but
that means that we're going to want to use a tripod.
| | 00:34 |
In order to provide a stable platform for
the Time Lapse photography, so I'm going to
| | 00:37 |
go ahead and extend the tripod legs here
starting at the top and working my way
| | 00:41 |
down, and only raising the tripod as much
as I actually need to.
| | 00:46 |
In this particular case I'm not really
capturing a Time Lapse video, I'm just
| | 00:49 |
demonstrating the tripod use here...
And so I don't need to worry aobut
| | 00:53 |
exactly how high its going to be.
I'm just going to set it up conveniently for
| | 00:56 |
me but we want to think about the height
of the tipod both in terms of composition
| | 01:00 |
for the time lapse but if we reduce the
height of the tripod if we keep it at a minumum.
| | 01:06 |
Then we're going to have a more stable
platform, the higher we get the more we
| | 01:09 |
might have some motion and that also
holds true for the center post.
| | 01:13 |
I can raise my tripod up with the center
post to get it even higher if need be but
| | 01:17 |
that makes the tripod even less stable.
Its a little bit more susceptible to motion.
| | 01:22 |
So best not to raise the center post if
you can avoid it.
| | 01:25 |
So I'm going to go ahead and keep that
center post down.
| | 01:27 |
I use a ball head on top of the tripod.
It gives me a lot more flexability when
| | 01:31 |
adjusting the composition of the image.
So I'll get adjusted here and go ahead
| | 01:36 |
and mount the camera onto the tripod.
And of course then I could fine tune my
| | 01:40 |
composition adjusting the position of the
camera as needed and then locking it down
| | 01:44 |
very firmly.
This ball head includes the ability to
| | 01:48 |
pan the camera.
So I'm going to want to make sure to lock that
| | 01:51 |
down as well once I'm set up in position.
I really just want everything locked down
| | 01:56 |
as tightly as possible so there's no
movement at all from frame to frame in
| | 01:59 |
that time lapse.
Another thing I can do to really help
| | 02:02 |
make sure I have a stable platform is to
hang a backpack or another relatively
| | 02:05 |
heavy weight from the hook on the center
post of the tripod.
| | 02:10 |
So that gives a much more stable
platform, it helps ensure there's going
| | 02:12 |
to be no movement at all in the camera as
it's capturing the frames of the time lapse.
| | 02:17 |
To really make sure that there's no
movement in between frames though I also
| | 02:20 |
need to think about the physical
securities of that tripod setup.
| | 02:24 |
I might want to think about the weather if
there's any chance of rain maybe have an
| | 02:27 |
umbrella handy for example but then
moving about very carefully once I've
| | 02:29 |
started the time lapse recording I want to
make sure that I don't accidentally kick
| | 02:32 |
a tripod leg.
And I also want to be aware if there's
| | 02:36 |
anyone around me that might walk by the
tripod that they are not going to
| | 02:39 |
accidentally kick the legs of the tripod
or otherwise disturb the position of the camera.
| | 02:44 |
So really think about all the things that
you can do to help ensure the most stable
| | 02:48 |
platform possible for your time lapse
captures.
| | 02:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Camera settings| 00:01 |
With time-lapse photography, it's very
important that we think about the
| | 00:04 |
settings we're using on the camera.
Those settings will be quite different
| | 00:07 |
from what we might use for a more
traditional photograph.
| | 00:10 |
We're capturing lots of images and there
are several factors we'll want to take
| | 00:13 |
into account there.
One of the things I'd like to do when
| | 00:16 |
capturing a time-lapse, is to use a brand
new card.
| | 00:19 |
Well, I don't mean going out and buying a
new card just for the time-lapse, but one
| | 00:22 |
that's empty, with no pictures on it.
Probably, you've already been taking
| | 00:26 |
other pictures whatever it is you're
going to capture a time-lapse.
| | 00:29 |
And so, I'm going to take that card out.
I'll put it back into my card wallet.
| | 00:33 |
Now, I actually try to stay very
organized with my compact flash cards.
| | 00:36 |
So, a card that has the label facing
outward is one that is empty, that's
| | 00:40 |
ready to be used.
A card that has the label backwards, I'm
| | 00:43 |
looking at the backside of it, is one
that has been filled up.
| | 00:47 |
And for one that's used, but not yet
full, I'll put it with the label outward,
| | 00:51 |
but at a 90 degree angle.
The card is a little bit longer in one direction.
| | 00:55 |
And so, that gives me a very clear
indication of whether I've used the card,
| | 00:58 |
and whether there's still space on that
card.
| | 01:01 |
So, with my empty card inserted into the
camera, I'm ready to take a look at the
| | 01:05 |
other settings for the camera.
I'm going to take a look at the menu
| | 01:10 |
settings here, and the first thing I'm
going to do is reformat the card.
| | 01:14 |
Even though the card's empty, I like to
reinitialize it, just to make sure.
| | 01:18 |
So, I'll go ahead and reformat that card.
I'm also going to reset the file
| | 01:21 |
numbering, of course, each image have a
unique serial number essentially, a
| | 01:25 |
number associated with that file name.
And I want it to start with number one,
| | 01:29 |
so that it's very clear where the
time-lapse begins and ends, rather than
| | 01:32 |
having the numbering potentially cycling
past one in the middle of the time-lapse.
| | 01:37 |
So, I will reset the file numbering on
the camera.
| | 01:40 |
And I also want to think about the file
format that I'm using.
| | 01:43 |
Generally speaking, I'm always shooting
in raw, but with time-lapse photography
| | 01:47 |
there's really no need.
There's not really any benefit to
| | 01:50 |
capturing in raw, considering the
settings that we'll otherwise be using
| | 01:54 |
for the exposure, for example.
So, I'm going to set the quality setting
| | 01:58 |
to only JPEG and with raw turned off.
So, I'll only be capturing a JPEG.
| | 02:03 |
And I'm actually using the smallest size.
This camera happens to be capable of 18
| | 02:07 |
megapixels, a relatively high resolution.
I don't need all of that resolution for a
| | 02:12 |
video, and that's the way the final
time-lapse is going to be shared.
| | 02:15 |
So, I can actually got to the smallest
JPEG size, but I will choose the higher
| | 02:19 |
quality option.
So, for me that small fine as the JPEG
| | 02:23 |
setting, and that takes care of the
overall camera settings.
| | 02:27 |
So once again, using a clean card, one
that has no images on it, reformatting
| | 02:31 |
the card and resetting the file
numbering, and then setting my capture
| | 02:34 |
mode to be JPEG, rather than raw.
| | 02:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The case for manual exposure| 00:01 |
I'm a big fan of the automatic functions
that are available to us in today's
| | 00:04 |
digital cameras.
For example auto focus, for me is a
| | 00:08 |
tremendous asset.
Even in situations where I want to fine
| | 00:11 |
tune using manual focus, auto focus helps
me get the job done faster.
| | 00:15 |
And so, I also like using some of the
automatic exposure modes.
| | 00:19 |
Aperture priority happens to be my
favorite exposure mode on the camera, but
| | 00:22 |
when it comes to time lapse photography I
almost always shoot in Manual mode, and
| | 00:25 |
it's actually very important in terms of
producing a good result with the final
| | 00:29 |
time lapse video.
In a situation like this, for example,
| | 00:33 |
the light could be changing relatively
quickly.
| | 00:36 |
This is late afternoon light, the shadows
are increasing across the landscape, but
| | 00:40 |
even in situations where the light seems
to be very static, you'd be surprised how
| | 00:43 |
much things can actually change.
And also how much the camera might be
| | 00:48 |
tricked by subtle variations in the
scene.
| | 00:51 |
Just to give you one example, I'm going
to meter over to the side here, and, at,
| | 00:55 |
an ISO setting of 400 And with an
aperture of F8, I'm getting a reading of
| | 00:58 |
about an 80th of a second as the proper
exposure.
| | 01:03 |
But that's just pointing right to the
grass here.
| | 01:06 |
I'm going to use the back of the display
here.
| | 01:08 |
I've got my info displayed on the LCD and
I'm going to make this minor adjustments in
| | 01:11 |
my position, essentially simulating the
concept of those shadows shifting across
| | 01:15 |
the landscape as I'm taking my pictures.
So, at the point here, I'm pointing the
| | 01:20 |
camera in areas mostly And shade.
And I'm getting a reading of f8 at 1 100
| | 01:26 |
25th of a second.
If I move the camera over just slightly.
| | 01:30 |
I get 1 25th of a second, 200th of a
second, 250th of a second.
| | 01:35 |
Just rotating a few degrees.
Getting a little bit more Sun.
| | 01:38 |
Now, obviously I'm metering off grass in
a relatively small area, but across the
| | 01:42 |
larger landscape that'll happen as well.
The clouds could come through and change
| | 01:46 |
the lighting.
You could get shadows moving across the landscape.
| | 01:49 |
Even something as simple as a bird flying
through the frame, if it's relatively
| | 01:53 |
close to the camera, that can change how
the metering is being read.
| | 01:57 |
In other words, how the camera is going
to adjust that exposure.
| | 02:00 |
In the Final time-lapse video, what that
translates into is a flickering result.
| | 02:05 |
As the camera makes minor adjustments to
those exposure settings, when you're
| | 02:08 |
using an automatic exposure mode, you're
going to see lightening and darkening
| | 02:12 |
from frame to frame.
The problem is, because we're capturing
| | 02:16 |
an image and then displaying it at 30
frames per second, we're going to see that
| | 02:19 |
happening as a very rapid fluttering, a
very rapid flickering of light and dark.
| | 02:24 |
And that can be very, very distracting.
So, in almost all cases, I'll use a,
| | 02:28 |
manual exposure, finding a setting that
will work best.
| | 02:32 |
Under changing lighting conditions, that
can be a little bit of a challenge, but
| | 02:35 |
it's still going to produce the best results
for your time lapse.
| | 02:39 |
Of course, there are situation where
you'll want to use an automatic exposure
| | 02:42 |
mode rather than manual.
That does mean your going to see some
| | 02:45 |
flicker in your time lapse video, but if
your photographing a sun rise or a sun
| | 02:48 |
set, or if your photographing a time
lapse on the move, where your changing
| | 02:51 |
your angle to the sun rather
dramatically, you might need to settle
| | 02:54 |
for that automatic exposure mode, in
order to insure a good exposure thorughout.
| | 03:00 |
Just bear in mind, that if you do use an
automatic exposure mode for capturing the
| | 03:04 |
frames of your time lapse, you'll likely
see some significant flickering in your video.
| | 03:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exposure settings| 00:01 |
Achieving optimal exposure is important
in all forms of photography, but it takes
| | 00:04 |
on particular importance with time-lapse
photography.
| | 00:08 |
That's in large part because the light
can change over time, and in fact the
| | 00:11 |
subject may change over time.
For example, in this case I have a
| | 00:15 |
situation where the sun is casting light
through the trees putting shadows onto
| | 00:18 |
the grass down below.
And as the sun changes position relative
| | 00:22 |
to the trees, those shadows are going to
move across the ground.
| | 00:26 |
That could cause a challenge in terms of
exposure, if I were using an automatic
| | 00:29 |
exposure mode.
The metering would change based on the
| | 00:32 |
amount of shadow in the scene for
example.
| | 00:35 |
I can overcome that by using a manual
exposure mode, but I also need to think
| | 00:38 |
about the particular settings that I'm
using.
| | 00:41 |
As that light changes, I might get a
darker scene, for example.
| | 00:45 |
So I need to anticipate the change.
If things were getting brighter, I might
| | 00:48 |
need to start off with a relatively dark
scene, anticipating the brightening of
| | 00:51 |
the scene; but in this case, it would
probably get darker.
| | 00:55 |
So maybe I start off with something
that's a little bit too bright, so that
| | 00:57 |
as it darkens, it's still going to work out
pretty well, as far as the overall
| | 01:00 |
average exposure.
I also need to think about persistence of vision.
| | 01:06 |
For this particular scene, that's not an
issue, but the way the human eye works,
| | 01:09 |
we actually don't see moving subjects as
crisp detail; we see it a little bit blurred.
| | 01:15 |
We can preserve that effect by using a
moderately slow shutter speed; not too
| | 01:19 |
slow, but slow enough that we get a
little bit of blur in the subject.
| | 01:23 |
Of course, you need to consider whether
or not the subject would really be
| | 01:25 |
perceived as blurring.
If the subject is moving very, very
| | 01:28 |
slowly, such as these shadows moving
across the grass, That's certainly not an issue.
| | 01:33 |
So it's usually just for subjects that
are moving quite quickly.
| | 01:35 |
The key is to really think about the
exposure settings you're using.
| | 01:39 |
Use a manual exposure mode, think about
how the light is going to change over
| | 01:43 |
time and how that will affect the
exposure, and also consider the specific
| | 01:46 |
aperture and shutter speeds that you're
using as you're capturing the frames in
| | 01:49 |
your time lapse.
| | 01:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Autofocus and stabilization| 00:01 |
Auto Focus and Stabilization Features on
your lens are incredibly valuable for
| | 00:04 |
photography when you're on the move, as
you change you're framing, follow a
| | 00:07 |
subject, whenever things are changing
fairly quickly, those features can really
| | 00:11 |
be very, very helpful and help ensure
that you'll get much better photographs.
| | 00:16 |
But with time-lapse photography, they can
actually be a little bit of a problem.
| | 00:20 |
Auto Focus, for example, is great for
getting your initial focus setup, but you
| | 00:23 |
don't want your focus changing from
frame-to-frame in your time-lapse.
| | 00:27 |
And Stabilization Features are obviously
very helpful when you're handheld, in particular.
| | 00:32 |
But when you're on the tripod, they can
sometimes be problematic.
| | 00:35 |
And because of the way they shift the
framing inside the lens, they can also
| | 00:38 |
cause subtle shifts in the time-lapse
video.
| | 00:41 |
So, I certainly recommend turning off the
Auto Focus and Stabilization Features on
| | 00:45 |
your lens before starting to capture the
frames of your time-lapse.
| | 00:49 |
Certainly, put the Auto Focus to use if
you prefer, in initially setting up,
| | 00:52 |
getting that focus setup for your
composition from the start.
| | 00:56 |
But then, before you start capturing,
turn off the Auto Focus feature on the
| | 01:00 |
lens, and also, turn off that Image
Stabilization.
| | 01:03 |
Even if you're using a lens that supports
a tripod use with that stabilization
| | 01:06 |
feature or that has a specific mode
intended for tripod use, I do recommend
| | 01:10 |
leaving that turned off, just to avoid
any shimmy in the final result.
| | 01:15 |
So, even though these features, Auto
Focus and Stabilization are very valuable
| | 01:19 |
in a wide range of photographic
applications, when it comes to time-lapse
| | 01:22 |
photography it's best to leave those
features turned off.
| | 01:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Taping up the lens| 00:01 |
In most cases with time-lapse
photography, we're capturing the same
| | 00:04 |
scene from the exact same location using
all of the same settings.
| | 00:08 |
And so it's very important that we have a
stable platform, that nothing is changing
| | 00:11 |
about the location, position, settings
for the camera.
| | 00:15 |
That's why we use a tripod for example,
and that we'll want to make sure the
| | 00:18 |
tripod is nice and stable, that the ball
head is tightened up securely, and that
| | 00:21 |
the camera is using fixed settings so
that every single frame will be captured
| | 00:24 |
with the same settings and the same
framing.
| | 00:28 |
One of the issues that you might not
anticipate though is the ability of the
| | 00:31 |
lens to adjust itself essentially.
For example if I were at a high vantage
| | 00:35 |
point shooting downward I've got my lens
pointed down, and this lens has an
| | 00:38 |
external adjustment.
It actually is able to move, and so
| | 00:43 |
gravity can actually adjust the zoom for
the lens over time.
| | 00:47 |
It'll essentially start Start to drop.
The problem is that that movement is
| | 00:50 |
very, very slow.
It's almost imperceptible.
| | 00:53 |
So even if you're standing here watching
the camera, you're probably not going to
| | 00:56 |
notice that it's moving.
But when you assemble the time lapse
| | 00:59 |
video, when all the captures are
finished, then you'll see that that zoom
| | 01:02 |
is changing.
The framing of the subject is changing
| | 01:05 |
over the course of the video.
And so once I have my zoom setting and my
| | 01:08 |
focus locked in where I want them, I'll
actually tape up the lens.
| | 01:14 |
That will help them make sue that
everything stays stays locked solid.
| | 01:18 |
It's important to use painter's tape, or
masking tape.
| | 01:20 |
You don't want a tape that's going to have
any goop on it that will stay behind on
| | 01:23 |
your lens.
And I actually, when I'm shooting time
| | 01:26 |
lapses,' I'll have a strip of tape
attached to one of my tripod legs, so
| | 01:29 |
that once I've adjusted my zoom and focus
I can simply tape up those adjustment
| | 01:33 |
rings on the lens itself, just apply that
tape onto those rings so that now I don't
| | 01:37 |
need to worry about them adjusting.
Obviously, if I went in and used a lot of
| | 01:43 |
force to turn the dial, I might be able
to free that tape.
| | 01:47 |
But when the cameras sitting there
undisturbed and of course during the time
| | 01:49 |
lapse capture I'm generally going to be
nearby making sure nobody touches anything.
| | 01:54 |
That's going to do a very good job of
securing both the zoom and focus for me.
| | 01:59 |
So a simple thing as tape will help make
sure you get the best time lapses as possible.
| | 02:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Programming an intervalometer| 00:01 |
In photography we obviously utilize a
variety of different tools including the
| | 00:04 |
camera, lenses and all sorts of
accessories, so I hesitate to say that
| | 00:07 |
any particular piece of equipment is
especially important.
| | 00:12 |
But when it comes to time-lapse
photography I would certainly say that a
| | 00:15 |
cable release with an interval timer
function is very, very important.
| | 00:19 |
We want to capture images at a set
interval.
| | 00:22 |
For example, we might capture images at
one second intervals, where every second
| | 00:25 |
we're capturing a new image.
And then, we assemble those, typically,
| | 00:29 |
at about 30 frames per second when
producing the final time lapse video.
| | 00:33 |
In theory, you could certainly stand at
your camera and press the shutter release
| | 00:36 |
button every second, for example, or
whatever that interval might be, But a
| | 00:39 |
cable release with an interval function
makes that a lot easier.
| | 00:44 |
It's worth mentioning, by the way, that
some cameras actually have that interval
| | 00:47 |
function built into them, but not too
many.
| | 00:50 |
I'm going to go ahead and attach the
cable here and this just mounts into the
| | 00:53 |
side of the camera.
There's a rubber gasket here that
| | 00:57 |
protects the openings.
Some photographers like to remove these
| | 01:00 |
rubber pieces for convenience, so they
can always get right to the, the plugs in
| | 01:04 |
this particular case.
I prefer to keep those in place so that
| | 01:07 |
when I'm using the camera in the rain,
for example, I don't need to worry too
| | 01:10 |
much about water getting inside.
So I'll go ahead and plug in the cable release.
| | 01:16 |
I could obviously just use the cable
release button to trigger the shutter,
| | 01:19 |
and again, count off every second, but
I'm using a cable release that includes
| | 01:22 |
an intervelometer function So that I can
automatically capture the images at
| | 01:25 |
whatever interval I would like.
I first need to set the mode for the
| | 01:31 |
cable release.
In this case, I have a self timer option.
| | 01:34 |
A longer exposure option.
A particular number of frames.
| | 01:37 |
And then my interval mode.
So I'll switch to interval mode here And
| | 01:41 |
then I can designate the time for the
interval.
| | 01:44 |
I can capture every second, every minute,
every hour, whatever I'd like to capture
| | 01:48 |
a time lapse depending on the
calculations I've made and the
| | 01:50 |
appropriateness for the subject of
course.
| | 01:54 |
I'll go ahead and set this in this
particular case let's assume a 0.5 second interval.
| | 01:58 |
So I can activate the adjustment and then
just turn the dial to set Five seconds
| | 02:02 |
and then click through the minutes and
hours.
| | 02:05 |
I'll leave those set to zeros and so
that's it.
| | 02:08 |
My inner volometer, my self timer
function is established.
| | 02:11 |
I got a five second interval in this
case.
| | 02:13 |
So all I need to do is press the start
button in order to begin recording my
| | 02:16 |
time lapse and so here I have a five
second interval.
| | 02:20 |
I press start, the first image is
captured, five seconds later another
| | 02:23 |
image is captured, five seconds later
another and then so on.
| | 02:27 |
When I'm finished recording my time
lapse, I can simply press the start-stop
| | 02:31 |
button once again and I'll finish
recording.
| | 02:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. A Walking Path Shot from AboveCapturing the time-lapse frames| 00:01 |
I came up to this hilltop because I saw a
castle from the distance, it looked
| | 00:03 |
pretty cool, though I'd might like to
photograph it all by itself.
| | 00:06 |
I also knew it was going to give me a nice
vantage point of the town and the hills
| | 00:09 |
off in the distance, but when I got here
I also dicovered that there's a very nice
| | 00:13 |
walking path with Stairs going down this
hillside.
| | 00:17 |
And I thought that might make a very good
time lapse.
| | 00:19 |
I'm going to get set up here and try to
record a time lapse of this path with
| | 00:22 |
people moving about it.
Now obviously you need to think about the
| | 00:25 |
camera here first.
I was using a slightly longer lens in
| | 00:27 |
order to get some interesting shots in
the countryside here.
| | 00:30 |
I need a wider shot here because there's
Part of the wallking path is directly
| | 00:33 |
below me and I want to try to include that
as a foreground element.
| | 00:37 |
So I'm going to switch to a ten to 22
millimeter lens, and that'll give me a
| | 00:41 |
nice wide vantage point to the path here.
And I also need to think about my setup.
| | 00:48 |
I need to think about where I'm going to
position myself.
| | 00:50 |
And of course with a tripod I'm going to be
a little bit of a distance away from this railing.
| | 00:54 |
But literally, straight down is where the
path is that I want to record as part of
| | 00:57 |
the time lapse.
And pushing the legs all the way up
| | 01:01 |
against the base of the railing.
I'm still not able to get quite close
| | 01:04 |
enough, so this is one of those don't try
this at home moments.
| | 01:07 |
I'm going to lean the tripod up against
the railing, the top of the railing.
| | 01:11 |
I've got the front two legs planted
firmly on the ground, but of course,
| | 01:14 |
leaning in this way, the rear leg is just
sort of floating in space.
| | 01:18 |
It's not touching the ground at all.
But if I collapse that leg just a little
| | 01:21 |
bit, if I pull it down toward the base of
the tripod, then I get all three legs
| | 01:24 |
touching the ground.
Not exactly the most stable setup.
| | 01:29 |
You want to be very careful in this type
of situation.
| | 01:31 |
if I had you know a rope, I might even
tie the legs to the railing here.
| | 01:36 |
But what I'm going to do is.
Go ahead and hang my back back from the
| | 01:39 |
center hook here.
The center post.
| | 01:43 |
And then again just check the stability
and try to get things So that it's as
| | 01:46 |
stable as possible.
So, a little bit risky, a little bit
| | 01:50 |
tricky in this type of situation, but I
think it'll work out okay.
| | 01:53 |
I'm then going to get my camera framed
up, looking not quite straight down, but
| | 01:57 |
pretty close to straight down, and really
just trying to get an interesting framing.
| | 02:03 |
I'm thinking about foreground elements.
I'm going to have part of this wall in the
| | 02:06 |
foreground visible, for example.
And I also want to think about how I'm
| | 02:09 |
framing up the overall subject.
It's a relatively wide shot.
| | 02:14 |
But I want to make sure that all of the
elements in the frame are somewhat interesting.
| | 02:17 |
Obviously it's more about the motion
here.
| | 02:19 |
But I still want to have an interesting
photograph.
| | 02:22 |
So that looks pretty good there.
I'll lock things down on the tripod so
| | 02:25 |
that we're Ready in terms o fur framing.
I've also adjusted the zoom.
| | 02:29 |
Now one of the things that you want to
keep in mind, especially when you're
| | 02:32 |
pointing downawrd is that a zoom lens in
particular can adjust based on gravity,
| | 02:35 |
so over time that lens might start to
shift a little bit so that it's
| | 02:38 |
essentially zooming in...
Over time and that will obviously cause a
| | 02:44 |
problem in the timeline as it gradually
starts zooming closer and closer.
| | 02:47 |
And unfortunately in a very unpredictable
way.
| | 02:50 |
And so I'm going to tape up the lens.
I got a bit of painters tape here so it
| | 02:54 |
won't leave any residue.
And I'm just going tape up both the focusing.
| | 02:59 |
I'll just double check my focus.
That looks good, and my zoom and.
| | 03:04 |
I'll tape both of those grips so that
they can't be moved at all.
| | 03:10 |
So I don't have to worry about gravity
pulling the lens for example.
| | 03:13 |
Yeah, that looks very good.
I'm also going to adjust my camera
| | 03:15 |
settings, naturally.
I want to start off by going into the
| | 03:18 |
menu here, and Setting.
My capture mode so that I'm capturing in
| | 03:23 |
my smallest jpeg.
The high quality version of that.
| | 03:27 |
But my smallest jpeg not raw.
There we go.
| | 03:30 |
And I'm also going to insert a new card.
So a card that I don't have any images on.
| | 03:37 |
I'll go ahead and.
Take the card I was using to photograph
| | 03:41 |
the scenes here, and put in an empty into
the camera, so that I have a fresh new card.
| | 03:47 |
And I want to make sure that my
numbering is reset, so the first image
| | 03:50 |
will start with number one, rather than
continuing on from where ever it had been.
| | 03:55 |
So, I will reset the numbering.
And I'm also, just to be on the safe
| | 03:58 |
side, even though this card is empty, I'm
going to go ahead and reformat the card just
| | 04:00 |
to make sure that it is initialized.
So I'll go ahead and reformat, and then I
| | 04:05 |
can think about the actual exposure
settings.
| | 04:08 |
So I'm in my manual exposure mode, making
sure that I'll have a consistent result
| | 04:13 |
as far as that exposure, and I'm going to
stop down, I'm going to go at ISO of 100 and
| | 04:18 |
use an aperture of F-18 in this case and
I'm going to go with a 30th of a second as my
| | 04:22 |
shutter speed.
And that will give me a good even exposure.
| | 04:30 |
And also a relatively slow shutter speed.
I'm going to have people moving here.
| | 04:34 |
And I'd like to have just the slightest
amount of blur for those people.
| | 04:37 |
All the static objects.
The railings and the steps, the trail, etcetera.
| | 04:41 |
Those will all be sharp throughout, but
any movement will be rendered with just
| | 04:44 |
the slightest amount of blur, and that'll
help to preserve that persistence of
| | 04:47 |
vision effect, so that we see the motion
a little more readily.
| | 04:51 |
It doesn't look quite so jerky in the
final result.
| | 04:54 |
I'm also going to set a custom white
balance, or a white balance preset, to,
| | 04:57 |
in this case cloudy.
Even though it's not exactly cloudy It's
| | 05:00 |
a little bit hazy, so the lights slightly
cool, that'll help warm things up and
| | 05:03 |
give me a more pleasing final result.
And so with that, we're all set, I've
| | 05:08 |
got all my exposure settings ready to go.
I can go ahead then, and use the cable
| | 05:12 |
release here, I'll go ahead and plug this
into the side of the camera.
| | 05:17 |
And I need to think about, of course,
the interval that I'm going to use for
| | 05:21 |
the time-lapse.
There's a variety of approaches I could
| | 05:25 |
take here.
One of those would be to use a relatively
| | 05:27 |
long interval so that people just sort of
bounce around; they're here, then they're
| | 05:31 |
there, and they seem to just move from
one spot to the other randomly.
| | 05:36 |
But here, I'm not going to have that many
people moving about, so that wouldn't be
| | 05:38 |
all that interesting.
It would just look a little bit chaotic.
| | 05:41 |
So I'm going to use a very short
interval, a one-second interval, so that
| | 05:44 |
you'll still be able to see the sense of
motion.
| | 05:47 |
You'll see people moving, they'll just be
moving very, very quickly, and it will
| | 05:50 |
just, therefore, compress time.
Into a smaller space, and so I'll program
| | 05:54 |
my intervalometer here on my cable
release, to a one second interval, and
| | 05:59 |
then we're all set.
So just one more double check, make sure
| | 06:03 |
the framing looks good.
I'm happy with that.
| | 06:06 |
Double checking all of my settings,
making sure that the settings are good,
| | 06:09 |
exposure I'm set to my JPEG exposure.
So we're ready to go.
| | 06:13 |
I'll go ahead and press the start stop
button.
| | 06:15 |
And the timing will begin.
I'm also going to set a timer so that I
| | 06:20 |
know exactly how long I'm recording for.
Bearing in mind that with a one second
| | 06:25 |
interval, every minute in real life is
going to give meSOUND Two seconds of
| | 06:29 |
final video and so I'll go ahead and set
a timer here so that I can keep track.
| | 06:36 |
I don't need to be especially precise, I
just want to have some sense of how long
| | 06:39 |
am I recording for.
So, for example, ten minutes would give
| | 06:43 |
me 20 seconds of video in the final
result.
| | 06:45 |
15 minutes would give me 30 seconds of
video in the final result.
| | 06:48 |
And this will just give me some sense of
how long I'm going to be recording for
| | 06:51 |
and how long that final video will be.
So it's on its way, we'll see how it
| | 06:54 |
turns out.
| | 06:55 |
(audio playing)
| | 06:58 |
All right, so I've got my time lapse
running.
| | 07:12 |
There's only a handful of people down on
the path so I think I'm going to join the
| | 07:14 |
fun and get down there.
I'll take one look to make sure
| | 07:17 |
everything is stable but I think I've
done a reasonably good job here under the circumstances.
| | 07:21 |
So I'm going to head on down the stairs.
(NOISE) All right, so I've been recording
| | 07:38 |
for about 15 minutes, a little over 15
minutes now.
| | 07:47 |
So the final result will be about 30
seconds of time lapse video.
| | 07:50 |
I'm going to go ahead and hit the start
stop button on the cable release, to stop
| | 07:53 |
recording the time lapse here.
I'll check a couple of frames here and
| | 07:58 |
looks great.
So by taking care of all those settings,
| | 08:01 |
really paying attention to how I'm
setting up the tripod, where I'm
| | 08:04 |
positioning the camera, the lens I'm
using, making sure to tape up the lens
| | 08:07 |
especially because I'm pointed downward
here, thinking about those exposure
| | 08:10 |
settings very carefully using a white
balance preset for example to make sure
| | 08:13 |
the color is going to be good Thinking
about the exposure time, not just setting
| | 08:16 |
it to a manual exposure all by itself,
but thinking about the shutter speed, for example.
| | 08:23 |
So, by taking all of those things,
thinking about every variable that I
| | 08:26 |
possible can, I'm able to create, what I
hope to be a very interesting time-lapse
| | 08:30 |
of people walking up and down the path
here.
| | 08:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Downloading the images with Bridge| 00:02 |
Once you've captured the individual
frames in a time-lapse project, you're
| | 00:05 |
ready to download those images to your
computer, so that you can assemble the
| | 00:08 |
final time-lapse video.
I've already inserted a digital media
| | 00:12 |
card into my card reader and at the
moment I'm browsing the images on that
| | 00:16 |
card in Adobe Bridge.
For this particular project, I'll use
| | 00:20 |
Adobe Bridge and Photoshop to process the
images in preparation for creating the
| | 00:24 |
final time lapse video.
To start the process of downloading my
| | 00:28 |
images, I'll choose File > Get Photos
from Camera from the menu in Adobe Bridge.
| | 00:34 |
I could also click the Get Photos from
Camera button on the toolbar in Bridge.
| | 00:39 |
This will bring up the Photo Downloader
dialog, which allows me to set the
| | 00:42 |
parameters for the download process.
You can see the source has already been
| | 00:48 |
set to my digital media card and it
indicates that there are 1,064 files to
| | 00:52 |
be downloaded, totaling 3.6 gigabytes.
If the source was not set automatically,
| | 00:57 |
you can click the pop up to choose the
source or if your source is not
| | 01:00 |
available, for example, if you did not
insert a card into your card reader
| | 01:03 |
before bringing up the photo downloader
you could click the Refresh List option...
| | 01:10 |
In order to refresh the list so that you
can choose the appropriate source.
| | 01:14 |
Next, we'll specify the destination for
the images.
| | 01:19 |
Generally speaking, I prefer to use a
single, general location for my photos.
| | 01:23 |
That might be an external hard drive or a
photos folder on my internal hard drive.
| | 01:28 |
In this case I'm simply going to use a
folder I've created on my desktop just
| | 01:31 |
for purposes of this course.
I'll go ahead and click the Choose button
| | 01:35 |
and that will bring up the dialog where I
can choose a location.
| | 01:39 |
I'll navigate to my Desktop and then
choose my Time-Lapse Captures folder, and
| | 01:43 |
this is what I'll use for all of my
projects for time-lapse photography.
| | 01:49 |
I'll click the Choose button.
And then I want to create a subfolder
| | 01:53 |
underneath that general folder for the
individual frames in this particular project.
| | 01:58 |
So, I'm going to click the Create
Subfolders popup, and choose Custom Name.
| | 02:03 |
This will allow me to give a particular
name to this folder.
| | 02:07 |
In this case, I'll just call it Walking
Path Time-Lapse.
| | 02:10 |
Just a descriptive name, to help me
remember which images these are.
| | 02:14 |
I could also rename the images, if I
wanted to.
| | 02:18 |
I've reset the numbering on my camera.
So, the first image in the sequence
| | 02:22 |
starts with 1 and they continue all the
way through in sequence to the final image.
| | 02:26 |
Of course, the file names start with
IMG_, which is not the most useful
| | 02:30 |
filename but I prefer to wait until later
to rename the images.
| | 02:36 |
In particular, just in case I decide that
I want to remove some images from the sequence.
| | 02:42 |
So, I'll leave the Rename Files option
set to Do Not Rename Files.
| | 02:46 |
I don't need to worry about preserving
the current filename since I'm not
| | 02:49 |
renaming the files.
I do want to open this destination location.
| | 02:54 |
In other words, the folder where I'm
downloading all of my images in bridge.
| | 02:58 |
Of coarse bridge is already running.
So, this won't actually launch Bridge but
| | 03:02 |
it will take me to the folder that
contains the images I'm downloading.
| | 03:06 |
I don't want to convert these images to
DNG.
| | 03:08 |
I'm going to keep them in their JPEG file
format and I'm not going to delete the
| | 03:12 |
original files either.
I want to keep the images on my digital
| | 03:16 |
media card until I know they've safely
downloaded onto my computer.
| | 03:20 |
At that point, I'll reformat the card in
my camera.
| | 03:24 |
I also have the option to save copies to
an additional location.
| | 03:28 |
And generally speaking, I do take
advantage of this option.
| | 03:31 |
Simply turning on the check box and then
clicking the Choose button and specifying
| | 03:35 |
a location where you'd like to copy a
second copy of all of these images.
| | 03:40 |
For purposes of this course, I'll turn
that option off, but it is something that
| | 03:43 |
I encourage you take advantage of for
your own photography.
| | 03:47 |
Those are the only settings that I really
need to concern myself with.
| | 03:50 |
Obviously, in this case, all I really
care about is getting my images copied to
| | 03:54 |
my computer so I can start working with
them.
| | 03:58 |
So, I'll go ahead and click the Get
Photos button and the Adobe Photo
| | 04:04 |
downloader will set about the task of
copying the images to my hard drive, so
| | 04:11 |
that I can process them and create my
final Time-Lapse video.
| | 04:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing and processing the images| 00:02 |
I downloaded all of the images from my
walking path time lapse project.
| | 00:05 |
So I'm ready to review those images and
then process them so that I can assemble
| | 00:09 |
them into my time lapse video.
I'm going to start off with an overview
| | 00:13 |
of the images.
I'll switch to the essentials view in
| | 00:16 |
bridge so that I can see thumbnails for
the images And then I'll scroll through
| | 00:20 |
them, and I'm just looking for any
obvious problems.
| | 00:24 |
Because I was capturing in the manual
exposure mode, all of the exposures
| | 00:27 |
should be pretty similar.
Everything should match up very, very
| | 00:31 |
well, and so I'm really just looking for
any errant photos that, perhaps because
| | 00:34 |
of an error with the camera or other
issues, are either very bright or very
| | 00:37 |
dark compared to the rest of the images.
It looks like all of these images are
| | 00:43 |
very well exposed, so I don't have any
issues.
| | 00:47 |
Yep, and that is the end of the files so
I am in good shape as far as that basic review.
| | 00:51 |
And now I will switch back to my film
strip view so that I can get a closer
| | 00:54 |
look at the images.
I'll start off with the first image,
| | 00:58 |
image number one and then I can scroll
through and review the images, you can
| | 01:01 |
see here the walking path was empty when
I started capturing and so I am going to
| | 01:05 |
move through the images I am just
pressing the right arrow key to move from
| | 01:08 |
from image to image, and I'm looking for
the first image that contains an actual person.
| | 01:15 |
Obviously these first images don't have
anyone in them.
| | 01:18 |
Nothing was moving.
Maybe the plants are moving just a little
| | 01:21 |
bit, but that's not going to be very
exciting for the time lapse.
| | 01:24 |
It essentially looks like a still image.
So I'll continue going through the images.
| | 01:28 |
And we can see here is a person entering
the frame.
| | 01:31 |
Right at about frame number 21, we can
see part of him, part of his clothing.
| | 01:37 |
And then in frame 22 we see the full
person.
| | 01:40 |
It's worth noting, by the way, you can
see just a little bit of blur, a little
| | 01:43 |
bit motion blur, in that person, and
that's because I used a relatively slow
| | 01:46 |
shutter speed, a 30th of a second in this
case, and that helps to preserve that
| | 01:50 |
persistence of motion effect.
It makes the final time lapse look a
| | 01:56 |
little bit more natural because it better
mimics the way we actually see with our eyes.
| | 02:01 |
So I figured out that the first frame
with a person is right around 21 or 22,
| | 02:05 |
and that means that I have 20 frames,
approximately, with no change whatsoever.
| | 02:12 |
At 30 frames per second, that's a little
bit less that 1 second.
| | 02:15 |
And I think that's an adequate amount of
time to have, sort of, an empty frame
| | 02:18 |
before people start entering it.
So, I don't need to remove any of those
| | 02:23 |
initial frames.
I do want to go to the end of the list,
| | 02:26 |
I'm going to scroll to the very last image.
And I'll click on that last image, it
| | 02:30 |
happens to be 1,064, that's a total
number of frames I captured, here.
| | 02:35 |
I want about 900 in order to produce a.
30 second clips at 30 frames per second.
| | 02:41 |
But I want to take a look once again at the
end here and you'll see the frames are empty.
| | 02:45 |
There's nobody walking on the path and so
I'll scroll through using the left and
| | 02:48 |
right arrow keys here to navigate.
Looking for the last image in the
| | 02:52 |
sequence that actually contains a person.
And here we can see there are several
| | 02:57 |
frames here near the end that contain a
person.
| | 03:01 |
There is just a little bit of a person in
this frame.
| | 03:03 |
And then just a little bit of a shadow on
the rocks there.
| | 03:06 |
And then number 1014 is the first frame
that is completely clean, so to speak.
| | 03:12 |
I'm going to click on that frame and I want to
figure out how many frames there are
| | 03:16 |
between this and the very end.
I don't want to have to do the math though,
| | 03:20 |
so I'm simply going to scroll.
After having clicked on that first image,
| | 03:24 |
I'll scroll to the far right using the
scroll bar.
| | 03:27 |
And then hold the shift key and click on
the last image in the sequence.
| | 03:31 |
And I can see there's an indication here
in the center that 51 items have been selected.
| | 03:36 |
I could also look down on the status bar
and see that there are 51 items selected.
| | 03:40 |
I only need around about.
30 empty frames at the end, I'd like to
| | 03:44 |
have a 1-second little break off so that
the last person exits the frame, and then
| | 03:48 |
we have about 1 second of emptyness in
the video.
| | 03:53 |
I think that just provides a good
bracketing, as it were, for the overall
| | 03:56 |
timelapse video.
Rather than trying to figure out exactly
| | 03:59 |
which frame it is that I need to cut off
at, I'm going to hold the Shift key and
| | 04:02 |
then click on an image that I think might
be near the end.
| | 04:06 |
I was close, that's 40 frames.
You can see I now have 40 images selected.
| | 04:11 |
I'll go ahead and scroll over to the left
a little bit more.
| | 04:13 |
I need to remove ten frames.
That's 33, and so right there, once
| | 04:17 |
again, Shift+clicking so that we have a
group of images selected.
| | 04:21 |
The first one that I have clicked on
previously, and now this image that I
| | 04:24 |
just shift clicked on will become the
last in that selection.
| | 04:28 |
And because I now have thirty frames
selected, that's thirty empty frames at
| | 04:32 |
the end of the time lapse, I know that
this image number one thousand forty
| | 04:35 |
three is the last image I actually want
to include in my time finished lapse.
| | 04:41 |
I'm going to go ahead and click on that
frame so that it is the only frame selected.
| | 04:46 |
And then, I'll scroll back to the
beginning of my frames, all the way to
| | 04:49 |
the first image, and I'll hold the Shift
key and click on that first frame.
| | 04:54 |
So what I've accomplished here is to
select only the range of images that I
| | 04:57 |
actually want to include in my final
time-lapse.
| | 05:01 |
That goes from image number 1 all the way
up to image number 1043.
| | 05:07 |
And I've cut off the last set of images
here so that I only have one second of
| | 05:10 |
empty frames at the end of the final
video.
| | 05:15 |
So, I've selected the images that I want
to include in my time-lapse.
| | 05:19 |
Next, I need to process them, these
images, you can see over on my meta data
| | 05:24 |
panel, are sized at 2,592 pixels wide by
1,728 pixels tall, that's much more
| | 05:29 |
resolution than I need.
I did capture these images at the small
| | 05:36 |
JPEG setting but even that is realtively
high resolution especially for video.
| | 05:41 |
Even for high definition video I only
need 1,980 pixels by 720 pixels.
| | 05:48 |
So this is significantly larger than I
really need.
| | 05:50 |
And in fact for many videos I would size
them down to about 720 by 480 pixels
| | 05:54 |
which is standard for dvd video for
example.
| | 05:58 |
To process these images I'm going to use
the image processor in Photoshop.
| | 06:04 |
I could launch the image processor
directly from Photoshop but its much
| | 06:07 |
easier to start here in bridge and select
the specific images that I want to process.
| | 06:12 |
Then I can choose tools Photoshop and
then image processor from the menu.
| | 06:18 |
In order to launch Photoshop, if it's not
already running, and bring up the image
| | 06:21 |
processor dialog.
You'll notice that in step on, the images
| | 06:25 |
to be processed have already been
selected.
| | 06:28 |
These are the images from Bridge.
It happens to be 1,043 images.
| | 06:32 |
I can also specify a location where I
want to save the images.
| | 06:36 |
And generally speaking I'll use the exact
same location.
| | 06:39 |
The actual file destination will be based
on the file format, so they won't get
| | 06:43 |
intermingled with my original captures,
so don't worry about that.
| | 06:47 |
But if you do prefer, you can choose the
option to select a specific location and
| | 06:51 |
then click the Select Folder button and
choose a destination.
| | 06:55 |
But I'm just going to leave this at the
Save in same location option.
| | 06:59 |
The images I captured were already in
jpeg and I want to keep them in the jpeg
| | 07:02 |
file format.
So I'm going to turn on the save as JPEG
| | 07:06 |
checkbox and make sure that the save as
PSD and save as tiff options are turned off.
| | 07:12 |
I'm want to keep the quality setting at
it's maximum value and that happens be a
| | 07:15 |
value of 12.
Just to ensure that the video will be of
| | 07:18 |
the best quality possible.
I also prefer to convert the profile to
| | 07:22 |
SRGB, generally speaking, that will be
the case anyway, but it's a good measure
| | 07:26 |
that the colors in the final result will
be accurate and as vibrant as possible
| | 07:30 |
across a wide variety of situations.
The key here, though, is to resize the
| | 07:37 |
images, and so.
I'll turn on the resize to fit check box.
| | 07:41 |
I can resize to fit a particular box.
In other words, a maximum width and a
| | 07:46 |
maximum height.
Generally speaking, I would probably use 720x480.
| | 07:52 |
I might even use a lower setting if I'm
specifically preparing a video to share online.
| | 07:57 |
In this case I want to produce a high
resolution version at least relative to video.
| | 08:01 |
And so I want this to fit into a high
definition video frame.
| | 08:05 |
That would be 1980x720 pixels but the
aspect ratio of my camera does not match
| | 08:10 |
the aspect ratio of high definition video
and so I'm actually going to resize to 1080x720.
| | 08:18 |
So I'll set the width to 1,080 pixels and
the height to 720 pixels.
| | 08:25 |
I don't need to apply any processing to
these images, so I'll leave the run
| | 08:28 |
action checkbox turned off, but I will
turn on the Include ICC Profile checkbox,
| | 08:32 |
just to ensure the most accurate color
possible for these images.
| | 08:37 |
With my settings established, I can now
simply click the run button.
| | 08:41 |
And Photoshop will open, process, and
save each of my images in sequence.
| | 08:47 |
This can obviously take a little bit of
time for over 1000 images, in this case.
| | 08:51 |
But once that process is complete, we'll
be able to assemble our time lapse video.
| | 08:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling the final time lapse| 00:02 |
I've downloaded the images for my walking
path time lapse project and I've also
| | 00:05 |
processed those images to prepare them to
create my final time lapse video.
| | 00:10 |
And that preparation in large part is
really just a matter of resizing the images.
| | 00:15 |
In this case I use the image processor in
Photoshop.
| | 00:18 |
I specified that I wanted the images
saved in the same location as the
| | 00:22 |
original images which of course might
seem like a little bit of a problem
| | 00:25 |
potentially replacing my higher
resolution originals.
| | 00:30 |
But the image processor actually always
places the images into a sub folder based
| | 00:34 |
on the file type So if I expand my folder
structure for the walking path time lapse
| | 00:38 |
we'll see that there is a JPEG folder
below.
| | 00:42 |
The original images are sized at 2,592
pixels by 1,728 pixels.
| | 00:50 |
That's the relatively low resolution that
I used for capture, but if I go to the
| | 00:54 |
JPEG folder we'll see that these images
are at a lower resolution.
| | 00:59 |
Specifically at 1080 by 720 resolution,
that I use in order to display these
| | 01:04 |
images in a high definition video
environment.
| | 01:08 |
Having prepared these images, I'm ready
to assemble the final time lapse video.
| | 01:13 |
And for this project I'm going to take a
very simple approach using the Quicktime player.
| | 01:19 |
I'll go ahead and switch to the Quicktime
player I don't have a window open at the
| | 01:22 |
moment so we can still see bridge in the
background here.
| | 01:25 |
It's important to note that the latest
version of Quicktime version 10 does not
| | 01:29 |
support the time lapse feature you'll
need to use Quicktime 7 and you'll also
| | 01:33 |
need to upgrade to the professional
version.
| | 01:38 |
Fortunately, Quick Time Player 7 is still
available through the Apple website for
| | 01:41 |
both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.
Assembling the time lapse with the Quick
| | 01:46 |
Time Player is incredibly easy.
I'll simply go to the file menu, and then
| | 01:51 |
choose, open image sequence.
I can then navigate to the location where
| | 01:55 |
my time lapse frame.
frames are stored.
| | 01:58 |
In this case, in a Time-Lapse captures
folder, and then a Walking Path
| | 02:01 |
Time-Lapse folder for this particular
project.
| | 02:05 |
But I then want to scroll down and find
my JPEG folder, that contains the actual
| | 02:08 |
images, the lower resolution images, that
I want to assemble for this time-lapse.
| | 02:15 |
I'll then click on the first image that I
want to include in the final time lapse
| | 02:18 |
video, and I'll click the open button.
The QuickTime player will then ask me for
| | 02:23 |
a frame rate that I'd like to use for the
time lapse.
| | 02:26 |
And the standard frame rate for video is
29.97 frames Frames per second.
| | 02:31 |
So I'll go ahead and use that standard
value and click Okay and then the
| | 02:35 |
Quicktime player will assemble the images
into a video.
| | 02:39 |
In other words using each of my
individual frames as one of the frames in
| | 02:43 |
the video so that approximately.
Thirty frames, thirty photographs are
| | 02:47 |
used for every second of video.
I'll go ahead and resize this window so
| | 02:51 |
that it fits the screen and then I can
click the play button in order to review
| | 02:55 |
my time lapse video.
And you'll see that each of those
| | 02:59 |
individual frames has been assembled and
we have in this case people walking about.
| | 03:03 |
And one of the more amusing elements of
time lapse video is that we end up with
| | 03:07 |
people running about, screwing about
very, very quickly even though in real
| | 03:10 |
life things were happening much more
slowly.
| | 03:14 |
So, you can see the process of actually
assembling the time lapse is incredibly easy.
| | 03:19 |
We simply specify the first frame,
specify a frame rate and QuickTime does
| | 03:23 |
all the rest.
I'll go ahead and let this video play to
| | 03:26 |
its conclusion.
You see everybody at the end exits the frame.
| | 03:31 |
Looks very nice.
I now want to save this video, and that's
| | 03:34 |
simply a matter of choosing "File" from
the menu, and then choosing "Save As."
| | 03:40 |
You'll see that the default folder at the
moment is my "walking path time lapse" folder.
| | 03:44 |
And that's where I'm actually going to
store the finished video, not in that
| | 03:47 |
JPEG folder that contained the smaller
images that I processed.
| | 03:51 |
And I want to save as a self-contained
movie.
| | 03:54 |
In other words, I want a single file that
I can play seamlessly.
| | 03:58 |
I don't want to have to have the original
captures with me.
| | 04:01 |
If I use the Save As reference movie
option then I'll need to have those
| | 04:04 |
images present in order for playback to
be possible.
| | 04:08 |
So self contained movie is going to be my
better option generally speaking.
| | 04:12 |
I'll go ahead and give this time lapse a
name.
| | 04:15 |
We'll just call this walking path time
lapse, and when I assemble a time lapse I
| | 04:18 |
also like to have an indication of the
frame rate.
| | 04:23 |
And even though this is 29.97 frames per
second, in this case for a file name I
| | 04:27 |
just round that to 30.
So, I'll indicate 30 fps, for 30 frames
| | 04:31 |
per second, and then I'll click the save
button.
| | 04:35 |
And then Quicktime will go about the task
of saving my final time lapse video.
| | 04:39 |
I can then share this video, playing it
directly on a computer for example,
| | 04:44 |
putting it on to another device, or
uploading it to a website for video sharing.
| | 04:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Clouds and CowsCapturing the time-lapse frames| 00:00 |
Time-lapse photography obviously requires
a subject that is moving or changing in
| | 00:04 |
some way, so that over time we can record
that change and render that in the final video.
| | 00:09 |
I was driving through the mountains here
hoping to find maybe some interesting
| | 00:12 |
clouds or animals.
And I've certainly found some good animals.
| | 00:15 |
I've got some cows here in the
background.
| | 00:17 |
They're taking a bit of a break right
now.
| | 00:18 |
They were grazing for a little while and
even coming close to check us out a
| | 00:21 |
little bit.
But hopefully over the course of my time
| | 00:24 |
lapse they'll start moving around a
little bit more.
| | 00:27 |
That's the idea here.
But besides the cows I actually got
| | 00:29 |
really lucky in this case.
I've got a beautiful backdrop, these
| | 00:33 |
mountains in the background.
And also some nice clouds that are
| | 00:36 |
starting to develop.
Now, clouds of course are a little bit
| | 00:38 |
cliche as a time lapse subject but I
think that's largely because they're so interesting.
| | 00:43 |
Everybody who shoots time-lapse probably
is going to shoot clouds at one time or
| | 00:46 |
another, but it usually is quite nice.
I actually like the result quite a bit.
| | 00:50 |
And so here, I've got the best of both
worlds.
| | 00:52 |
I've got some cows in the foreground, a
beautiful backdrop with these mountains,
| | 00:55 |
and the clouds up above.
So, I'm going to try and capture an
| | 00:58 |
interesting scene that incorporates all
of that.
| | 01:01 |
I need to think, of course, about my
camera setup.
| | 01:04 |
I want to make sure I'm using a very
stable platform.
| | 01:06 |
I've set up my tripod here.
I already have my backpack hanging from
| | 01:09 |
the center post, so that gives me a very
stable platform for the camera.
| | 01:14 |
I'm using a wide-angle lens here.
I'm hoping, that over the course of
| | 01:17 |
capturing the time lapse here, I'll get
some cows coming closer to the camera,
| | 01:20 |
which will help add some interest.
But in the meantime, I want to take in a
| | 01:24 |
relatively wide field of view.
So, I'm using a 10 to 22 millimeter lens
| | 01:29 |
set to 22 millimeters.
I'll go ahead and make sure that the
| | 01:33 |
framing is just the way I'd like it here.
There's a road over to the side that I
| | 01:37 |
want to exclude.
But I'm mostly interested again in this
| | 01:39 |
little meadow with the cows.
And of course, the great clouds in the background.
| | 01:44 |
I'll also set my focus and that looks to
be pretty good.
| | 01:47 |
So, I'll lock everything down on the
tripod nice and tight.
| | 01:51 |
And that gives me a good starting point.
In terms of the exposure, its pretty
| | 01:55 |
bright I'm going to use a 100 ISO setting
because that will obviously be the best
| | 01:58 |
choice here.
It's very bright lighting.
| | 02:02 |
I don't need to worry about increasing
ISO to get a faster shutter speed.
| | 02:05 |
So, 100 is going to help insure minimal
noise.
| | 02:07 |
I do want to have a reasonably large depth
of field, but shooting from this distance
| | 02:11 |
wide-angle lens, F8 is going to be more than
adequate.
| | 02:15 |
I also want to make sure that I'm not going
to get clouds blown down.
| | 02:19 |
Now, over time my hope is that there will
be more clouds.
| | 02:22 |
I already have a pretty good degree of
clouds here in the background.
| | 02:25 |
They're getting started pretty well.
I'm anticipating more, as the clouds are
| | 02:28 |
being built up.
The, the wind flowing into the mountains
| | 02:31 |
and going up is going to cause more and more
build up of those clouds.
| | 02:35 |
As that happens, obviously the clouds are
relatively bright.
| | 02:38 |
They're reflecting a lot of sunlight.
And so, with more clouds there's a risk
| | 02:41 |
of having blown out highlights.
And so, as I adjust my exposure, again at
| | 02:46 |
F8 a proper exposure, so to speak, would
be around two-fiftieth or so of a second.
| | 02:54 |
I'm going to set my exposure to about a
minus half stop.
| | 02:57 |
So, I'm going to use a five hundredth of a
second shutter speed in this case.
| | 03:01 |
The only drawback really with that fast
shutter speed is that, as the cows are
| | 03:04 |
moving, we won't see any blurring of that
motion.
| | 03:07 |
They'll be very sharp.
That does cause the final video to be a
| | 03:09 |
little bit herky jerky but I think in
this case that's going to be the best
| | 03:12 |
overall compromise.
In terms of that interval, the cows are
| | 03:16 |
obviously or hopefully, anyway, are going
to be a moving subject.
| | 03:19 |
I'm anticipating that over the course of
recording here, they'll be moving about
| | 03:23 |
the field quite a lot.
And so, normally I would be shooting with
| | 03:27 |
an interval of about one second,
capturing a frame every single second.
| | 03:32 |
But with clouds, they're not moving very
fast.
| | 03:34 |
In fact, standing here, it doesn't look
like they're moving at all.
| | 03:37 |
And that means, I need a longer interval,
perhaps just a couple of seconds, or even
| | 03:41 |
as long as 5 seconds would be something I
typically would use for clouds.
| | 03:46 |
So, I have a little bit of a dilemma
here.
| | 03:48 |
I have 2 possibilities.
One second might be ideal for the cows.
| | 03:51 |
Five seconds is probably closer to ideal
for the clouds.
| | 03:55 |
I'm going to meet it somewhere in between.
I think I'm going to go with the
| | 03:57 |
two-second interval.
That'll still work pretty well for the
| | 04:00 |
cows in the foreground.
It might cause them to jump around a
| | 04:03 |
little bit more, especially as they're
moving more quickly.
| | 04:05 |
But I think it's going to work a lot
better for those clouds.
| | 04:08 |
And that means, that every minute I'll be
capturing 30 frames.
| | 04:12 |
So, each minute in real life will
translate into one second in the final
| | 04:16 |
video based on an assumption of 30 frames
per second in that video.
| | 04:21 |
So, I'm going to set my intervalometer to
two-second interval and then I will set
| | 04:25 |
that down.
It's ready to go.
| | 04:28 |
I also want to think about the white
balance, of course.
| | 04:31 |
And so, I'm going to use a cloudy
setting.
| | 04:33 |
I'm of course photographing clouds.
But overall, the sky is pretty bright blue.
| | 04:37 |
But that cloud setting is going to give
me a nice, warm tone in the images.
| | 04:41 |
I could always make some adjustments
later but I think that is going to produce
| | 04:45 |
the best color overall.
So, again, 100 ISO, F8, five hundredth of
| | 04:48 |
a second.
That's slightly underexposed at the
| | 04:50 |
moment, but that's going to help make sure
those clouds don't get blown out.
| | 04:54 |
And of course using a manual exposure.
I've also taped my lens down so that I
| | 04:58 |
make sure that the zoom setting and the
focus is not going to change at all
| | 05:02 |
during the capture.
So, with all of that taken care of, I'm
| | 05:06 |
ready to start my time lapse capture.
I'll go ahead and press the start/stop
| | 05:11 |
button and the capture begins.
And so, now, I just need to make sure
| | 05:14 |
that this camera set up remains
relatively safe.
| | 05:17 |
So that it doesn't get disturbed, cars
passing, people going by and even the
| | 05:20 |
cows, making sure that they don't get too
close.
| | 05:22 |
But I think that this is actually going
to be a pretty interesting time lapse,
| | 05:25 |
blending some relatively fast moving
subjects, the cows here, and a relatively
| | 05:29 |
slow moving subject, with the clouds in
the sky above.
| | 05:32 |
A beautiful scene, and I think it's going
to produce a very nice time lapse.
| | 05:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Downloading the images with Lightroom| 00:02 |
I was fortunate enough to find a scene
that featured a beautiful mountain
| | 00:05 |
backdrop with developing clouds and some
cows with a pasture in a foreground.
| | 00:09 |
So I'm eager to get started assembling
those images into a time lapse.
| | 00:14 |
I'm going to use light room to process
the images for this project.
| | 00:18 |
And the first step is to import the
images into light room so that I can work
| | 00:20 |
with them.
I'm working with an empty catalog, but,
| | 00:24 |
of course, you could also import images
into an existing catalog.
| | 00:27 |
If you're already using Lightroom to
manage your images.
| | 00:30 |
I'll go ahead and click the import
button.
| | 00:33 |
That will bring up the import dialog.
And we can make sure the source is set to
| | 00:37 |
the correct source.
In this case, my digital media card
| | 00:40 |
inserted into a card reader.
The thumbnails here give a clear
| | 00:45 |
indication that the correct images are
being downloaded.
| | 00:49 |
We can see the field of grass in the
foreground with cows, and the clouds up
| | 00:52 |
in the sky above the mountains.
So those are the images that I want to
| | 00:56 |
down load.
I want to copy the images, I don't want
| | 00:58 |
to move them, I want to copy them, so
that the originals will stay on my
| | 01:01 |
digital media card.
Once I know for sure that the images have
| | 01:06 |
made it safely to my computer, I can
reformat that card in my camera.
| | 01:11 |
Over on the right side I'll go ahead and
click the pop up to choose a destination,
| | 01:14 |
and generally speaking this destination
would be for example an external hard
| | 01:17 |
drive or a dedicated folder on you
internal hard drive where you store all
| | 01:20 |
of your photos...
For this course I am actually going to
| | 01:26 |
use a folder on my desktop, but instead
of going to my desktop I am going to
| | 01:29 |
click other destinations so I can
navigate to the specific folder that I am
| | 01:32 |
using for my time-lapse captures, that's
on my desktop and then the time-lapse
| | 01:36 |
captures folder So I'll select that
folder and click the choose button and
| | 01:39 |
then I can choose some of the other
options for the download.
| | 01:46 |
Under file handling I'll set the render
previews to minimal and I want to turn on
| | 01:50 |
the check box to not import selected
duplicates.
| | 01:54 |
Of course in this case that's certainly
not an issue since I have not yet
| | 01:57 |
imported any images into my light room
cataloge.
| | 02:00 |
But this is just a good general measure
to make sure you don't inadvertently
| | 02:03 |
download the same images twice.
I can also make a second copy of the
| | 02:07 |
images and this is something I definitely
encourage you to use so that you make a
| | 02:11 |
backup of your images as part of the
download process.
| | 02:16 |
For purposes of this course I'm not going
to choose this option, but I do suggest
| | 02:19 |
that, generally speaking, you put that to
use.
| | 02:23 |
I'm also not going to worry about
renaming my files.
| | 02:25 |
I certanly have a lot of flexibiity in
Lightroom to rename these images.
| | 02:29 |
But since I reset the number in my
camaera the first image is simply image
| | 02:33 |
number 1, and the last image in this case
would be image 1237.
| | 02:39 |
And so, I'm happy with that numbering.
I don't need to worry about changing the
| | 02:42 |
file naming.
I could always do that later as well if I
| | 02:45 |
decided I wanted to.
Under Apply During Import, we have some
| | 02:48 |
options to apply develop settings.
So, for example, perhaps I want to create a
| | 02:52 |
time-lapse in black and white, I could
use my develop settings here to apply a
| | 02:56 |
black and white preset to all of the
images during import.
| | 03:00 |
But in this case I want the images to
remain as they were, so I won't apply
| | 03:04 |
anything during the import.
Then I can also adjust the destination.
| | 03:09 |
I've already specified the folder that I
want to copy images into, but that was my
| | 03:12 |
general folder.
I also want to create a sub-folder, so
| | 03:15 |
I'll turn on the Into Subfolder checkbox,
and then I'll type a name in the field here.
| | 03:20 |
For these specific images.
I'm going to call this, Clouds and Cows Time Lapse.
| | 03:28 |
Just a descriptive name, so I'll know
which images these are.
| | 03:31 |
And I don't want to organize the images
into sub folders by date.
| | 03:35 |
So, I'll choose the Into One folder
option from this pop-up.
| | 03:39 |
And as you can see there are no other
options I need to consider so I'm ready
| | 03:42 |
to import all of these images, copying
them from my digital media card into a
| | 03:46 |
folder in this case on my desktop.
I'll go ahead and click the import button.
| | 03:52 |
And then Lightroom will set about the
task of copying the images from my
| | 03:57 |
digital media card on to that folder on
my desktop so that I can then process
| | 04:01 |
these images and create my final time
lapse video.
| | 04:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing and processing the images| 00:02 |
I've imported the captures from my Clouds
and Cows Time-lapse Project into
| | 00:05 |
Lightroom, so I'm ready to review those
images, and then process them so that I
| | 00:08 |
can assemble my final time-lapse video.
The first thing I want to do is to sort
| | 00:14 |
through the images and check for any
problems.
| | 00:17 |
So, I'm in my Grid Display View here, and
I can simply scroll through the images,
| | 00:21 |
not at too fast a rate.
I'm checking overall for exposure issues.
| | 00:26 |
I want to make sure that all of the
captures have a relatively even exposure.
| | 00:31 |
Considering with time-lapse photography,
we're capturing a large number of images
| | 00:34 |
you might be tempted to scroll through
those images relatively quickly.
| | 00:39 |
But it really can pay off to take your
time and scroll relatively slowly in
| | 00:43 |
order to check for any little problems.
In this particular case, I actually had
| | 00:48 |
several images that did exhibit some
exposure problems.
| | 00:52 |
I used Manual Exposure and every single
image was captured with the same settings.
| | 00:57 |
I'll go ahead and click on an image here
and then scroll down on the right panel,
| | 01:01 |
so that we can take a look at the
metadata for this image.
| | 01:05 |
And you'll see that the Exposure Settings
were 1,500th of a second at F8, with an
| | 01:10 |
ISO setting of 100.
I'll switch to the image to the left, and
| | 01:15 |
you can see that the settings are exactly
the same, the exposure was exactly the same.
| | 01:20 |
But I'm going to switch to my Loop View
so that we can see a larger version of
| | 01:23 |
the image.
And as I switch between these two images,
| | 01:26 |
you can see, there's a very clear
difference in the actual exposure.
| | 01:31 |
My guess is that the Shutter stuck just a
little bit so that this image was
| | 01:35 |
slightly underexposed.
Rather than have you sit and watch as I
| | 01:39 |
sort through over 1200 photos, I have
gone through and reviewed the images
| | 01:43 |
myself and I've marked the images that
there were problematic with a reject
| | 01:46 |
flag, just by pressing the letter X on
the keyboard in Lightroom.
| | 01:52 |
So, you can see here a few frames, for
example, that were slightly darker.
| | 01:57 |
This only happened with a handful of
images but that would have caused an
| | 02:00 |
obvious flicker in the final time-lapse
video so I certainly want to exclude those.
| | 02:06 |
The important thing to keep in mind is
that it's worthwhile to really go through
| | 02:09 |
the images carefully looking for any such
problems.
| | 02:13 |
Another good example in this case, if a
bird had flown through the scene.
| | 02:17 |
I would have that bird in probably in
just one frame, since these images were
| | 02:21 |
captured two seconds apart.
That can be a little bit distracting in
| | 02:24 |
the final result, so I might exclude that
frame as well.
| | 02:28 |
Especially with longer intervals, this
won't be a problem at all.
| | 02:31 |
But even if you're only using a one
second interval, generally speaking,
| | 02:35 |
skipping one or two frames won't cause an
obvious problem in a final result.
| | 02:40 |
So, I have all of the images here that
I've captured and I've marked those that
| | 02:44 |
are problematic in terms of that exposure
with a reject flag.
| | 02:48 |
So, I'm going to turn on the Filter on
the filmstrip, and then I'll click the
| | 02:50 |
Filter label so that I can see the
additional parameters.
| | 02:53 |
And I'm going to set my Filter so that
only unflagged images will be displayed,
| | 02:55 |
and that will effectively filter out the
images with the reject flag.
| | 02:58 |
So now, out of my 1,237 images, you can
see that only 1,229 are being displayed,
| | 03:07 |
so I've excluded 38 photos.
And that means, it'll be excluded from
| | 03:15 |
the final time-lapse because I'm not
going to process those images that I rejected.
| | 03:20 |
I'll go ahead and choose Edit > Select
All from the menu in order to select all
| | 03:24 |
of the images on the film strip.
And again, because I filtered out the
| | 03:29 |
images with the reject flag, that means
that only 1,229 images rather than the
| | 03:33 |
full 1,237 will be selected.
Therefore, when I process these images,
| | 03:39 |
those will be the only ones processed and
therefore, they'll be the only ones
| | 03:43 |
included in my final time-lapse video.
With these images selected, I'll go ahead
| | 03:48 |
and click the Export button at the bottom
the left panel and at the export dialog,
| | 03:52 |
which by the way, indicates that 1,229
files are going to be exported, I can
| | 03:56 |
make sure the Export To option is set to
hard drive rather than a CD or DVD.
| | 04:03 |
I'll set the location to my Desktop, but
I'm going to turn on the Put In Subfolder
| | 04:07 |
checkbox so that I can create a new
folder on my Desktop.
| | 04:12 |
I'll call this TL exports for time lapse
exports because I'm going to use these
| | 04:16 |
same settings for future time-lapses and
I want them to all go into a simple
| | 04:20 |
folder that'll be easily recognizable on
my desktop.
| | 04:25 |
I don't want to add the exported images
to the catalog that would cause
| | 04:28 |
essentially a redundancy of images.
And so I'll make sure that the Add To The
| | 04:32 |
Catalog checkbox is turned off.
And for existing files, in other words,
| | 04:36 |
if these images already exist in the
destination folder, I'll have Lightroom
| | 04:40 |
ask me what to do by choosing the Ask
What To Do option from the pop-up menu.
| | 04:45 |
I don't want to rename the images,
there's no need.
| | 04:47 |
Even though I dropped frames, I'm really
not concerned about the file names for
| | 04:50 |
these images that are going to be process
into the time-lapse video.
| | 04:54 |
I'll scroll down, I'm going to keep the
format at JPEG, that's what I capture
| | 04:57 |
these images in.
And I want to keep the images in the JPEG
| | 05:01 |
file format.
I will increase the Quality Setting to
| | 05:04 |
the maximum value just to ensure the best
results in my video.
| | 05:07 |
And I'll make sure the Color Space is set
to SRGB that will help ensure more
| | 05:11 |
vibrant colors in the final result
regardless of how the video is viewed later.
| | 05:17 |
I don't need to include video files.
I'm only exporting still images, so I can
| | 05:21 |
turn off the Include Video files
checkbox.
| | 05:24 |
I do want to resize the images, however.
I'm going to turn on the Resize To Fit checkbox.
| | 05:30 |
And then, I'll specify a particular width
and height that I want to constrain these
| | 05:33 |
images into.
For this particular project, I'll go
| | 05:36 |
ahead and resize these images to a
standard DVD video option.
| | 05:41 |
That would be a width of 720 pixels and a
height of 480 pixels.
| | 05:46 |
The images will then fit within these
constraints when they're processed by Lightroom.
| | 05:52 |
I don't need to worry about the
resolution since I'm not printing these
| | 05:54 |
images, and I don't want to apply any
output sharpening, and I'm not concerned
| | 05:57 |
about metadata or watermarking.
And in this particular case, I certainly
| | 06:02 |
don't want to apply any post-processing,
I just want these images essentially to
| | 06:06 |
be resized and saved as JPEG files at a
relatively high quality setting.
| | 06:11 |
Because I'm likely to use these same
settings for future time-lapse captures,
| | 06:14 |
I'm going to click the Add button over on
the left side of the Export dialog that
| | 06:18 |
will bring up a dialog for me to save the
preset.
| | 06:23 |
I'll go ahead and call this time-lapse
export, that's a reasonably clear
| | 06:26 |
description, but I'm also going to
indicate the resolution which would be
| | 06:30 |
the 720x480 pixels that I indicated.
I'll go ahead and click the Create button.
| | 06:36 |
And now in the future, when I'm exporting
images for a time-lapse, I can simply
| | 06:40 |
choose this user preset rather than
configuring all the settings manually.
| | 06:45 |
With those settings established, I'll go
ahead and click the Export button.
| | 06:48 |
And now, all of the images that I
selected will be processed and exported
| | 06:51 |
by Lightroom.
They'll be saved into that folder on my
| | 06:56 |
desktop so that I can use those smaller
versions of my captures as the basis of
| | 07:00 |
my time-lapse video.
| | 07:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling the final time lapse| 00:02 |
I've imported the images for my clouds
and cows Time-Lapse project into Lightroom.
| | 00:07 |
And I've used Lightroom to export those
images to produce the smaller JPEG images
| | 00:11 |
that I'll use to assemble the final
Time-Lapse video.
| | 00:14 |
So now, I'm ready to actually assemble
that video.
| | 00:18 |
For this project, I'll go ahead and use
Quicktime Pro to assemble the time lapse.
| | 00:22 |
It's a very easy solution, but do keep in
mind that the Quicktime player version 10
| | 00:26 |
does not support the ability to create
Time-Lapse videos.
| | 00:31 |
So, you'll need to download version 7 and
upgrade that to the Pro version of 7 in
| | 00:34 |
order to be able to use this tool.
That said, it is a very simple tool to
| | 00:39 |
use for Time-Lapse photography.
I'll go ahead and switch to the Quicktime
| | 00:44 |
player and then I'll choose File > Open
Image Sequence from the menu.
| | 00:48 |
And then I'll navigate to the location
where I exported the images from Lightroom.
| | 00:53 |
And that's a folder called TL Exports,
for Time-Lapse exports, right on my desktop.
| | 00:58 |
I'll go ahead and click on the first
image in the sequence and then simply
| | 01:01 |
click the Open button.
I then need to specify a frame rate and
| | 01:06 |
I'll just leave this at the default of
29.97 frames per second, which is the
| | 01:10 |
standard frame rate for video.
I'll click OK and the Quicktime player
| | 01:15 |
will go about processing my images in
order to create my Time-Lapse video.
| | 01:22 |
I'll go ahead and save this video right
off the bat.
| | 01:24 |
File > Save As from the menu.
But then, I'll expand the dialog so that
| | 01:30 |
I can see the folders.
I'll choose the Time-Lapse Captures folder.
| | 01:35 |
And then the clouds and cows Time Lapse
folder.
| | 01:37 |
And then I can just specify a name.
I'll just call this clouds and cows.
| | 01:44 |
But then I'll also specify, as part of
the filename, that this Time-Lapse video
| | 01:47 |
was assembled at 30 frames per second.
Actually, 29.97.
| | 01:52 |
But for simplicity, I'll just round that
up to 30.
| | 01:54 |
And I want to make sure that I'm choosing
the Save As Self Contained Movie option,
| | 01:58 |
so that I'm creating an actual video
file, rather than a movie that requires
| | 02:02 |
the original JPEG images to play it back.
I'll go ahead and click the Save button
| | 02:10 |
and that will save this video file.
And now that the file is saved, I'm going to
| | 02:15 |
go ahead and click the Play button, so
that I can review my work.
| | 02:19 |
I'm actually a little bit disappointed
with the behavior of the cows in this
| | 02:22 |
particular Time-Lapse project.
I was really hoping they would come
| | 02:25 |
closer to the camera, which is why I have
so much empty space in the grass in this framing.
| | 02:31 |
I was doing my best moo impersonation,
but I just couldn't get them to come very
| | 02:34 |
close for the most part.
But I do really like the cloud development.
| | 02:39 |
You'll notice the clouds seem to develop
very, very slowly, and that's because I
| | 02:42 |
was compromising on my interval between
the cows and the clouds.
| | 02:47 |
The cows are moving relatively fast, and
the clouds develop relatively slowly.
| | 02:51 |
If I had used a five-second interval,
those clouds would have developed more
| | 02:55 |
quickly, but I think, in this case two
seconds was a good compromise.
| | 03:00 |
I'm also really happy with the shadows of
the clouds that move across the
| | 03:03 |
mountainscape there.
So, all things considered I'm pretty
| | 03:06 |
happy with this time lapse.
I just wish I was able to speak more
| | 03:10 |
convincingly to cows to get them to do
exactly what I'd like.
| | 03:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. A Day at the OfficeCapturing the time-lapse frames| 00:00 |
Time-lapse videos are all about
compressing time.
| | 00:03 |
Taking a relatively large amount of time
and compressing it down to a relatively
| | 00:06 |
short amount of time.
And the result is a video that's usually
| | 00:10 |
interesting and sometimes amusing.
As you start doing more and more
| | 00:13 |
time-lapses, of course, you'll want to
start thinking about longer periods of time.
| | 00:17 |
So you need subjects that are going to be
around for awhile.
| | 00:19 |
And I found an office here were I can
record the activity going on throughout
| | 00:23 |
the entire workday.
So, I'm getting my camera set up here, I
| | 00:26 |
have got a tri-pod already mounted, and
I've taken measures to secure it to a
| | 00:29 |
table top here.
Keeping it out of the way so it doesn't
| | 00:32 |
get bumped into, and also trying to keep
it as secure as possible.
| | 00:35 |
And of course I've got the camera
mounted securely to the tripod.
| | 00:39 |
I want to think about the exposure settings
here.
| | 00:41 |
I'm indoors, so obviously I have a
relatively limited amount of light to
| | 00:44 |
work with.
There are windows and so that light level
| | 00:46 |
might change a little bit throughout the
day.
| | 00:49 |
But looking at the overall scene here,
one of the reasons that I've set up my
| | 00:51 |
camera in this position is I have some
interesting elements to include in the frame.
| | 00:56 |
I have a clock over on one pillar here
and that's going to allow me to see the
| | 00:59 |
passage of time which helps to give us
some context for the time-lapse.
| | 01:03 |
I also have some boxes on the table here
in front of the camera.
| | 01:06 |
Now, that might be something you see as
clutter that you want to remove, but
| | 01:09 |
actually, here it is, going to provide us
with a nice foundation.
| | 01:12 |
A nice anchor point for the frame, we'll
have an area that stays static to help
| | 01:15 |
give us some context for the motion
that's happening.
| | 01:19 |
And speaking of motion, I've got some
people here working at their stations.
| | 01:22 |
And so, as they set about their day
working at their computers, coming and going.
| | 01:26 |
Depending on what they're doing
throughout the day, taking their lunch
| | 01:28 |
break for example.
All that motion will be captured.
| | 01:31 |
I need to consider the exposure settings,
I'm working at a relatively high ISO
| | 01:34 |
setting here.
I'm going to use an 800 ISO so that I'll be
| | 01:37 |
able to achieve a reasonably fast shutter
speed.
| | 01:41 |
I actually don't want too fast a shutter
speed, though, because I want to render
| | 01:44 |
the motion that's happening with a little
bit of blur.
| | 01:47 |
That's that persistence of motion concept
that comes up a lot with time-lapse.
| | 01:51 |
I'm going to aim for a shutter speed of
somewhere around an eighth of a second.
| | 01:54 |
And in this environment, at an 800 ISO, I
think I can achieve an eighth of a second
| | 01:59 |
at around maybe about F8.
Somewhere in that range.
| | 02:04 |
So, I'll adjust my exposure, using a
manual setting of course, so I'll have a
| | 02:07 |
consistent exposure throughout.
Even as the light changes, the camera
| | 02:11 |
will always be operating at a fixed
shutter speed and aperture.
| | 02:15 |
So that we'll document that change, that
change in light levels, and also ensure
| | 02:18 |
that the video we produce in the end
doesn't have any flicker as a result.
| | 02:23 |
I'm also setting a white balance preset,
and in this case, I'm actually going to
| | 02:26 |
use a custom setting for my white
balance.
| | 02:29 |
Because I want to be able to dial in
exactly the color temperature I'd like.
| | 02:33 |
Using a fluorescent setting or an
incandescent setting, things were a
| | 02:35 |
little bit too cool or too warm,
depending on the particulars here.
| | 02:39 |
And so, that'll give me just a little bit
more control.
| | 02:41 |
So, I'm going to get everything set up in
the camera here, and of course make sure
| | 02:45 |
that I'm focused on an element that's
relatively close.
| | 02:49 |
So, I want a reasonably good depth of
field.
| | 02:51 |
But shooting wide like this from a little
bit of a distance F8 is going to be
| | 02:54 |
adequate for me, so it should be no
problem at all.
| | 02:57 |
So I have the camera all set up, you'll
notice here, of course, I've got the
| | 03:00 |
camera plugged into a power outlet.
I've got the cord coming into the camera.
| | 03:03 |
This is going to be a long-term time-lapse.
So, I'm planning to shoot for about 8
| | 03:07 |
hours, a full work day.
And so, I need to make sure that I'll
| | 03:10 |
have plenty of power.
So rather than just using a battery, I'm
| | 03:13 |
going to plug the camera into the wall,
giving me permanent power for that camera.
| | 03:17 |
I also have the camera plugged into a
computer, so rather than using a cable
| | 03:20 |
release with an interval timer, I'm going
to use a computer.
| | 03:24 |
And so, I've got the camera plugged in to
a USB port on the computer.
| | 03:27 |
And I'm using DSLR Remote Pro from
Breathe Systems and this allows me to
| | 03:31 |
control the camera remotely.
I could stay here and fire shots at will,
| | 03:35 |
but it also includes a function for a
time-lapse.
| | 03:39 |
So I'm going to configure the time-lapse
here.
| | 03:43 |
I think I want about a 30 second final
video.
| | 03:46 |
So I'll compress, around about an 8 hour
day down to just 30 seconds of video.
| | 03:50 |
And so, I need a total of 900 frames,
assuming that I'll produce the final
| | 03:53 |
video at about 30 frames per second.
And I'm going to set my interval to 20
| | 03:58 |
seconds between frames.
I could use anything from about 20 to 30 seconds.
| | 04:03 |
But this'll give me a slightly shorter
interval than a necessarily need.
| | 04:06 |
And once again, I'll fine tune when I'm
producing the final video.
| | 04:09 |
So I'll take one last look here, make
sure that the composition, the zoom, in
| | 04:11 |
this case, it set up just as I'd like it
and confirm my focus.
| | 04:15 |
And then I'm going to go ahead and turn off
the autofocus, and then I'm going to tape up
| | 04:19 |
the lens as well, just to make sure that
that zoom setting and focus doesn't
| | 04:24 |
change at all.
There we go.
| | 04:28 |
And now, I'm ready to get started, so
I'll go ahead and trigger the time-lapse.
| | 04:31 |
So, I'll click the start button in DSLR
Remote Pro, and we've got our first frame.
| | 04:35 |
And now, every 20 seconds, a new frame
will be captured and will render all of
| | 04:38 |
this motion which we'll be able to put
together in our final time-lapse video.
| | 04:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Downloading the images with Lightroom| 00:02 |
After letting my camera capture frames
for around about eight hours in an office
| | 00:05 |
at an interval of 20 seconds between each
frame, I'm ready to process those images,
| | 00:09 |
so that I can create the time-lapse
video.
| | 00:13 |
I'm going to use Lightroom to prepare the
images for this project.
| | 00:17 |
So, my first step will be to import the
images into Lightroom.
| | 00:21 |
In the Library module, at the bottom of
the left panel, I'll click the Import
| | 00:24 |
button, which will bring up the import
dialog, where I can choose the source of
| | 00:28 |
the images I'm going to import.
You can see that for this project I have
| | 00:34 |
over 1600 photos to import.
That gives me close to full minute of
| | 00:38 |
final video, assuming 30 frames per
second.
| | 00:41 |
It would take about 1800 images to
produce a full minute.
| | 00:45 |
And so, we have a time-lapse that's a
little bit longer then typical.
| | 00:49 |
I usually aim for 30 seconds but it's
also a time lapse that incorporates a
| | 00:52 |
relativity long period of time.
In this case, around about eight hours.
| | 00:56 |
You can most certainly take your time
lapses much longer, lasting several days
| | 00:59 |
if you wanted to, for example.
But still this gives us a pretty good
| | 01:03 |
sense of what's possible with time lapse
photography.
| | 01:07 |
I'm going to copy the images into a
folder.
| | 01:10 |
In this case, a Time-Lapse Captures
folder on my Desktop.
| | 01:13 |
But I'm also going to scroll down and
choose to put these images into an
| | 01:17 |
additional subfolder.
I'll provide a name for that sub-folder,
| | 01:21 |
and in this case, I'll call it, A Day at
the Ooffice.
| | 01:26 |
And otherwise, I think all my settings
are just fine, for this particular import.
| | 01:31 |
So, I'm going to click the Import button,
and Lightroom will begin importing all of
| | 01:35 |
these images, all of over 1600 images.
So, that I can sort through and organize
| | 01:41 |
those images and then prepare them to
create my final time lapse.
| | 01:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making batch adjustments with Lightroom| 00:13 |
I've imported into Lightroom the images
from My Day at the Office time-lapse
| | 00:14 |
project, which were captured over the
course of about an 8 hour day, at an
| | 00:15 |
interval of 20 seconds between each
frame.
| | 00:16 |
But I notice right off the bat that
things could use a little bit of an
| | 00:17 |
improvement here between each frame, the
images don't quite have the right color.
| | 00:20 |
I'd like to apply some adjustments.
Of course, with over 1600 images in this
| | 00:24 |
time-lapse project, I certainly don't
want to apply the adjustments
| | 00:27 |
individually to each image.
And so, I'm going to apply the
| | 00:31 |
adjustments to all images using one as
the baseline and then synchronizing those
| | 00:34 |
adjustments to all of the images here.
With this particular time-lapse, the
| | 00:39 |
light changed quite a bit over time.
You can see there are windows in the background.
| | 00:43 |
And as the light changes throughout the
day, both in terms of intensity and color
| | 00:47 |
temperature, that causes some variability
within the scene.
| | 00:50 |
So I don't want to start with the first
image and I don't want to start with the
| | 00:53 |
last image.
The first image is a little brighter than
| | 00:56 |
the rest.
The last image is a little darker than
| | 00:59 |
the rest.
So I'm going to choose an image somewhere in
| | 01:01 |
the middle.
I'll use the Filmstrip and just scroll
| | 01:04 |
about halfway across the Filmstrip to
find a representative image from
| | 01:07 |
somewhere around the middle.
I'm then going to switch to the Develop
| | 01:11 |
Module and I'll apply some adjustments to
optimize this image.
| | 01:15 |
I think the color temperature's a bit
off, so I'm going to shift the
| | 01:18 |
Temperature over toward blue just a
little bit to get rid of some of the
| | 01:20 |
excess yellow.
And I also think that it's a little bit
| | 01:24 |
green, that's probably owing to the
fluorescent lights.
| | 01:28 |
So I'll move the Tint slider over to the
right, a little bit toward magenta in
| | 01:31 |
order to compensate for that green.
I can also apply some other adjustments,
| | 01:36 |
for example, Tonality.
I think overall the tonality is good.
| | 01:39 |
I might apply a little bit of a Fill
Light adjustment just to brighten up some
| | 01:43 |
of those darker shadow areas.
I don't think I need any more Contrast,
| | 01:47 |
the scene is already a little bit
contrasty.
| | 01:50 |
I do think I'll increase the Clarity
value.
| | 01:52 |
Now, you know, clarity will give me
something of a sharpening effect.
| | 01:56 |
I sort of think of it as a haze reducer.
And here, it's going to help to tone down
| | 02:00 |
the, what appears to be haze in the
background.
| | 02:03 |
Because of that back lighting, we get a
little bit of a hazy appearance and
| | 02:06 |
increasing clarity a little bit will
improve that.
| | 02:09 |
I also think the colors could use a
little bit of a kick so I'm going to
| | 02:12 |
bring up the vibrance, not too much of
course.
| | 02:15 |
I don't want things to look artificial.
And actually, now that I think about it,
| | 02:18 |
I'm contemplating maybe converting this
into a black and white.
| | 02:22 |
Because, the color is a little bit
problematic to me, it's, it's not that
| | 02:25 |
it's incorrect necessarily, it's just not
that pleasing.
| | 02:29 |
And so, I think perhaps a black and white
interpretation might actually solve that,
| | 02:32 |
and perhaps might even make the over all
time-lapse look a little bit more interesting.
| | 02:38 |
And getting a sense of that, just by
reducing the saturation slider all the
| | 02:41 |
way, I think this might be a good
improvement for these images.
| | 02:46 |
So I'll take Saturation back where it
was, and I'm going to choose the B&W for
| | 02:49 |
black and white section here of
adjustments.
| | 02:53 |
And then I can fine-tune each of the
color values here in order to lighten and
| | 02:57 |
darken specific ranges based on the
original color.
| | 03:01 |
So I'll brighten up the oranges a little
bit.
| | 03:03 |
And that is mostly effecting the
cardboard box in the foreground.
| | 03:07 |
We'll take a look at the yellows.
We don't want to brighten those up too much.
| | 03:11 |
And the greens, I think maybe we'll
darken up the greens a little bit.
| | 03:14 |
The aquas or cyans, I think I'll brighten
those just a hair.
| | 03:18 |
And the blues, I think I'll brighten
those, just to get a little bit more
| | 03:21 |
intensity in those tiles in the
background.
| | 03:24 |
And basically, just going through each of
these sliders and trying to find the best
| | 03:28 |
position to produce a good overall
effect.
| | 03:31 |
This does cause a little bit darker
appearance in the background than I might like.
| | 03:35 |
I'm going to try increasing the Fill
Light just a little bit more.
| | 03:38 |
Yeah, that looks like it's a, a good
adjustment there.
| | 03:41 |
And I might even just increase overall
brightness just a little bit.
| | 03:45 |
That looks to be a good improvement,
although, I am seeing a little bit of
| | 03:48 |
noise and that's probably just a matter
of having brightened some of the areas of
| | 03:52 |
the image that contain some noise in the
first place.
| | 03:56 |
So I'll take a look at the yellows and
that is certainly affecting some of the
| | 04:00 |
cardboard, maybe the aquas and blues.
And we just need to take a look at each
| | 04:05 |
of these channels, each of these color
ranges and see which one is most problematic.
| | 04:10 |
And there we have it.
The greens for the floor are certainly a
| | 04:13 |
little bit problematic.
If I brighten those up, that noise goes away.
| | 04:18 |
And as far as that cardboard, I'm
guessing that the oranges are probably
| | 04:21 |
mostly to blame and if I keep that a
little darker, that'll certainly help.
| | 04:26 |
And now that I've brightened the rest of
the scene, I think that actually works
| | 04:29 |
out just fine.
And since, there obviously is a little
| | 04:32 |
bit of noise in the image, I'm going to
go to my Detail section and I'll actually
| | 04:36 |
apply a little bit of noise reduction.
I think in this case, it's mostly
| | 04:40 |
luminance noise reduction.
I'm going to reduce my Histogram Display
| | 04:44 |
and scroll up a little bit so that we can
see the preview.
| | 04:48 |
And as I increase Luminance, you'll see
that the image starts to look a little
| | 04:51 |
bit soft.
As I decrease Luminance, you'll see that
| | 04:55 |
the noise shows up again.
And I want to use just enough of a
| | 04:58 |
Luminance Noise Reduction to have a good
effect on the image.
| | 05:02 |
If you take it too far, things will get
softened up fairly significantly.
| | 05:06 |
I'll go ahead and reduce the Detail
setting here just a little bit, and that
| | 05:09 |
looks to be a pretty good effect.
I don't need to worry about color noise
| | 05:13 |
at this point, even though there may have
been some color noise in the original,
| | 05:16 |
since I have converted the image to black
and white and that obviously won't be a concern.
| | 05:22 |
So that looks to be a reasonably good
adjustment.
| | 05:24 |
Obviously, some of these background areas
are a little bit dark, but that's just
| | 05:27 |
the nature of this scene.
Several of the overhead lights were
| | 05:30 |
turned off so that the folks working at
the computers would be able to work a
| | 05:33 |
little bit more effectively.
Ad so, it's simply dark in that corner.
| | 05:37 |
I'm not going to worry about that too much,
but now that I have an adjustment that
| | 05:41 |
I"m happy with for this image, I can
apply this adjustment to all of the
| | 05:44 |
images in this particular shoot.
So, I'll go into the Edit menu and choose
| | 05:49 |
Select All.
And now, all of the images are selected
| | 05:52 |
with the image that I was working on
being the actively selected image.
| | 05:57 |
So now, I can click the Sync button at
the bottom of the right panel in the
| | 06:00 |
Develop Module.
And this will bring up the Synchronized
| | 06:04 |
Settings dialog.
In this dialog, I can choose which
| | 06:07 |
specific adjustments I would like to
apply to all of these images.
| | 06:11 |
You'll notice that the only options that
are turned off are those that you might
| | 06:15 |
want to apply individually.
Localized adjustments, in other words,
| | 06:19 |
adjustments effecting specific areas of
an image, transform, and profile
| | 06:22 |
corrections, as well spot removal, and
cropping.
| | 06:25 |
So, in this case, the default settings
are perfectly fine.
| | 06:28 |
It's essentially applying all of the
adjustments that optimize or change the
| | 06:32 |
appearance of the image.
So, I'll go ahead and click the
| | 06:35 |
Synchronize button, and Lightroom will
process all of these images.
| | 06:39 |
And in just a moment, we'll see that all
of the images have been effectively
| | 06:42 |
converted to a black and white
interpretation.
| | 06:45 |
As you can see, Lightroom makes it very
easy to apply adjustments to one image.
| | 06:52 |
But then, apply the exact same effect to
a large number of images which is
| | 06:57 |
particularly helpful for time-lapse
photography.
| | 07:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing and processing the images| 00:02 |
I've used Lightroom to import and then
process all of the images from my day at
| | 00:05 |
the office time lapse.
These images were captured over the
| | 00:09 |
course of around eight hours at twenty
second intervals.
| | 00:13 |
And so all of these images have now been
converted to black and white
| | 00:16 |
interpretation and I'm ready to process
them so that I can create a time lapse video.
| | 00:22 |
One of the interesting elements of
time-lapse photography is that you really
| | 00:26 |
can't predict exactly what you're going
to end up with.
| | 00:29 |
And so it's a really good idea to review
the images after they've been captured,
| | 00:33 |
just to get a better idea of what that
result might be.
| | 00:36 |
I'm going to scroll through and we'll see
that things are reasonably straight-forward.
| | 00:41 |
Of course these are small thumbnails, and
so it's difficult to see exactly what's
| | 00:44 |
going on, but there are no major changes
from frame to frame.
| | 00:49 |
That's a good thing in terms of the
luminosity, for example, the fact that we
| | 00:52 |
didn't have any variations in brightness
caused by some exposure problem.
| | 00:56 |
That really shouldn't be an issue since I
captured in manual mode.
| | 01:00 |
But every now and then, your camera might
misfire or some other issue might cause
| | 01:04 |
some variation between frames.
So, from that standpoint, things look
| | 01:08 |
very, very good.
We can also randomly sample a few images
| | 01:11 |
here and there.
With this image, for example, you can see
| | 01:14 |
that because I used a bit of a slow
shutter speed, I have some blurring of motion.
| | 01:19 |
And that's a great thing as far as I'm
concerned because it really helps to
| | 01:21 |
preserve that persistence of motion
effect.
| | 01:24 |
It really simulates what we see with our
own eyes when we're observing a scene.
| | 01:28 |
So, that's a really good thing.
I'm going to continue going through these
| | 01:32 |
images and just checking.
I definitely want to check the first frame
| | 01:35 |
and the last frame or at least the first
few frames and last frames.
| | 01:39 |
We'll go right to the end here for
example and we'll see that near the end,
| | 01:42 |
things got much, much darker.
The lights went out and everybody had
| | 01:46 |
gone home for the day.
But toward the very end, someone else
| | 01:49 |
showed up.
And that might break the continuity of
| | 01:52 |
the scene.
In this case, I started with some people
| | 01:54 |
in the frame and then by the end of the
day, everyone had left and so things were
| | 01:57 |
a bit darker.
And so if everybody leaves and then
| | 02:00 |
suddenly we see somebody showing up
again, that might be a little bit odd at
| | 02:03 |
the end.
So I think.
| | 02:06 |
Think in fact that I might remove these
last few images from the project, so that
| | 02:09 |
they're not included in the file time
lapse video.
| | 02:13 |
And instead we end with an empty office.
I'll go ahead and go to the first image
| | 02:17 |
where that person is apparent.
I can see their reflection in the window
| | 02:20 |
in the background.
And then I'll scroll to the very end of
| | 02:23 |
the list.
And I'll hold the Shift key and click on
| | 02:26 |
the last image in the sequence.
And then I'm going to switch to my
| | 02:29 |
gridview so that I can apply an attribute
to all of these images at once and I'll
| | 02:33 |
press the letter X to mark those images
as rejected.
| | 02:38 |
I'll then simply filter them out when I'm
ready to process my timelapse video.
| | 02:41 |
Of course there are also some other
unpredictable aspects of timelapse photography.
| | 02:47 |
In this type of situation, people
obviously knew that the camera was there,
| | 02:50 |
and they knew that it was taking
pictures, and so there is a good chance
| | 02:52 |
that they are going to try and have a little
bit of fun with the camera.
| | 02:57 |
I've already gone through these images
previously, and I've marked some of
| | 03:00 |
those, so that we can get a sense of
that.
| | 03:02 |
I will turn on my filters here and then
filter so that only the flagged images
| | 03:06 |
are visible and then I'll switch to the
loop view and you can see here is one
| | 03:09 |
frame, where everybody decided to stick
their heads in front of the lens.
| | 03:15 |
Now, this is only one frame, it will be
displayed for one thirtieth of a second.
| | 03:19 |
So it will be just a very fast blip in
the in the final video.
| | 03:22 |
But I could, if I wanted to, exclude that
image from that video.
| | 03:26 |
In this case I'm not going to bother with
that.
| | 03:28 |
I think it's actually a little bit fun to
have that sort of more exciting element,
| | 03:32 |
the dynamic element, of a time-lapse
video.
| | 03:35 |
Another interesting thing that I noticed
is some of the people were playing around
| | 03:38 |
with the fact that there was time-lapse.
This person, for example, decided to sit
| | 03:42 |
and spin in their chair.
And as I go through the images, it looks
| | 03:45 |
like they were spinning at a normal rate.
They're just rotating around and around.
| | 03:50 |
But this spans across a fair number of
images.
| | 03:53 |
This, I haven't counted them, but it
looks like maybe a dozen or so images.
| | 03:57 |
Keep in mind that each of these frames
was captured 20 seconds apart.
| | 04:01 |
So, this person obviously was on a bit of
a coffee break, taking some time to play
| | 04:04 |
with the camera just a little bit.
And going toward the end of the images,
| | 04:09 |
we see, or, at least, the end of the
images that I had flagged.
| | 04:12 |
We see that, leaving for the night, this
woman decided to wave goodbye to the camera.
| | 04:17 |
So, a little bit of fun, but I'm going to
leave those images in the timelapse.
| | 04:20 |
I'll go ahead and turn off the filters
for the moment.
| | 04:23 |
And I'm ready to process these images so
that I have a lower resolution set to
| | 04:27 |
work with to create the video from.
There's no sense creating a video that
| | 04:32 |
has extremely high resolution.
And for video, what we would consider low
| | 04:35 |
resolution in the camera is actually
still rather high in terms of video resolution.
| | 04:41 |
So I'm ready to select and process the
images to create those lower resolution versions.
| | 04:47 |
So I'm going to go to the filters.
I'll turn on the filters once again, and
| | 04:50 |
essentially I want to only exclude the
rejected images, so I'll set the flag
| | 04:54 |
option to include flagged images and
non-flagged images.
| | 04:59 |
Essentially everything except the
rejected images.
| | 05:02 |
And that leaves me with 1,593 images out
of the 1,608 captures that were part of
| | 05:09 |
this project.
I'll then choose Edit, Select All from
| | 05:14 |
the menu.
This will select all off the images that
| | 05:16 |
are currently available based on my
filter and then I'm ready to export these
| | 05:20 |
images for purposes of creating the time
lapse video.
| | 05:24 |
I'll go ahead and click the Export button
at the bottom of the left panel in the
| | 05:28 |
library module and I've already created a
time lapse export preset.
| | 05:34 |
This preset will resize the images to a
resolution of 720x480 pixels which is
| | 05:38 |
standard DVD resolution for example.
That'll work perfectly fine.
| | 05:43 |
And they'll all be output onto my desktop
in a folder called TL Exports, for time
| | 05:48 |
lapse exports.
So I'll go ahead and click the Export button.
| | 05:52 |
And the light room will process all of
the selected images.
| | 05:55 |
So that I have the lower resolution
images I can use to create my final time
| | 06:03 |
lapse video.
| | 06:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling the final time lapse| 00:02 |
I've used Lightroom in order to evaluate
and process the images I captured as part
| | 00:06 |
of my Day in the Life time-lapse project.
I exported those images to the desktop in
| | 00:13 |
a folder called, TLExports, in the
process creating gray scale versions or
| | 00:17 |
black and white versions of the images.
So, I think that will make for a
| | 00:22 |
relatively interesting time lapse.
For this particular project, I'm going to
| | 00:26 |
use Adobe Premiere Elements to assemble
the time-lapse video.
| | 00:31 |
I'll go ahead and switch to Premiere
Elements and then choose File > New >
| | 00:35 |
Project from the menu in order to create
a new project.
| | 00:40 |
I'll click the Browse button and navigate
to the desktop and then create a new folder.
| | 00:46 |
I'll go ahead and call this Day at the
Office and this will be my video project.
| | 00:52 |
I'll click Create to create that folder,
and then, click Choose, so that folder is
| | 00:56 |
selected as the folder where the project
will be stored.
| | 01:01 |
I'll go ahead and give the project a
different name as well.
| | 01:04 |
I'll also call it Day at the Office.
And I can also adjust my project settings.
| | 01:09 |
And since Premiere Elements is focused on
creating videos, I need to specify the
| | 01:13 |
video settings for this project.
I'll go ahead and click the change
| | 01:18 |
settings button to bring up the change
settings dialog.
| | 01:21 |
And you'll see along the left-hand side,
we have a series of pre-sets available
| | 01:25 |
for different types of video output.
I'm working in the DV or digital video
| | 01:31 |
section and I've chosen standard.
This will produce a video that is 720
| | 01:37 |
pixels across and 480 pixels down.
So, 720 by 480 pixels, which is the
| | 01:42 |
standard resolution for basic DV.
This is essentially DVD video.
| | 01:49 |
You'll notice that the frame rate is set
to the standard 29.97 frames per second.
| | 01:54 |
So, these settings will work well for the
project I'm creating here.
| | 01:58 |
I'll go ahead and click OK and then I can
click OK in the New Project dialog in
| | 02:02 |
order to create the new project.
At this point, I have the full Premiere
| | 02:08 |
Elements interface available.
And I'm ready to import my images, so
| | 02:11 |
that I can actually get started creating
my time-lapse video.
| | 02:15 |
So, on the Project tab, I'll click on the
Get Media button, and then scroll down
| | 02:19 |
the list, down to Files and Folders.
And then I will navigate to the location
| | 02:25 |
where I have my images stored.
In this case, the TL Exports folder on
| | 02:30 |
the desktop.
I don't need to select the individual images.
| | 02:33 |
I can simply select the folder and then
all images inside that folder will be imported.
| | 02:40 |
So, I'll click the Import button and
Premiere Elements will add these images
| | 02:43 |
into my video project.
At the end of the process here, you'll
| | 02:52 |
see that I've received a message
indicating that one file, specifically
| | 02:55 |
this DS Store, file could not be imported
because it's not a valid media file.
| | 03:01 |
And that's simply a system file.
I don't need to worry about that at all.
| | 03:04 |
So, I'll click the OK button.
And now we can see that the TL Exports
| | 03:08 |
folder is here in the project, ready to
use.
| | 03:12 |
I'll go ahead and double-click that
folder in order to open the images.
| | 03:16 |
And then, I will click on the first image
and press Ctrl+A on Windows or Cmd+A on
| | 03:20 |
Macintosh, in order to select all of the
images in that folder.
| | 03:25 |
I could also have gone to Edit > Select
All from there.
| | 03:31 |
With all of the images selected, I can
then drag them down to my scene line.
| | 03:34 |
I'm in my scene line view, rather than
timeline view.
| | 03:37 |
And so, I will click on the first image
here of all of the selected images.
| | 03:41 |
And click and drag.
And drop it into the box here on my scene line.
| | 03:47 |
When I do so, I'll get a small popup that
asks if I want to add these images as
| | 03:51 |
individual stills or as a grouped
slideshow.
| | 03:56 |
I consider it much easier to work a
grouped slideshow.
| | 03:59 |
We don't need to access the individual
images here, so I am going to click the
| | 04:02 |
add as grouped slideshow option.
I'll then get a dialog that allows me to
| | 04:07 |
adjust the settings for the slide show.
The key setting that I need to take a
| | 04:12 |
look at, is Image Duration.
And by default, the duration for each
| | 04:16 |
image is 150 frames, which means that
each image would appear on the screen for
| | 04:20 |
five seconds.
I want each image to only be visible for
| | 04:25 |
a single frame, 1 30th of a second
essentially, to produce that time lapse effect.
| | 04:31 |
So, I've changed my preferences settings
so that the default image duration is one frame.
| | 04:36 |
If yours is set to the default of 150,
you can simply change it right here.
| | 04:42 |
With that setting established, I'll go
ahead and click OK, and Premiere Elements
| | 04:46 |
will assemble my basic slideshow video.
So, this is a slideshow where each image
| | 04:51 |
is going to be displayed for one frame, 1
30th of a second, so that the final
| | 04:55 |
effect will be a time lapse video.
You might notice right form the start,
| | 05:01 |
however, in the preview area, I have
black bars at the top and the bottom of
| | 05:04 |
the frame.
Even though I sized these images when I
| | 05:08 |
exported them from Lightroom, so that
they would match the standard digital
| | 05:12 |
video dimensions of 720 by 480 pixels.
The reason for this discrepancy is that
| | 05:18 |
the images I'm using have square pixels,
whereas video uses rectangular pixels in
| | 05:23 |
most cases.
I can solve for this by simply stretching
| | 05:27 |
the images to fit the video frame.
I'll go ahead and choose File > Interpret Footage.
| | 05:33 |
And then, in the Pixel Aspect Ratio, I
will change the option to Conform To.
| | 05:38 |
And then click the popup and choose, in
this case, DV NTSC.
| | 05:43 |
This is the 0.9091, which is the aspect
ratio.
| | 05:48 |
That is the option that I want to choose
for the particular digital video setup
| | 05:51 |
that I've used for this project.
So, with that option selected, I'll go
| | 05:55 |
ahead and click OK.
And you'll see that, then, the images are
| | 05:59 |
stretched to fit the frame.
Now, this can cause a slight amount of
| | 06:02 |
distortion, depending on your settings.
But it's so minor that, in most cases, it
| | 06:07 |
really will not be a significant issue.
I can, then, preview the video by
| | 06:11 |
clicking the play button underneath the
preview area.
| | 06:14 |
And that will start a playback of my
time-lapse video.
| | 06:18 |
Keep in mind, however, that the quality
here may not be optimal.
| | 06:21 |
You might see some stuttering, a little
bit of herky jerkiness in the video.
| | 06:25 |
And the resolution might not look all
that good.
| | 06:27 |
The quality may suffer just a little bit
because this is a preview that's being
| | 06:30 |
generated on the fly.
The video itself has not yet been rendered.
| | 06:34 |
But you can see that this is coming
together pretty nicely.
| | 06:38 |
We've got the time-lapse transitioning
from daytime and eventually, this will
| | 06:41 |
transition into nighttime.
We can see the clock turning relatively
| | 06:45 |
quickly in the background.
So, it looks like this time lapse is a success.
| | 06:51 |
I'll go ahead and pause the playback
here.
| | 06:54 |
And then, I can produce the final video.
So, I'll go to my Share tab and then I
| | 06:58 |
will choose the Computer option.
I want to create a file, so I can play
| | 07:03 |
this video back on any computer.
Since I'm working on a Macintosh
| | 07:07 |
environment, in this case, I'll use the
Quicktime format.
| | 07:10 |
So, I'll scroll down and choose Quicktime
for my settings here.
| | 07:13 |
That gives me an NTSC DV or digital video
preset.
| | 07:18 |
I can specify a location.
I'll go ahead and browse and navigate to
| | 07:22 |
the same location, where I created my
video project.
| | 07:26 |
I'll go ahead and click Choose, since
that is the selected folder at the moment.
| | 07:29 |
And I'll give this video file a name.
I'll call this Day at the Office.
| | 07:35 |
And that takes care of all of my
settings, so I can click the save button
| | 07:39 |
and the video will now be rendered.
So, this is actually taking those still
| | 07:44 |
frames and assembling them into an actual
video file, so that I can play back and
| | 07:47 |
share my time-lapse video.
Once Premiere Elements has finished
| | 07:56 |
rendering my video, I can click the Done
button.
| | 07:59 |
And at this point, I'm done with this
particular project.
| | 08:02 |
I'll go ahead and chose File > Save in
order to save this project, so that I can
| | 08:05 |
come back and make any adjustments or
re-render the video in a different
| | 08:08 |
format, if need be.
And then I'll minimize Premiere Elements
| | 08:14 |
and go to my desktop where I can find my
Day at the Office folder.
| | 08:20 |
And then inside that folder, I can find
my day at the office video and then I can
| | 08:23 |
double-click on the video inside of that
folder in order to play it back on my computer.
| | 08:32 |
There's no question that Quicktime Pro 7
is a much easier tool to work with when
| | 08:36 |
it comes to assembling a time-lapse
video, but since newer versions of
| | 08:39 |
Quicktime do not support the ability to
create time lapse videos.
| | 08:45 |
Premiere Elements provides a great
solution that is cross platform as well.
| | 09:02 |
| | 09:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Trains in the SquareCapturing the time-lapse frames| 00:01 |
I'm in the middle of a town square here,
and it's bustling with activity.
| | 00:04 |
I've got buses and trolleys coming back
and forth, people waiting for their rides
| | 00:08 |
or boarding the trolleys and buses, so
lots of movement, and that's going to work
| | 00:11 |
well for a timeline because it'll take a
relatively long period of time and
| | 00:13 |
compress it into a shorter period of time
and everything will seem to move much
| | 00:17 |
more quickly, which will be hopefully a
bit amusing in the final result.
| | 00:23 |
I'm using a relatively wide view, I've
got a church off in the distance, people
| | 00:26 |
waiting in the foreground, and there will
be trolleys and buses going on both sides
| | 00:29 |
of the framing here.
And so, I'm using a wide lens, a Canon
| | 00:34 |
10-22 mm in this particular case, and set
to about 17 mm.
| | 00:39 |
I'm going to get the framing here fined
tuned and then lock things down.
| | 00:46 |
So, I've got the shot set up in a general
sense the way I'd like it, of course,
| | 00:50 |
using a tripod, naturally.
In this case, I'm not really concerned
| | 00:54 |
about tripod movement, there's no breeze
at all, so I don't need to hang a weight
| | 00:57 |
from the center post here.
But everything is good as far as the
| | 01:01 |
framing, I just need to get my camera
settings squared away.
| | 01:04 |
I'm using manual-exposure mode, of
course.
| | 01:07 |
And under these conditions I'm actually
taking a little bit of a gamble.
| | 01:11 |
I'm operating at an aperture of f16 and
1/6 of a second shutter speed.
| | 01:15 |
I wanted to use a little bit longer
shutter speed so that I could get the
| | 01:18 |
people rendered with some motion.
It's that persistence of vision concept
| | 01:22 |
that matches what the human eye
essentially does in terms of just
| | 01:24 |
retaining that picture for just a moment.
And I think that will help with the
| | 01:29 |
motion, make things look a little bit
more dynamic.
| | 01:31 |
The problem is this is very late in the
day.
| | 01:33 |
The sun is going down.
I'm hoping that the overhead lights are
| | 01:36 |
going to come on.
By stomping down the lens, I'm thinking I
| | 01:39 |
might even be able to get a starburst
effect.
| | 01:42 |
Of course, there's diffusers on the
lights..So, that might not work out the
| | 01:45 |
way I'm hoping but we'll see what's going to
happen.
| | 01:48 |
so, I've got those settings 800 ISO, so
that I can operate at an F16 aperture and
| | 01:53 |
1 6th of a second shutter speed.
I'm also going to go in and reset the
| | 01:58 |
numbering on the camera, so that my
images will start with image number one.
| | 02:03 |
And I'll make sure that I'm capturing not
in the Raw mode that I've been capturing
| | 02:08 |
with previously, but my small,
high-quality JPEG, and no Raw capture at all.
| | 02:15 |
And that looks to be pretty good.
So, I'm actually going to take one test shot
| | 02:19 |
here just before we get started to make
sure that the results are going to be good
| | 02:22 |
in terms of the exposure.
And I think actually I'm going to have to
| | 02:27 |
open up the lens just a little bit more.
I think I'll go one more stop, because as
| | 02:31 |
it's getting darker, I'm concerned about
the actual final exposure, as the light changes.
| | 02:37 |
So, having done, that I'll go ahead and
reformat the card, clearing off the
| | 02:40 |
images, since this is a fresh card that
I'm using.
| | 02:43 |
And once again reset the numbering.
And I am all set and perfect timing
| | 02:48 |
because I've got some buses and trolleys
here.
| | 02:52 |
I'm going to go ahead and set my interval to
one second.
| | 02:56 |
I want to capture one frame every single
second in order to maximize the amount of
| | 02:59 |
motion that I'm rendering here.
So, with my interval set to one second,
| | 03:04 |
I'll go ahead and press start.
And we'll start capturing the images for
| | 03:07 |
this time lapse in the town square.
(audio playing)
| | 03:11 |
When I initially triggered the time lapse
I also set a timer so that I could keep
| | 03:21 |
track of my progress.
I've gone passed just about sixteen and a
| | 03:29 |
half minutes.
My original aim was to get about 30
| | 03:32 |
seconds of finished video at one frame
per second that only requires 15 minutes
| | 03:35 |
of capture.
I've gone beyond that but that's because
| | 03:39 |
I want have some flexibility in terms of
the final result.
| | 03:42 |
There's a lot of variables here.
And so I want to be able to adjust the
| | 03:45 |
start and stop times at will.
I was a little bit concerned about
| | 03:49 |
exposure when I got started.
And initially the metering was set to an
| | 03:52 |
even exposure, I knew that was a little
bit risky, because the sun was going down.
| | 03:56 |
At the same time, I was hoping that the
overhead lights would come on.
| | 03:59 |
So, initially I was at even exposure as
the sun went down the light started go-,
| | 04:03 |
get lower and lower.
I was down to about a minus one and a
| | 04:07 |
half stop exposure off the meter.
I was very concerned that, that was going
| | 04:11 |
to be a problem.
But finally the lights did come on.
| | 04:13 |
And now things are brightening up.
In fact, at the moment, I'm sort of
| | 04:16 |
hovering between minus a half stop and
minus one stop on the metering.
| | 04:20 |
But keep in mind, that we've got some
bright lights overhead.
| | 04:23 |
So, that actually might work out pretty
well all things considered.
| | 04:26 |
So, I'm going to let this go a little bit
longer and then we'll see what that final
| | 04:33 |
result looks like.
(audio playing)
| | 04:37 |
All right.
So, it's been a little bit over a half an
| | 04:42 |
hour since I started recording the time
lapse.
| | 04:47 |
That'll give me a bit over a minute in
the final video.
| | 04:50 |
That'll allow me to shift the start and
stop times at will, to produce what I
| | 04:53 |
think will probably end up being about a
30-second video.
| | 04:57 |
So, I'll go ahead and stop the recording
now.
| | 04:59 |
Just press the start-stop button on my
cable release.
| | 05:02 |
And we'll just take a quick look here and
see actually, that's looking pretty cool.
| | 05:07 |
Looks very, very nice.
I think I'm going to be happy with that.
| | 05:09 |
There's a lot of variables.
With time lapse, oftentimes you're just
| | 05:12 |
not going to know what you'll end up with,
both in terms of the subject matter.
| | 05:15 |
Here, we've got lots of movement.
People moving around, interacting with
| | 05:18 |
the camera a little bit, making faces and
what not, and of course the changing light.
| | 05:22 |
So, lots of variables that can effect the
final result and you don't always know
| | 05:25 |
what you're going to get.
But you just have to give it a try and
| | 05:29 |
each time you'll learn a little bit more
of how to produce the best final time lapse.
| | 05:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Image review and preparation| 00:02 |
Creating a time-lapse of a scene where
the light is changing somewhat
| | 00:05 |
dramatically can be a particular
challenge, but it can also be very rewarding.
| | 00:09 |
For this project, I captured a time-lapse
in a square where trains, and buses, and
| | 00:13 |
people were all coming and going, and it
was very close to sunset.
| | 00:18 |
And I captured the time-lapse all the way
from dusk through sunset until it was dark.
| | 00:23 |
And so, I'm eager to see what the final
result is going to look like.
| | 00:26 |
I'm working in Lightroom and I've already
initiated the import process.
| | 00:30 |
I'm importing from my digital media card,
and I'm going to copy the images Into the
| | 00:34 |
destination folder where I'm keeping my
time-lapses.
| | 00:38 |
I'll scroll down and you can see that I'm
putting those images then into a subfolder.
| | 00:42 |
For this project, I'm calling that trains
in the square and so I'm ready to import
| | 00:46 |
the images into Light Room.
I'll go ahead and click the Import button
| | 00:50 |
at the bottom right of the Import
dialog.
| | 00:53 |
And Lightroom will copy the images from
my digital media card onto my computer's
| | 01:00 |
hard drive.
Once the import process is complete, I'm
| | 01:04 |
ready to review the images, and you can
see here, the results are actually pretty decent.
| | 01:10 |
I've got the people rendered with a bit
of motion, which I think is going to work
| | 01:13 |
out very, very nicely for the final
result.
| | 01:16 |
And as I scroll through, I'll go ahead
and switch back to the Grid view and
| | 01:19 |
scroll through the images.
You can see that they gradually start
| | 01:22 |
getting darker and darker.
And then, of course, later on, the lights
| | 01:26 |
were coming on and the sun was going
down.
| | 01:28 |
It really started to get rather
interesting, and so, I think this is
| | 01:31 |
going to be a great time-lapse.
Now, I can scroll through relatively
| | 01:36 |
slowly, of course, to check for any
errant frames.
| | 01:39 |
But I think in this case, we actually
turned out with a very nice set of images.
| | 01:42 |
I don't think I have any problems here.
I could also evaluate the final images in
| | 01:46 |
the frame.
For this type of a scene, though, there's
| | 01:49 |
so much going on, there's really not a
beginning and an ending in terms of the
| | 01:53 |
content of the frame.
Sometimes, you might try to have an
| | 01:56 |
ending, for example, where everyone has
left the frame or start off with an empty
| | 02:00 |
frame and people fill that frame.
But here, it's rather chaotic and random,
| | 02:04 |
and so I'm not going to worry about that
much at all.
| | 02:08 |
Because there's a lot of color and a lot
of interesting elements going on here, I
| | 02:11 |
would like to apply some adjustments
that'll kick that up just a little bit.
| | 02:16 |
Not too much where it starts to get a
little bit ridiculous, but just enough to
| | 02:19 |
add to the drama of the scene itself.
So I'm going to use an average image.
| | 02:25 |
Of course, in this case, we go from
relatively bright at dusk to relatively
| | 02:28 |
dark, and so, I'm not sure you could say
there's really an average.
| | 02:33 |
But I'm going to go somewhere in the middle.
I'll choose one of the images at around
| | 02:36 |
the middle of the sequence.
And we can see, the image is a little bit
| | 02:39 |
yellow, I think because of the lighting
here, because the lights in the scene
| | 02:43 |
were actually yellow.
And I had my white balance on the camera
| | 02:47 |
set mostly for the dusk conditions.
I think we ended up a little bit too yellow.
| | 02:52 |
I actually like the yellow glow in areas.
But I think I might tone that down just a
| | 02:56 |
little bit.
So I'm going to switch to the Develop module.
| | 02:58 |
And I'll go up to the top of the right
panel and shift the temperature over to
| | 03:02 |
the left.
Just a little bit, I don't want to lose too
| | 03:05 |
much of that yellow.
Just a little hint of it and I might
| | 03:08 |
adjust the tint as well.
There seems to be just a little bit too
| | 03:12 |
much magenta in there.
I think I'd like to take a look at
| | 03:15 |
increasing vibrance.
Now, I don't want the image to start
| | 03:18 |
looking cartoonish, but I would like to
have a little bit more emphasis on the colors.
| | 03:23 |
I really love the colors in this scene.
So I'll increase that just a little bit,
| | 03:27 |
and maybe increase clarity, just so that
some of those more distant areas will
| | 03:30 |
look a little more crisp.
And I might even take a look at boosting
| | 03:35 |
contrast just a tiny bit.
But I don't want to start blocking up my
| | 03:39 |
shadows or further blowing out highlight
detail.
| | 03:42 |
So just a little boost.
So a relatively modest amount of
| | 03:45 |
adjustment to the image.
I'll then choose Edit, and then Select
| | 03:49 |
All from the menu, in order to select all
of the images, and then I can click the
| | 03:52 |
Sync button at the bottom of the right
panel of the Develop module.
| | 03:58 |
This will apply the settings that I just
set for one image to all of the images in
| | 04:02 |
this group.
I have all of the adjustments checked off
| | 04:06 |
that I want to include.
So I'll go ahead and click the
| | 04:09 |
Synchronize button, and now, Lightroom
will update all of the images that are selected.
| | 04:15 |
Now that the images have been processed
in terms of their overall appearance, I'm
| | 04:19 |
ready to export them at a smaller size.
So, I'll switch back to the Library
| | 04:23 |
module, and with all the images selected,
I'll click the Export button.
| | 04:28 |
I already have my time-lapse, Export
preset.
| | 04:31 |
This preset will resize the images, to a
720 by 480 pixel resolution, which is
| | 04:35 |
standard for DVD video and I think an
appropriate size for a basic time-lapse processing.
| | 04:42 |
I'm putting those images into a folder on
the desktop called TL Exports.
| | 04:47 |
That's just my generic folder name for my
export for time-lapse purposes within the
| | 04:51 |
preset for Lightroom.
So, I'll go ahead and click Export, and
| | 04:56 |
now, Light Room will process all of these
images.
| | 04:59 |
Creating the smaller versions that I'll
use to assemble my final time-lapse.
| | 05:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling a polished video| 00:02 |
I've used Lightroom to organize and
process my images for the time lapse
| | 00:06 |
project of trains and buses and people in
a town square.
| | 00:10 |
And so, I'm ready to assemble that into a
final video.
| | 00:14 |
For this project, I'm going to use Adobe
Premier Elements to assemble the time lapse.
| | 00:19 |
And also, to apply a few finishing
touches to make a more interesting final video.
| | 00:23 |
I'll go ahead and switch to Premier
Elements, and then choose File > New >
| | 00:28 |
Project from the menu, in order to create
a new project.
| | 00:33 |
I'll click the Browse button, and then
navigate to my Desktop.
| | 00:37 |
And on the Desktop, I'll click the New
Folder button to create a new folder, and
| | 00:41 |
we'll just call this Plaza, since this is
a time lapse of buses and trains and
| | 00:45 |
people in a Plaza.
I'll click the Create button, and then
| | 00:49 |
click the Choose button, so that that is
the folder where all of the project files
| | 00:53 |
for this video will be stored.
I'll also provide a name for the project.
| | 00:59 |
And in this case I will simply use the
same name, Plaza.
| | 01:02 |
That's the same name I used for the
folder.
| | 01:05 |
And I have my preset established as the
NTSEDV a standard digital video preset
| | 01:09 |
that work just fine for this project.
I'll go ahead and click the OK button in
| | 01:14 |
order to create that video project.
Next, I'm going to click the Get Media
| | 01:20 |
button on the Project tab, and then
scroll down to the bottom of the list and
| | 01:24 |
choose Files and Folders.
This will bring up a dialog where I can
| | 01:29 |
choose which images I want to import into
this project in Premiere Elements.
| | 01:35 |
I exported the images from Lightroom into
a folder on my desktop called TL Exports,
| | 01:39 |
so I can choose that folder.
I don't need to choose the individual images.
| | 01:44 |
I can simply choose the folder and click
import, and all of the images in that
| | 01:48 |
folder with be imported into this project
in Premier Elements.
| | 01:57 |
At the end of that input process, I
receive a message here.
| | 01:59 |
You can see, there is a system file
located in that folder that Premiere
| | 02:02 |
Elements recognizes as not being an
appropriate media file, and so it failed
| | 02:06 |
to input that, that's no problem at all.
It's not an image in Timeline.
| | 02:11 |
So, I'll simply click OK to dismiss that
message.
| | 02:16 |
I can now double-click on my TL Exports
folder.
| | 02:19 |
And then, click on the first image and
simply press Cmd+A on Macintosh or Ctrl+A
| | 02:23 |
on Windows, in order to select all of the
images in that folder.
| | 02:28 |
With all the images selected, I can
simply click on of the thumbnails and
| | 02:32 |
drag down to my seam line and drop the
images into the available box there.
| | 02:39 |
I get the option as to whether I want
individual stills or a grouped slideshow.
| | 02:44 |
I most certainly want a grouped
slideshow.
| | 02:46 |
It makes it much easier to manage, and in
the case of a time lapse video, there's
| | 02:49 |
no need, whatsoever to work with the
individual frames within Premier Elements.
| | 02:54 |
So, I'll chose that option.
And then, you can see that the Create
| | 02:58 |
Slideshow dialog appears.
The main thing I need to do here is make
| | 03:02 |
sure that the image duration option is
set to 1 frame.
| | 03:06 |
Each of the frames that I captured in the
field, I want to be used as a single
| | 03:09 |
frame in the video that will be
assembled.
| | 03:13 |
So, I'll go ahead and click OK to accept
those settings.
| | 03:17 |
And then, you can see that my basic video
has been assembled for me.
| | 03:21 |
You can see from the initial preview that
I have black bars at the bottom and the
| | 03:25 |
top of the frame.
That's only to the fact that the pixels
| | 03:29 |
in a JPEG image are square where as in
video, they are generally rectangular in shape.
| | 03:34 |
But we can make up for that by choosing
File > Interpret Footage from the menu.
| | 03:40 |
And then, in the pixel aspect ratios
section of the interpret footage dialog,
| | 03:44 |
we can choose Conform to.
And then, on the pop up, use the
| | 03:48 |
appropriate setting based on the video
preset we used for this project.
| | 03:54 |
That happened to be DVNTSE, the standard
digital video setting.
| | 03:58 |
So, I'll choose that option, and then
click OK.
| | 04:03 |
You can see that the image now fills the
frame for our time-lapse video, and we
| | 04:06 |
can take a quick look at the result by
clicking the Play button underneath the
| | 04:10 |
Preview, to get a sense of what that
video will look like.
| | 04:15 |
Keep in mind, however, that in this
preview, you're likely to see a bit of a
| | 04:18 |
jittery image and the quality may not be
very good, and that's because the video
| | 04:22 |
has not yet actually been rendered.
But I can tell, just from this preview
| | 04:27 |
that the time lapse is coming together
very, very nicely.
| | 04:31 |
I think what I would like to add, though,
is some music to make things just a
| | 04:35 |
little bit more interesting.
I'll go ahead and pause my playback, and
| | 04:40 |
then I'll go to my Project tab and move
up one folder level, so that I can see
| | 04:44 |
the folder, rather than all the images.
And I'll choose Get Media.
| | 04:50 |
I'll go ahead and select the Files and
Folders option.
| | 04:54 |
I have on my Desktop a folder with some
music in it.
| | 04:57 |
And in this particular case, I am going
to choose a song called fast or does it
| | 05:02 |
by Kevin McCloud.
I'll go ahead and click the Import button
| | 05:06 |
after choosing that audio file.
And that audio file, that music will be
| | 05:11 |
imported into my project.
I can then, drag that audio file down
| | 05:16 |
onto my seam line.
In this case setting it onto the
| | 05:19 |
soundtrack, I'll go ahead and drop the
sound file there.
| | 05:26 |
And you'll notice, based on the preview,
that the song is a bit longer than the video.
| | 05:31 |
I'll switch to the Timeline View and we
can make sure that everything aligns just
| | 05:35 |
perfectly here.
I'll go ahead and scroll down, so that we
| | 05:39 |
can see the soundtrack.
And in this case, it'll actually a little
| | 05:43 |
bit easier if I move this up to the first
audio track, rather than the soundtrack,
| | 05:47 |
so that I can see both the video and the
audio at the same time.
| | 05:52 |
And then, I can simply drag from the
right side to adjust the size of the
| | 05:56 |
audio clip, so that it matches the length
of the video.
| | 06:02 |
I'd also like to have the audio fade in
from the beginning of the video and fade
| | 06:06 |
out at the end, so it produces a little
bit smoother experience for the viewer.
| | 06:11 |
So, I'll go to the Edit tab, and then
under Effects, I will click the Edit
| | 06:15 |
Effects button at the bottom.
And I'll expand the list for volume.
| | 06:21 |
And then, simply click the fade in button
to add a fade at the beginning, and the
| | 06:26 |
fade out button to add a fade at the end.
Then I'll go ahead and click the Done
| | 06:32 |
button to complete the effect.
And at this point, I can click the Play button.
| | 06:37 |
And when the audio starts, you'll notice
that it starts quiet and then builds up
| | 06:40 |
over a short period of time.
(music playing) and we'll get the same effect at
| | 06:46 |
the end of the video as well.
It will fade out at the end.
| | 06:53 |
I'll go ahead and scrub the slider over
to the right.
| | 06:56 |
And then, near the end, I'll go ahead and
click the Play button.
| | 07:01 |
(music playing) And you notice that the audio,
once again fades off at the end of the video.
| | 07:12 |
So, at this point, I think I have a nice
video set to music.
| | 07:16 |
I'll go ahead and click the Share tab,
and then click the Computer option.
| | 07:21 |
Scrolling down on the list of presets, I
will choose the QuickTime options, since
| | 07:26 |
I am working on a Mac at the moment.
And I will click the Browse button and
| | 07:31 |
navigate to the location where I'm saving
this video project and click choose.
| | 07:37 |
And I'll also give this video a name.
I'll just call it Plaza in this case.
| | 07:43 |
And then, I'll click Save.
And Premier Elements will set about the
| | 07:48 |
task of rendering that video, including
both the video and the music all in one
| | 07:53 |
encapsulated video.
Once the video has finished rendering,
| | 07:58 |
I'll go ahead and click the Done button.
And then, I'll click the Save button,
| | 08:02 |
also to save my project.
Making sure that all the changes that
| | 08:05 |
I've applied to this project will be
preserved as part of the project.
| | 08:09 |
I could then always come back later and
make adjustments, for example, changing
| | 08:13 |
the music or making other refinements to
my video.
| | 08:17 |
And with the file saved, I'll go ahead
and minimize Premiere Elements.
| | 08:21 |
And then, on the Desktop, I can go to the
Plaza folder and that's where the Plaza
| | 08:25 |
movie file has been saved.
I can simply double-click to open that video.
| | 09:03 |
And click Play to enjoy my time lapse set
to music
| | 09:34 |
(music playing)
| | 09:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Boats on a LakeCapturing the time-lapse frames| 00:01 |
I came out to this very large lake, it's
actually about 10 miles long.
| | 00:05 |
My intent was to photograph sailboats for
a time-lapse.
| | 00:08 |
Unfortunately, there's not much wind
today, and so, I'm not going to be able to
| | 00:11 |
photograph any of the sailboats.
In fact, I've only seen one or two
| | 00:14 |
actually out on the lake.
However, I did find a place where you can
| | 00:17 |
rent electric motorboats, so I had this
idea for a time-lapse on the move.
| | 00:22 |
I've done some of these in a car,
pointing the camera out the front
| | 00:24 |
windshield, and then driving down a road,
capturing images along the way.
| | 00:29 |
And then assembling them into a
time-lapse that shows that travel in a
| | 00:32 |
very fast rate.
It makes it a little bit more
| | 00:34 |
interesting, and sometimes amusing.
And so, my pan is to put the tripod in
| | 00:37 |
the boat and point it forward with the
bow of the boat in the frame and drive
| | 00:40 |
the boat around, and hopefully come up
with something very, very amusing and interesting.
| | 00:46 |
It'll be fun regardless, so I'm going to
take a look at my camera settings here.
| | 00:50 |
As far as lenses, I'm starting off with a
24 to 105, a 24 millimeter to 105
| | 00:53 |
millimeter lens thinking that I'll be
shooting at about a 24 focal length.
| | 00:58 |
I'm a little concerned that 24
millimeters might not be a wide enough
| | 01:01 |
focal length, because I want to include
the boat in the foreground, at least the
| | 01:05 |
bow of the boat, so I'm also bringing
along my ten to 22 millimeter lens.
| | 01:10 |
It's a rather wide angle lens and that
should definitely be able to include part
| | 01:13 |
of the boat if not most of the boat in
the frame for the time-lapse.
| | 01:17 |
So, once I get on the boat, I'll be able
to get a sense of which lens I'll use.
| | 01:21 |
I also want to look, of course, at my
camera settings, I'm going to get that setup
| | 01:23 |
right now before I get on the boat.
So, let's take a look at our overall
| | 01:27 |
settings for the camera first, in terms
of the filed numbering.
| | 01:31 |
I'll want to reset that, so that I'm
starting with an image number one, so the
| | 01:34 |
files name's will start with image number
one.
| | 01:37 |
It just makes it a lot easier later, in
terms of organization.
| | 01:40 |
I have a brand new compact flash card in
here, so I don't need to worry about any
| | 01:44 |
other images being on that particular
card its ready for just the time-lapse.
| | 01:49 |
As far as my shooting mode, I'm going to be
capturing in the small JPEG size, but the
| | 01:53 |
high quality version of the small JPEG
and not capturing in RAW.
| | 01:58 |
There's just no need to capture RAW when
I'm putting together a time-lapse video.
| | 02:02 |
And so, that takes care of those general
settings on the menu.
| | 02:04 |
As far as the exposure, I need to
consider that I'm going to be turning the
| | 02:07 |
boat around, and so, I'll want to think
about, overall, what will the exposure be
| | 02:11 |
for a wide range of the scene?
It's pretty sunny today, so probably I
| | 02:16 |
could get away with the old sunny 16
rule, at ISO 100 and F16 as my aperture.
| | 02:21 |
I can probably use a shutter speed of 1
25th of a second and shooting at F16,
| | 02:25 |
that'll give me plenty of depth of field.
In fact, I probably could go down to F8,
| | 02:30 |
but just to be on the safe side, I'll
shoot at F16.
| | 02:33 |
So I'm going to pan my camera across the
scene here and just check the exposure,
| | 02:37 |
so setting in F16.
I'm in Aperture priority mode, so that I
| | 02:42 |
can just read the shutter speeds as they
change across the scene here.
| | 02:47 |
And at 100 ISO, I'm actually averaging
right around 90, 1 90th of a second.
| | 02:53 |
And in some of the darker areas of the
scene, down as far as about 1 45th of a
| | 02:57 |
second, so obviously, there's a bit of
haze here.
| | 03:02 |
I'm not going to end up with the exact
sunny 16 exposure.
| | 03:05 |
But I think I'll shoot maybe at a
sixtieth of a second just because that
| | 03:09 |
will give me a pretty good average for
the overall scene.
| | 03:13 |
So, again, setting my aperture to F16,
sixtieth of a second for the shutter
| | 03:17 |
speed, and an ISO of 100.
I'm also going to change my White Balance setting.
| | 03:23 |
Typically, when shooting RAW, I'll just
use an Auto White Balance.
| | 03:25 |
I can always make adjustments after the
fact.
| | 03:27 |
But of course, with the time-lapse, I
don't want to have to change the color
| | 03:30 |
for hundreds or even thousands of frames,
and so I am going to use a Cloudy setting.
| | 03:34 |
Where somewhere between cloudy, it's a
little bit hazy and sunny.
| | 03:38 |
And that cloudy setting will give me a
slightly warmer result, which I think
| | 03:41 |
will look nice in our final timeline and
that takes care of the overall camera.
| | 03:47 |
So, in Manual mode, again, setting 110
ISO, F16, and a sixtieth of a second,
| | 03:51 |
using that Cloudy White Balance preset.
And then I can think about the shutter
| | 03:56 |
release, the intervalometer.
I'm going to set that to 1 second intervals.
| | 04:01 |
So, I'll be capturing one image every
second and that will render that motion
| | 04:04 |
relatively smoothly.
But because it's a somewhat fast moving
| | 04:08 |
subject, it's going to obviously happen
pretty darn quickly.
| | 04:12 |
I'm thinking that I want a final video of
somewhere around 30 seconds.
| | 04:16 |
So for a 30 second clip I would only need
to capture for about 15 minutes.
| | 04:21 |
I'll go a little bit longer though just
so I have some ability to fine tune the
| | 04:24 |
beginning and end of my final time lapse
video.
| | 04:27 |
But that takes care of all my camera
settings, so I'm ready to get on the boat
| | 04:30 |
and capture my frames.
All right, I've gotten aboard the boat here.
| | 04:36 |
I have the tripod mounted on the floor of
the boat, the seats are cushioned and, so
| | 04:40 |
that wouldn't be very stable.
I don't need to worry too much about
| | 04:43 |
stability, obviously, the boat's going to be
moving about quite a bit, and that's part
| | 04:46 |
of the fun of this particular type of
time-lapse.
| | 04:49 |
But I do want it to be as stable as
possible.
| | 04:51 |
And in fact, as I'm moving around, I'll
keep a hand on the tripod, just to make
| | 04:54 |
sure that it doesn't get tipped over.
My camera settings are all squared away.
| | 04:58 |
I did actually decide that I needed a
wider field of view, I do want to include
| | 05:01 |
much of the bow of the boat in the frame,
so I'm actually now shooting at 10
| | 05:04 |
milometer focal length, a very wide angle
of view.
| | 05:09 |
I did double check my exposure and I'm
good to go there.
| | 05:12 |
So I'm ready to set up and start the
time-lapse.
| | 05:15 |
Everything was pretty well configured,
except for the shutter speed.
| | 05:18 |
I do want to make sure that I'm focused on
the front of the boat.
| | 05:21 |
And because I'm shooting at F16, that
will ensure that I have, pretty much
| | 05:25 |
everything in the frame should be in
pretty sharp focus.
| | 05:29 |
I'll have good depth of field there.
So, we're ready to motor on and start the time-lapse.
| | 05:33 |
I think, in this case, I'm going to start
the time-lapse right here as we back away
| | 05:36 |
from the dock.
I could always edit that out later if I
| | 05:39 |
decide it doesn't quite fit in.
I've got a couple of friends in other
| | 05:43 |
boats and we're just going to motor around
and have some fun.
| | 05:47 |
So, I'm shooting in a Manual exposure,
F16 at a sixtieth of a second.
| | 05:56 |
And that means, that I will always be
using the exact same exposure even as I
| | 05:59 |
change my angle to the sun.
That does mean that some frames are going to
| | 06:02 |
be brighter than others, but there will
be consistency.
| | 06:05 |
I won't have any flickering.
And because of that, I do want to try to
| | 06:08 |
avoid motoring the boat directly toward
the sun as much as possible.
| | 06:12 |
I'll stay sort of facing with the sun to
my back as you typically would for a photograph.
| | 06:16 |
That'll just help ensure better results.
But periodically, I do want to go into the,
| | 06:19 |
sun because that brightening and
darkening of the scene can actually add a
| | 06:22 |
bit of interest.
Now, I've also started a timer, so that I
| | 06:26 |
can keep track of about how long I've
actually been recording my time-lapse.
| | 06:32 |
I'm having so much fun out here driving
the boat around the lake that I might
| | 06:34 |
easily lose track of time.
And so, that'll just help to give me a
| | 06:38 |
sense of how long I've been shooting, how
many frames I'm capturing, and therefore,
| | 06:42 |
how many, how long my final time-lapse
video will be.
| | 06:46 |
All right, so I'm trying as best I can,
obviously we're moving around all over
| | 06:49 |
the place in the boats here.
But as much as possible, I'm trying to
| | 06:53 |
make sure that my friends in their boats,
are away from the sun, so that the sun is
| | 06:57 |
shooting toward them.
I want them to be lit up well.
| | 07:01 |
It's just like any great photograph.
We want to think about sun angle, only
| | 07:04 |
here, I'm assembling many photographs,
of course.
| | 07:07 |
And so, as much as possible, I want as
many of the frames of my time-lapse to
| | 07:11 |
actually be good captures in terms of the
exposure, so as much as I can, the sun is
| | 07:14 |
over in this direction.
I'm trying to keep them over on this side
| | 07:19 |
of me as we maneuver our way around the
lake.
| | 07:22 |
All right, that was a lot of fun, and
that's probably the most important thing
| | 07:33 |
is that I had fun driving the boat out on
the lake.
| | 07:45 |
Of course, I want to check and see.
One of the issues of time-lapse is that
| | 07:48 |
you really don't know what you've got
until you assemble the final video, but
| | 07:51 |
you can playback the images on your
camera's LCD and then cycle through them
| | 07:54 |
relatively quickly.
So I'm going to do that here just to get a sense.
| | 07:58 |
The exposure looks great, so I think
that's going to work out well.
| | 08:01 |
The red boat, of course, is just a
classic look.
| | 08:04 |
(LAUGH) and lots of fun, both weaving
back and forth.
| | 08:07 |
I really think this is going to be a cool
time-lapse.
| | 08:10 |
I can't wait to put it together.
| | 08:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Image review and preparation| 00:02 |
Photography in general can be a lot of
fun but I really think time lapse
| | 00:05 |
photography can be especially fun.
And as you start doing more time lapses
| | 00:09 |
and start getting more creative, they get
all the more fun.
| | 00:13 |
So, when I was able to take a boat out
and set up my camera to do a Time-Lapse
| | 00:16 |
on the boat as the boat was moving with
some other boats moving around.
| | 00:20 |
It was a lot of fun.
And now, I'd like to have some fun
| | 00:23 |
putting this together.
And of course, hoping that the final
| | 00:25 |
result is equally great.
I've already inserted my digital media
| | 00:29 |
card into the card reader and I've
launched the import function in
| | 00:31 |
Lightroom, so I'm ready to import my
photos.
| | 00:35 |
I'm copying them.
In this case, I'm copying them into my
| | 00:37 |
Time-Lapse Captures folder and also into
a subfolder.
| | 00:41 |
In this case, I've named it Boats on a
Lake, which is obviously just a general
| | 00:44 |
description of this particular time lapse
project.
| | 00:47 |
So, everything's ready here for
importing.
| | 00:49 |
I'll go ahead and click the Import button
and Lightroom will import the images of
| | 00:53 |
the boats on a lake.
With the images imported into Lightroom,
| | 01:03 |
I can scroll through to check for any
errant frames, essentially just looking
| | 01:07 |
for frames that are either significantly
brighter or darker than surrounding images.
| | 01:13 |
Since I was capturing in manual mode,
that really shouldn't be an issue, but
| | 01:16 |
it's a good idea to check just to be on
the safe side.
| | 01:19 |
I also want to apply some basic
adjustments.
| | 01:22 |
In this case, of course, I chose a bright
red motorboat, and so I'd like to really
| | 01:26 |
emphasize that a little bit.
I'm going to go into the middle of my
| | 01:30 |
sequence, just to find something that's a
little bit average.
| | 01:33 |
You'll notice when I was going into the
sun, things were a bit brighter.
| | 01:36 |
When I'm going away from the sun, things
look a little bit better.
| | 01:39 |
So, I just want to find something of a
typical frame here.
| | 01:42 |
That one still looks like it has a bit of
a bright spot.
| | 01:46 |
Let's see if I can find a section where
I'm going away from that bright sun.
| | 01:50 |
This looks like it'll be a pretty good
average scene.
| | 01:55 |
I'll switch to my loop view.
Yeah, that looks pretty good.
| | 01:58 |
I'll switch then to the develop module.
And now, I can fine tune this image a
| | 02:02 |
little bit.
Looks a little bit too green, I think.
| | 02:05 |
I'm going to shift the tint just a hair over
toward magenta.
| | 02:08 |
And I'll work with the temperature here,
trying to find just the right result there.
| | 02:13 |
And actually, oddly enough, it looks like
leaving it at zero produces the best color.
| | 02:18 |
Maybe just a little more toward yellow.
So, just a plus to there, so very minor
| | 02:21 |
color adjustments.
I do want to boost the contrast just a
| | 02:24 |
little bit just to give a little bit more
drama to the scene.
| | 02:28 |
This obviously is an energetic and fun
Timelifes project, so I like to have a
| | 02:32 |
bit more contrast there.
And I think if I can get away with it, I
| | 02:36 |
might boost the vibrance just a little
bit and this really underscores the
| | 02:39 |
benefit of the vibrance adjustment as
opposed to saturation.
| | 02:43 |
With vibrance, as we increase the value,
we're first increasing the saturation
| | 02:47 |
effectively for the colors that are not
too highly saturated to begin with.
| | 02:52 |
And so, this bright red boat that's
already very vibrant won't become too
| | 02:56 |
saturated as we increase the vibrance
adjustment.
| | 03:01 |
Because it was a little bit hazy, I also
want to increase clarity.
| | 03:05 |
That'll help to reduce the haze off in
the distance.
| | 03:08 |
It won't take too much of an adjustment.
It'll just give a little bit more pop to
| | 03:11 |
the image.
And I think overall that looks to be
| | 03:14 |
pretty good.
I don't really need to apply any of the
| | 03:16 |
other adjustments.
So, I think we'll leave it at that.
| | 03:20 |
I'll, now choose Edit > Select All in
order to select all of the images in this sequence.
| | 03:26 |
But with the image I was just adjusting,
being the primarily selected image, I'll
| | 03:29 |
then select the Sync button at the bottom
of the right panel in the Develop module.
| | 03:34 |
This will bring up the synchronized
settings dialog and I can choose which
| | 03:38 |
settings that were applied to this
primary image I want to apply to all of
| | 03:41 |
the selected images.
And you can see here, I have the
| | 03:45 |
checkboxes turned on for all of the basic
adjustments.
| | 03:49 |
So, I'll go ahead and click the
synchronize button and all of the images
| | 03:52 |
will be updated with the exact same
adjustments that I applied to this image.
| | 03:58 |
Next, I need to take a look at the
beginning and end of the sequence.
| | 04:02 |
I happen to know in this case, since it
was being filmed as part of this course,
| | 04:05 |
that I had the videographer in the frame
at the beginning of the sequence and also
| | 04:09 |
at the end of the sequence.
So, I'll scroll through the images.
| | 04:14 |
I've gone to the first image and I'm just
using the arrow key to move through the
| | 04:18 |
images until I find the first frame that
doesn't have the videographer in it.
| | 04:24 |
Just to make it easier to identify that
image, I'm going to assign a pick flag to it.
| | 04:29 |
So, I'll press the letter P on the
keyboard and this image will be
| | 04:33 |
identified with a pick flag, which I can
see on the filmstrip here.
| | 04:38 |
So, I'll scroll to the right end of the
film strip, the last set of images in
| | 04:42 |
this sequence.
And in the very last frame, the
| | 04:45 |
videographer is not there but as I move
to the left, we'll see that she starts to appear.
| | 04:52 |
And so, I want to find the last image
where she's not really obvious.
| | 04:58 |
Of course, because she's on the dock that
I'm approaching in the boat, I need to
| | 05:00 |
make a decision about whether or not it's
really important to exclude her from the frame.
| | 05:05 |
For example, even in this image we can
see that she's there, not really noticeable.
| | 05:09 |
I could stop the sequence at this point.
The trouble is then we're going to miss out
| | 05:13 |
on approaching the dock altogether.
I won't be able to take the boat all the
| | 05:17 |
way into the dock if I really want to
exclude her from the frame.
| | 05:20 |
So, I think in this case I'll just make a
compromise and perhaps make this the last
| | 05:24 |
frame in the sequence.
So, that will be the last frame.
| | 05:30 |
I'll go ahead now and scroll over to the
first image, looking for that pick flag.
| | 05:35 |
And that's almost to the very beginning
of the sequence here.
| | 05:38 |
So, I'll go back toward the beginning.
And there's the image with the pick flag.
| | 05:42 |
So, I've already clicked on what I want
the last image in the sequence to be.
| | 05:46 |
Now, we'll hold the shift key and click
on the first image in the sequence.
| | 05:50 |
So, now you can see that I have 1836
images selected out of a total of 1889
| | 05:54 |
images that were captured.
So, these selected images are the ones
| | 06:00 |
that I actually want to include in the
time lapse.
| | 06:04 |
To generate the lower resolution images
that I'll use to assemble the Time-Lapse,
| | 06:08 |
I'll switch to My Library module and then
click the Export button.
| | 06:12 |
I've already created a Time-Lapse export
preset for the Export module, that's a
| | 06:17 |
size of 720 by 480 pixels, so everything
is set there.
| | 06:23 |
The processed images will be placed on my
desktop, in a folder called TL Export for
| | 06:27 |
Time-Lapse Exports.
So, I'll go ahead and click the Export button.
| | 06:32 |
And all of the images will be procesed
and resized by Lightroom, so that I can
| | 06:37 |
create my final time lapse video using
those lower resolution images.
| | 06:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling the time lapse| 00:02 |
For this project, I'm going to use
QuickTime 7 Pro in order to assemble the
| | 00:05 |
initial time-lapse video, and then, I'll
use Premiere Elements to create a more
| | 00:10 |
interesting final result.
I already have QuickTime running, and so,
| | 00:15 |
I'll choose a file and then Open Image
Sequence to get the process started.
| | 00:20 |
I exported all of the images from
Lightroom, onto my desktop, in a folder
| | 00:25 |
called TL Exports, for time-lapse
exports.
| | 00:29 |
And so, I'll navigate to and select that
folder, and then, I will select the very
| | 00:33 |
first image inside of that folder, that's
the first image in my time-lapse video.
| | 00:39 |
Note by the way, that this is image
number 37, rather than image number 1.
| | 00:44 |
I have selected only a portion of my
images in order to remove a portion at
| | 00:47 |
the beginning and at the end, which
showed a camera operator in the frame.
| | 00:52 |
I want to try to avoid that if possible.
So, that's why I'm starting with frame
| | 00:56 |
number 37 rather than number 1.
With that image selected, I'll go ahead
| | 01:01 |
and click the Open button, and then, we
get to choose a frame rate for our video.
| | 01:06 |
We'll set this to the standard of 29.97
frames per second.
| | 01:10 |
So I'll go ahead and click OK, and then
QuickTime Pro will assemble a video out
| | 01:15 |
of the individual frames in the folder
that I've identified.
| | 01:21 |
Once the process is complete, I have a
video here opened up in the QuickTime
| | 01:25 |
Player, I can click the Play button and
watch this video to see how that
| | 01:28 |
time-lapse turned out.
Lots of fun riding around on the lake
| | 01:33 |
with a couple of friends riding their
boats nearby.
| | 01:37 |
But I think in this case, it's a little
bit too fast.
| | 01:42 |
I was capturing at 1 frame per second,
and at 30 frames per second, it's just a
| | 01:45 |
little bit too herky-jerky.
Things are moving a little bit too
| | 01:49 |
quickly, and so, I think I'm going to try
this at 15 frames per second instead,
| | 01:53 |
that will slow down that video.
It will make it a little bit longer, but
| | 01:57 |
I think in this case, it was a lot of
fun.
| | 02:00 |
It might be worthwhile to have a longer
video.
| | 02:03 |
So I'll go ahead once more and choose
File, and then Open Image Sequence from
| | 02:07 |
the menu.
I'll navigate to that same folder, choose
| | 02:11 |
the same image, and click Open, but this
time, when it asks for a frame rate, I'm
| | 02:14 |
going to take that down to 15 frames per
second, half the value that I had used previously.
| | 02:22 |
I'll go ahead and click OK.
And once again, QuickTime will assemble a
| | 02:26 |
video out of the individual frames that I
captured that reside in that folder that
| | 02:30 |
I selected.
And now, we have essentially, the same
| | 02:34 |
video except this one will be twice as
long at a reduced frame rate, and so,
| | 02:38 |
it's essentially slowing things down even
more and that looks much better.
| | 02:44 |
I think it's still going to give us a good
sense of the energy of moving across the
| | 02:48 |
lake with the boats in a bit of a chaotic
pattern, but it's not going to be quite
| | 02:51 |
so herky-jerky, this will make it much
easier to watch.
| | 02:56 |
So, I think this is the video that I'm
going to start off working with.
| | 03:00 |
I'll go ahead and pause that video, and
then, I'll simply choose File > Save from
| | 03:04 |
the menu and I'll just save this directly
on my desktop.
| | 03:08 |
So, I'll navigate to the desktop, and
enter a name, and I'll just call this boats.
| | 03:13 |
That seems simple enough.
And I do want to make sure that I'm saving
| | 03:16 |
as a self-contained movie.
This will make a larger file, but it'll
| | 03:20 |
ensure that I have a video that's ready
to use all by itself.
| | 03:24 |
So I'll click Save with all of my
settings established and QuickTime will
| | 03:30 |
save that project as an individual video
file.
| | 03:36 |
Now that I've saved that video, I can
switch to Premiere Elements and create a
| | 03:40 |
new project for this video.
So I'll choose File > New, and then
| | 03:45 |
Project, in order to create a new
project.
| | 03:48 |
I'll go ahead and click the Browse button
and navigate to my desktop, and then,
| | 03:52 |
click the New Folder button.
I'll go ahead and make a folder called boats.
| | 03:57 |
And click Create and then I'll choose
that folder and I'll similarly name my
| | 04:02 |
project boats.
And then I'll click on my Change Settings
| | 04:06 |
options, so I can choose Project
settings.
| | 04:09 |
The last project I was working on was
Wide Screen Digital Video.
| | 04:13 |
I want to switch this to Standard, since
that will match the pixel dimensions of
| | 04:16 |
the images I originally captured.
So, choosing standard under DV, I'Il go
| | 04:21 |
ahead and click OK.
And those are all the settings that I
| | 04:24 |
need for this project.
I'll go ahead and click the OK button and
| | 04:28 |
that project is created.
Now, I can click the Get Media button in
| | 04:32 |
the Project tab, and then, scroll down
and choose Files & Folders.
| | 04:38 |
And I will first navigate to my Desktop.
And on the desktop, I have that boat
| | 04:44 |
movie file that I created.
I'll go ahead and import that.
| | 04:48 |
And keep in mind, that this video was
created based on JPEG images at pixel
| | 04:53 |
dimensions of 720 by 480 pixels.
However, those are square pixels, and in
| | 04:59 |
the digital video that I'm creating, the
pixels will actually be rectangular so I
| | 05:02 |
need to normalize that video.
I'll go ahead and choose File > Interpret
| | 05:07 |
Footage, and then I will, under the Pixel
Aspect Ratio section, click on the
| | 05:12 |
Conform to option, and then click the pop
up and choose DVNTSC, this is our
| | 05:16 |
standard digital video setting.
I'll go ahead and click OK.
| | 05:23 |
And that way, when I drag this video out
into my scene line, you'll see that it
| | 05:26 |
fills the frame.
I don't have any black bars at the top or
| | 05:30 |
bottom or the left and right.
The video itself is filing the entire
| | 05:34 |
available space.
I also want to add some music to this
| | 05:38 |
title, so I'll go ahead and click the Get
Media button one more time, and choose
| | 05:41 |
Files & folders, and then I'll navigate
to the location where I have some music
| | 05:45 |
files saved.
And in this case, I'm going to use a tune
| | 05:50 |
by Kevin MacLeod, it's called Whiskey on
the Mississippi.
| | 05:54 |
It seemed like that might be an
appropriate title for this boats time-lapse.
| | 05:59 |
So I'll go ahead and import that audio
file into my project as well.
| | 06:03 |
But I'm not going to add it to the project
just yet.
| | 06:06 |
I want to add a couple of other elements.
I think I'll have some fun and add some
| | 06:10 |
titles to this particular video.
So I'll go to the Edit tab, and then I
| | 06:15 |
can click on Titles.
Now, there are a handful of titles that
| | 06:19 |
are included with Premiere Elements and
you'll notice they're a little bit wacky
| | 06:22 |
and fun.
You could certainly create your own
| | 06:25 |
titles if you'd like to.
You could simply create an image in
| | 06:28 |
Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, for
example.
| | 06:31 |
Just make sure that that's sized to the
same video dimensions.
| | 06:35 |
But in this case, I'll simply make use of
a title that's already included with
| | 06:38 |
Premiere Elements.
We'll go ahead and choose this fun title.
| | 06:43 |
I'll drag that over into the scene line,
to the left of my video.
| | 06:48 |
And then I'll click to select the text
box and press Command+A on Macintosh or
| | 06:52 |
Ctrl+A on Windows, and type a new title
here.
| | 06:58 |
I'll just call this the crazy boat float,
just something a little bit whacky, since
| | 07:03 |
we've certainly got a whacky title and
the video itself is a little bit fun.
| | 07:09 |
I can then click the Done button, and if
I like, I can add a title to the end as well.
| | 07:14 |
I'll just use the same title in this case
And just keep it simple.
| | 07:19 |
I'll call this one.
Thanks for watching.
| | 07:22 |
So, obviously, not being especially
creative here, but just demonstrating the
| | 07:26 |
overall concept of being able to add
titles at the beginning and end of our video.
| | 07:31 |
I'll go ahead and click Done here.
And you can see, we've assembled several elements.
| | 07:35 |
I have an opening title A closing title,
and then of course my time-lapse video in between.
| | 07:41 |
To make things a little smoother, I'm
also going to add a Transition effect.
| | 07:46 |
So again, on the Edit tab, I'll go to the
Transitions option and I'll just drag the
| | 07:50 |
dip to Black option in between the
opening title and my video, and I'll do
| | 07:54 |
the same thing between the video and the
closing title.
| | 08:00 |
So now, we'll have a title, we'll
transition smoothly through black, and
| | 08:04 |
then, start the time lapse video.
And then, transition smoothly through
| | 08:08 |
black once again, and show the closing
title.
| | 08:11 |
So, while things may be a little bit
wacky, they're getting close to being at
| | 08:15 |
least complete.
Now, I'd like to add that music to my video.
| | 08:20 |
I'm going to work in my Timeline view, so
I'll click the Timeline tab and then
| | 08:24 |
scroll up so that I can see that video
timeline as well as the audio timeline.
| | 08:29 |
And then I'll go back to my Project tab,
and I will drag that music into the
| | 08:33 |
timeline, putting it directly below my
overall video here, lining it up with the left.
| | 08:40 |
And in this case, I'm dragging that music
all the way to the far left.
| | 08:44 |
Not just up to the video, but to the far
left of the project here.
| | 08:47 |
Because I would like my audio, the music,
to start while the title is still displaying.
| | 08:53 |
You can see that the music clip is a bit
too long in this case.
| | 08:56 |
So, I'll simply drag the right edge of
that music clip, to the edge of the over
| | 09:00 |
all project.
I'll then go to the Edit tab, and I'll
| | 09:04 |
click on Effects, and then click the Edit
Effects button, and expand the volume
| | 09:08 |
section here, so that I can get to my
fade in and fade out.
| | 09:14 |
I would like my music to fade in at the
beginning, and fade out at the end of the
| | 09:17 |
overall video.
So, I'll click the Fade-in button.
| | 09:20 |
And then click the Fade-Out button.
And then I can click Done to complete
| | 09:25 |
that process.
And at this point, I think I have
| | 09:27 |
everything pretty well set.
I'll drag my slider over to the far left,
| | 09:32 |
and then I will click the Play button, so
that I can get a preview here.
| | 09:38 |
(music playing) And that's looking pretty good.
It's important to keep in mind that that
| | 09:50 |
preview is not always going to be of the
best quality.
| | 09:55 |
It may be a little bit stuttery, little
bit herky-jerky, and it also may be of
| | 09:59 |
relatively low quality.
And again, that's just because the video
| | 10:04 |
has not yet been rendered.
But at this point, I think I'm happy with
| | 10:07 |
the result overall.
I'm going to go ahead and click Save to save
| | 10:11 |
that project, and then I'll go to the
Share tab, and I will click on Computer
| | 10:15 |
so that I can save a file that will be
played on the computer.
| | 10:20 |
I'll scroll down and I'm going to use
QuickTime in this case since I'm working
| | 10:23 |
on a Macintosh at the moment.
I'll click the Browse button and navigate
| | 10:28 |
to the boats folder on my desktop, and
then, I will also give this a new file name.
| | 10:35 |
So we'll go ahead and call this boats.
And I'm going to add the word final, just so
| | 10:39 |
I don't get confused.
Keep in mind that I created a video file
| | 10:42 |
of my original time-lapse without the
title sequence or any of the special
| | 10:45 |
effects or audio etcetera.
And so, I don't want to get confused about
| | 10:50 |
which is which, so I'm calling this one
boats filanl.
| | 10:53 |
I'll go ahead and click Save and then,
Premiere Elements will set about the task
| | 10:57 |
of rendering that video, complete with my
opening and closing title screens, the
| | 11:02 |
time-lapse video itself, and of course
the music to accompany the entire video.
| | 11:10 |
With that process complete, I can go
ahead and click the Done button.
| | 11:14 |
And then I can minimize Premiere
Elements, and go to my desktop.
| | 11:18 |
Opening up the boats folder.
That's the project folder for Premiere Elements.
| | 11:22 |
And there, I'll find that boat's final
movie.
| | 11:25 |
I'll double-click that to open it up in
the QuickTime Player.
| | 11:29 |
And you can see, I can then play that
video complete with titles and music.
| | 11:56 |
(music playing)
| | 12:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Countryside DriveCapturing the time-lapse frames| 00:01 |
Driving around in the beautiful
countryside, I decided it would be
| | 00:03 |
interesting to get a time-lapse that
shows what it's like to go through this area.
| | 00:07 |
And so I'm going to do a time-lapse on the
move using a car as my mode of transportation.
| | 00:12 |
I'm going to set up a tripod inside the car
as a stable platform, so that we can
| | 00:15 |
shoot out the front windshield, showing
essentially what it's like driving
| | 00:18 |
through the curvy roads that we'll find
along the way.
| | 00:22 |
And really, it just comes down to
compressing that time, because frankly,
| | 00:25 |
it's not all that interesting for someone
to watch a real-time video looking out
| | 00:28 |
the front windshield of your car, but it
is interesting to share that scenery in a
| | 00:32 |
faster way.
So, I'm going to get set up here in the
| | 00:36 |
front seat.
I've moved the passenger seat forward
| | 00:39 |
just a little bit, and I'll go ahead and
extend my tripod legs a little bit, so
| | 00:43 |
that I can put two tripod legs on the
floor and then one tripod leg going back
| | 00:46 |
into the passenger seat.
So this takes a little bit of fine
| | 00:54 |
tuning, I'm going to lean the tripod
itself into the dash board, so I just
| | 00:58 |
need to position the legs, trying to get
the tripod as close to level as possible.
| | 01:03 |
And making sure to find the position for
the foot of the tripod, so that it's
| | 01:07 |
reasonably stable.
Trying to get it kind of locked into
| | 01:11 |
place as much as possible.
That looks pretty good there.
| | 01:16 |
And then, the other leg, I'm going to
extend back, so, I'll extend one length
| | 01:20 |
here, one of the legs, and the other.
And then I'm really going to push that
| | 01:26 |
leg into that seat as much as I can, push
it all the way into the back of the
| | 01:30 |
passenger seat here so that it's
reasonably more locked in place.
| | 01:37 |
Obviously, with a moving car, there's
going to be some risk of motion.
| | 01:40 |
And also, to protect the car, and more
importantly, I guess in terms of the
| | 01:44 |
time-lapse, to make sure that we're not
imparting any vibration into the tripod
| | 01:48 |
and therefore into the camera.
I'm also going to place a t-shirt, just any
| | 01:53 |
rag really will do, in-between the tripod
and the dashboard and that'll help cut
| | 01:57 |
back any of that vibration.
With the tripod set up in the passenger
| | 02:02 |
seat, I'm ready to think about the camera
settings.
| | 02:05 |
I'm going to use a card that doesn't have
any images on it so that the only images
| | 02:08 |
on this card will be those from the
time-lapse.
| | 02:11 |
It just helps to keep things organized.
So I'll put that card into the camera here.
| | 02:16 |
And I'm going to format the card so that
I know that it's re-initialized and free
| | 02:20 |
of images.
And I'll also reset the numbering so that
| | 02:23 |
the first image in my time lapse will be
image number one.
| | 02:27 |
And then, I'll also make sure that my
Capture mode is set to the small JPEG
| | 02:31 |
size and no raw capture at all.
So we'll get that configured, and I think
| | 02:37 |
for these conditions, I want to get a
shutter speed of somewhere around a 60th
| | 02:40 |
of a second as we're moving down the
road.
| | 02:43 |
That will give us a little bit of a
motion blur, which helps to achieve that
| | 02:46 |
persistence of vision effect.
So under these circumstance it's a bit overcast.
| | 02:51 |
We're going to be driving into the hills
where I think it's going to be even more
| | 02:54 |
overcast probably ad it's a little bit
low light.
| | 02:58 |
So, I think, if I set an ISO of 800,
then, I can use, looks like an aperture
| | 03:03 |
of about 6.7 should do the trick for me.
I'll go ahead then and get the camera
| | 03:10 |
mounted onto the tripod here.
Now, one of the things you need to be
| | 03:15 |
careful in this type of situation is to
not be too close to the glass, and also,
| | 03:19 |
not to bang the camera against the glass.
We want to have a little bit of space there
| | 03:26 |
to work.
I'll go ahead and rotate slightly here
| | 03:30 |
and tip the camera up.
And now, I can look through the
| | 03:35 |
viewfinder and make sure that it is
reasonably level.
| | 03:39 |
Obviously, the car is going to be moving,
and so, we're not going to be perfectly
| | 03:43 |
level, but we want it as close as
possible and I'll adjust the zoom.
| | 03:48 |
In this case, I want to have a little bit
of the front of the car in the frame so
| | 03:51 |
that we can see the hood of the car.
Hopefully, see some reflections on the
| | 03:56 |
hood and it just gives us a little more
context and I'll set my focus.
| | 04:01 |
That looks to be pretty good.
I'm also going to set a white balance preset.
| | 04:06 |
In this case, I'm certainly using Cloudy
for that purpose.
| | 04:09 |
So we'll get that adjusted as well.
There we go.
| | 04:14 |
And I obviously need to get my cable
release onto the camera so that we can
| | 04:17 |
set our interval.
I'm going to set this interval for 1 second.
| | 04:21 |
So I'll make sure I'm on my Interval mode
and set it to a 1 second.
| | 04:25 |
So one image every second.
So as we're driving along, we'll be
| | 04:28 |
capturing at a relatively fast rate.
So, I'll go ahead and get the cable
| | 04:32 |
release plugged into the camera here, and
I'll position the cable release in a position.
| | 04:37 |
I'll be able to get to it once we're on
the move.
| | 04:40 |
I also want to double-check and make sure
that the camera is pointed
| | 04:43 |
straightforward, as much as I can
accurately predict that.
| | 04:48 |
I guess you could say and it looks like
we're aligned really well in this case,
| | 04:51 |
so I think in terms of the camera, we're
all set.
| | 04:55 |
I'll just double check to make sure that
it's nice and stable.
| | 05:00 |
I'll double check my settings.
And I can see it's not a bad idea, I've
| | 05:04 |
focused through the lens, through the
viewfinder there, but I can also check
| | 05:06 |
the distance.
And here, we're between 10 and 20 feet,
| | 05:10 |
which I think is appropriate considering
the distance of subjects relative to the
| | 05:14 |
car here.
And with that, the camera's all set.
| | 05:17 |
Now, I just want to make sure that the
windshield here is nice and clean, no
| | 05:22 |
streaks, no dust spots.
Especially, if there's a chance that I'll
| | 05:26 |
end up turning into the sun at some
point, and so, that will really make any
| | 05:29 |
of those dust spots or streaks really
obvious.
| | 05:33 |
So, in front of the lens I want to make
sure that that windshield is really clean.
| | 05:36 |
All right, so we're all set.
I'm going to have a friend to drive for me,
| | 05:39 |
so I'm going to sit in the back seat and
monitor things, but we're ready to hit
| | 05:41 |
the road.
All right.
| | 05:44 |
So I started recording my time-lapse,
driving on this beautiful beautiful hilly
| | 05:49 |
country road.
Lots of curves in the road.
| | 05:52 |
I have the tripod mounted in the front
seat.
| | 05:55 |
I've got two legs down to the floor and
one leg into the passenger seat.
| | 06:01 |
And that gives me a reasonably good
amount of stability, but I'm holding on
| | 06:03 |
to the tripod just to make sure it
doesn't move around too much.
| | 06:07 |
I don't mind that the camera's bouncing
around a little bit, the roads a little
| | 06:10 |
bit rough in spots, because that's just
part of the road.
| | 06:14 |
But I do want to make sure that that camera
doesn't shift around.
| | 06:17 |
I've placed also a t-shirt in between the
top of the tripod, the ball head, and the
| | 06:21 |
dashboard to help suppress any
vibrations.
| | 06:24 |
I'm using a shutter speed of a 60th of a
second and we're driving reasonably fast.
| | 06:30 |
And that 60th of a second exposure will
help ensure that we have some blurring
| | 06:33 |
because of the motion.
That gives us that persistence of vision effect.
| | 06:38 |
I've stopped down as a result to an
aperture of F6.7.
| | 06:42 |
I want to try and maintain as much depth of
field as I can.
| | 06:45 |
It's overcast, and so, there's not a lot
of light.
| | 06:47 |
I've had to set the ISO up to 800 in
order to achieve those exposure settings,
| | 06:51 |
because we're moving reasonably fast.
This obviously is a time-lapse on the go
| | 06:55 |
at a reasonably high speed.
I've set my interval to 1 second using my
| | 06:59 |
cable release with the interval function.
And so, hopefully, we'll end up with a
| | 07:11 |
good result here.
All right, so I've stopped my time-lapse
| | 07:20 |
again at 1 second intervals.
Driving through and I decided that
| | 07:23 |
because there was quite a bit of changing
scenery, that I would do a series of
| | 07:26 |
different segments.
So I started in the hills with some fog,
| | 07:29 |
and then coming down into a small town,
and then through another city, and then
| | 07:32 |
onto the highway.
So, a number of different segments that I
| | 07:36 |
think I'll blend together to create a
more interesting montage time-lapse.
| | 07:40 |
I'm going to go ahead and pull out the
camera though now, and take a look, and
| | 07:45 |
see what I got there.
Make sure that the exposures look good.
| | 07:51 |
Of course, it's always a little bit of a
challenge when you're doing a time-lapse
| | 07:54 |
over a period of time where the light is
changing and especially when you're on
| | 07:56 |
the move.
Here, we've gone through various
| | 07:59 |
different regions.
And so, there's a lot that can change
| | 08:01 |
along the way.
But in this case, it actually looks like
| | 08:04 |
I ended up with good exposures all the
way through.
| | 08:06 |
So those settings worked out really well
for me.
| | 08:09 |
Again, the key for this type of
time-lapse is to be really, really stable.
| | 08:13 |
Using a tripod, mounting it in whatever
way you can.
| | 08:16 |
You've gotta get, get a little bit
creative in order to produce that nice
| | 08:19 |
stable platform.
But in this case, it actually worked out
| | 08:22 |
really well.
| | 08:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling a composite time lapse| 00:02 |
For my countryside drive Time-Lapse
project, I actually ended up capturing a
| | 00:06 |
series of individual segments.
So, rather than recording frames during a
| | 00:11 |
very long drive, I recorded frames during
what I felt were interesting portions of
| | 00:15 |
that longer drive.
I've already assembled those individual
| | 00:21 |
frames into time-lapse videos.
So, I selected the images from each
| | 00:25 |
sequence that I liked and assembled them
using Quicktime Pro 7 into Time-;Lapse videos.
| | 00:31 |
So, at this point, I'm ready to assemble
those Time-Lapse videos.
| | 00:34 |
I have four of them.
A couple of the videos feature a curvy
| | 00:38 |
drive through the hills.
And then we have a video where we head
| | 00:42 |
into town.
And finally, a drive through the town
| | 00:45 |
that includes a pass through a tunnel,
which I thought looked especially cool.
| | 00:49 |
And so, I'm ready to get started in Adobe
Premiere Elements.
| | 00:55 |
I'll go ahead and choose File > New >
Project, to bring up the New Project dialog.
| | 01:02 |
I'll click Browse button and navigate to
my Desktop and click the New Folder
| | 01:04 |
button to create a new folder.
We'll just call this Driving.
| | 01:09 |
And I'll click the Create button.
And then I'll click Choose, to choose
| | 01:14 |
that as the folder were I want to save my
project files.
| | 01:18 |
And for the project name, I'll use the
same name, Driving, very simple.
| | 01:22 |
And I'm set already to the DV or Digital
Video Standard which is a 720 by 480
| | 01:26 |
pixel dimension video.
So, that's good to go, I'll go ahead and
| | 01:30 |
click the OK button to create my project.
I can then import the media, the videos,
| | 01:36 |
that I've already created.
So, I'll click the Get Media button in
| | 01:40 |
the project tab, and then scroll down and
choose Files and folders.
| | 01:45 |
And then, I will navigate to the folder
that contains those videos.
| | 01:50 |
So here, you can see that I have the four
videos.
| | 01:53 |
I'll click on the first one, and
Shift+click on the last one, and then
| | 01:57 |
click the Import button.
That will bring all of the videos into my
| | 02:01 |
project, and you'll notice that they're
all selected.
| | 02:04 |
Because these were assembled from JPEGs
with square pixels and the video project
| | 02:08 |
is actually going to utilize rectangular
pixels, I need to adjust those videos.
| | 02:14 |
So, as long as they're all selected, I
will go ahead and choose File > Interpret Footage.
| | 02:20 |
And under Pixel Aspect Ratio, I will set
the Conform To option.
| | 02:24 |
And then, from the pop up, choose
DV-NTSC.
| | 02:27 |
I'll go ahead and click OK and all of
those videos are now adjusted.
| | 02:31 |
And in fact, I can click and drag.
Once again, they're all currently
| | 02:35 |
selected, so I can just click and drag
down into my scene line, and all of those
| | 02:39 |
videos will be added to the project.
So, at a very basic level, I already have
| | 02:44 |
my composite Time-Lapse video here
assembled.
| | 02:48 |
But I'd like to do a little bit more.
I'd like to add some titles.
| | 02:51 |
So, once again, I'll go to the Get Media
button.
| | 02:54 |
In this case, I've already created some
titles.
| | 02:57 |
These were created in Photoshop just
using a document size of 720 by 480
| | 03:01 |
pixels, so they match the dimensions of
the overall project.
| | 03:07 |
I'll go ahead and choose both of those
titles in my titles folder and click Import.
| | 03:13 |
And now those two are brought in to the
project.
| | 03:16 |
Once again, I'm going to choose File >
Interpret Footage, so I can adjust those
| | 03:21 |
JPEG images to the correct aspect ratio
for the video.
| | 03:26 |
So I'll click OK there.
And now, I can drag these individual images.
| | 03:30 |
I have a title slide, which I'll drag
over to the far left of my seam line.
| | 03:35 |
And I have a closing credits title, which
I can drag to the end of the seam line.
| | 03:40 |
And now I have the basics of my overall
video.
| | 03:44 |
I do want to have some transition, though.
So, I'm going to go to the Edit tab and
| | 03:48 |
then I will click on transitions.
And I think I'll just use a simple dip to black.
| | 03:54 |
And I'm going to insert this between the
titles as well as between the individual
| | 03:58 |
video segments.
So, I'll click and drag over to that
| | 04:02 |
transition and then click and drag to the
next transition.
| | 04:08 |
And repeat that process for each of the
transitions between the videos, as well
| | 04:13 |
as, the titles.
And I think that pretty much does it.
| | 04:17 |
I think that will give me a good overall
video but I would like to add some audio
| | 04:21 |
to the mix as well.
So once again, I'm going to go to my Project
| | 04:26 |
tab and click on Get Media, so that I can
import some audio files, in this case,
| | 04:30 |
just one audio file.
I'll go ahead and click the Files and
| | 04:34 |
Folders button, and then I will navigate
to the location where the music is stored.
| | 04:41 |
That's my music folder.
And for this particular project I'm going
| | 04:45 |
to use a song called Ace's High from
Kevin McCloud.
| | 04:49 |
I'll go ahead and click the Import
button.
| | 04:52 |
And you can see that I have that audio
track.
| | 04:55 |
To add the audio track, I mentioned going
to switch to the timeline view.
| | 05:00 |
I will scroll, so I can see my video, as
well as audio track.
| | 05:03 |
And then, I will simply drag that audio
track down on to the audio track,
| | 05:07 |
aligning it with the far left of the
overall project, so that it will start
| | 05:10 |
playing during the title sequence.
I can then add the right edge, since this
| | 05:16 |
song is much longer than I need it to be,
I can drag the right edge to align with
| | 05:18 |
the right edge of my overall video
project.
| | 05:21 |
I also want the music to fade in and fade
out.
| | 05:26 |
So, I'll go to the Edit tab, and then I'm
going to choose Effects, and I'll click
| | 05:31 |
on the Edit Effects button and expand my
volume option, so that I can click on the
| | 05:37 |
fade in button and also click on the fade
out button.
| | 05:44 |
And I think that just about does it.
That will give me a video that includes
| | 05:48 |
music in the background that will fade in
and out at the beginning and end.
| | 05:52 |
It includes several segments for the
overall Time-Lapse video captured at
| | 05:56 |
different times and it will also give me
an opening title and a closing credit screen.
| | 06:02 |
So, I'm going to click the share tab and
then click on computer, so that I can
| | 06:06 |
save a file that can be run on any
computer.
| | 06:10 |
I'll go ahead and scroll down and I'm
going to use QuickTime for this video.
| | 06:15 |
I'll click the browse button and navigate
to my driving folder on the desktop and
| | 06:19 |
click choose.
And then, we'll give this a name.
| | 06:23 |
And I'm going to call this, Driving
Final, because this is the final
| | 06:26 |
composite video comprised of several
different clips all together.
| | 06:31 |
And so that takes care of my settings.
I'll go ahead and click the Save button
| | 06:36 |
and Premiere Elements will start
assembling that video, rendering the
| | 06:40 |
audio and video together into the final
result.
| | 06:45 |
With the rendering complete, I'll go
ahead and click the Done button.
| | 06:48 |
And I'll click the Save button in order
to save my project, so that if I find any
| | 06:51 |
problems at all with the video, I can
always come back into Premiere Elements
| | 06:54 |
and make the appropriate adjustments.
I'll minimize Premiere Elements, though,
| | 07:01 |
and on My Desktop, go to the Driving
folder.
| | 07:04 |
And inside the driving folder, I'll find
my driving final movie.
| | 07:08 |
I can double-click on that to open it up
and then play it to check out the final result.
| | 07:56 |
(music playing)
| | 08:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
