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How-To

Solutions: Time-Lapse Quicktips

How to make a movie that will show the world differently

This Article Features Photo Zoom

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3 Set the exposure manually; in fact, be sure everything is set to manual, including focus, so your DSLR doesn't accidentally shift in the middle of the series. When you set the exposure, think about how the light might change during the series of shots. For example, if you're going to shoot a sunset, you might want the initial setting to be a bit overexposed so you'll get more out of the fading light as the sun drops.

4 Have a large memory card ready for all of the images. Make sure your battery is fully charged, so the camera doesn't die at an inopportune moment.

5 Once you have all of the images, place them in a folder in your computer. Your camera should have given each image a name in sequence automatically. We suggest you make a copy of all of the images so you have masters in case there's a problem down the road. To keep the project manageable, do a batch resize on all of the images. Make them all 1920x1080 pixels. This resolution is full HD, so the resulting video will look great on any HDTV or computer screen. We suggest that you shoot higher resolution and downsize because you'll be future-proofing your time-lapse against advances like 2K and 4K TVs and projectors. We like to use Apple QuickTime Pro for assembling the final movie because it makes the process dead easy. Other programs do a fine job, but they tend to be a little more difficult to use.

That's all there is to it. Once you get the feel for it, you can get into more complicated techniques like night sky and camera motion. Give it a try, post to Vimeo and YouTube, and watch your video go viral.

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