EX-1 time lapse

[Henry Olko]

I was hoping for advice here...

I know how to set the EX-1's interval record mode for time lapse... but does anyone have suggestions on how to set the cameraup when doing a time lapse from day to night or night to day?

In these extreme lighting conditions, how does one set the camera- Ordinarily, I MAY put up the gain at night... during direct sun, i need to put in ND-

Do i set the camera to auto and walk away??? will it deal with gain or ND automatically? I dont think it will ???? I shouldn't make extreme changes between shots... right? what do i do?

I'm open to being directed toward a good instructional book or dvd that would touch on this.... if anyone can reccomend...

Thanks!
Henry

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Of course it will not deal with ND by itself - it's a mechanical switch. But using auto settings (if you don't mind them), it will use gain in dark, and increase the shutter speed in sunshine when you would engage ND.

[Mika Tertsunen]

Most importantly, as always, think about what you want to achieve and show. Is it the change in the light and time of day or are you going for changes in the scenery; moving items etc.

I left a camera out on full auto and it was a complete waste of time regarding the mood thing. As the daylight was going down the iris was correcting up, when it was dark enough the gain kicked in. So, instead of getting a shot with a changing lighting and mood the outcome was a shot that tried to maintain its exposure. What should have become dark was just remaining the same but with heavy grain.
On the other hand, you do get the directional changes in light and the exposure correction especially when introducing grain is trying to make the image readable. If it´s the action you are going after, this might work for you.

[Henry Olko]

hypothetically I would like to shoot a skyline... In daylight, I want to see the movement of the clouds and sunlight... then of course, I want to see the sky through dusk, and the lights turning on in buildings-

Thats the trouble im having- i dont want the camera to automatically be compensating too much.

Obviously, there is a MAJOR change in exposure- so that's my dilema... how do i set the camera up to automatically account for this change, while not making the camera "fight" too much in exposure values- I want it to look "natural"

do I make sense???

Thanks

By the way- do any of the instructional DVDs touch on this?

[David Cheok]

Set your shutter to the slowest setting required to capture your night scene on your lowest gain setting and set your aperture to auto. Your aperture will close down to compensate for the daylight scene automatically during the day and will open up to compensate for the night scene at night. Gain must be fixed and not on auto. This kind of settings only works if your daylight scene is within the dynamic range of the gain set at the smallest aperture at the given shutter speed. Too bright and you will over exposure your images during the day. Your exposure compensation should be set to approximately one stop (- 1EV) to (-1 2/3) to compensate for the night and keep your daylight exposures rich from sunrise to sunset. Of course you will not be capturing the actual light intensity but i dont think that is what you want to do anyway. If you dont keep a minus 1 ev setting, the camera will try brighten up the night and sunset scene.
Post up your footage when you finished :)

PS. You might want to use the interval recording function to do this :) Having to speed up 14 hrs of footage is a bit*h.

[Akira Hakuta]

Originally Posted by David Cheok

Your exposure compensation should be set to approximately one stop (- 1EV) to (-1 2/3) to compensate for the night and keep your daylight exposures rich from sunrise to sunset.

Question: how do you set the exposure compensation?

[David Cheok]

Originally Posted by Akira Hakuta

Question: how do you set the exposure compensation?

Go to your screen menu, move the selector to the aperture figure and push up or down...

[Ted OMalley]

Originally Posted by David Cheok

Set your shutter to the slowest setting required to capture your night scene on your lowest gain setting and set your aperture to auto. Your aperture will close down to compensate for the daylight scene automatically during the day and will open up to compensate for the night scene at night. Gain must be fixed and not on auto. This kind of settings only works if your daylight scene is within the dynamic range of the gain set at the smallest aperture at the given shutter speed. Too bright and you will over exposure your images during the day. Your exposure compensation should be set to approximately one stop (- 1EV) to (-1 2/3) to compensate for the night and keep your daylight exposures rich from sunrise to sunset. Of course you will not be capturing the actual light intensity but i dont think that is what you want to do anyway. If you dont keep a minus 1 ev setting, the camera will try brighten up the night and sunset scene.
Post up your footage when you finished :)

PS. You might want to use the interval recording function to do this :) Having to speed up 14 hrs of footage is a bit*h.

There is some great stuff in this thread, especially in the quoted post!

I have a client that wants a 24 hour video of a skyline time-lapse compressed down to about 15 minutes. I'm planning to use Interval Recording feature.

I wonder if anything else has been learned since this post - what works and what doesn't. I have to find a way to transition smoothly from noon to midnight and back again - and loop it! I plan to shoot at least 48 hours to be sure I've got enough and have a loopable spot in the video.

[Rich Dykmans]

I've been experimenting with interval recording a bit. Here is a sunset I did recently. I left everything on manual - locked exposure.

http://www.vimeo.com/1409704

[Paul Miley]

Really nice shot!

Paul

[Michael Jensen]

Great time lapse! Must be nice to live near all that buttery water. I would love to wakeboard there sometime.

[Chuck Wall]

Hi

I have a need to use time lapse to show a machine being built over the course of 2-3 weeks. It is indoors under florescent lighting and is also exposed to overhead windows which let in sunlight. Construction is during 5am to 5pm for the most part.

I am thinking of using auto iris and a 5600k preset, not sure about using the AWB.

Any thoughts? Looking for input

Chuck

[Andy Nickless]

Timelape is a great feature of the camera and you can get some amazing results but you need to keep a few things in mind.

If you set the camera to "auto" it will try to make everything look "normal". Is this really what you want?

For instance, if you use auto exposure, the camera will do its utmost to make the whole sequence look like an average sunny day. So on a sunset timelapse, the whole thing will look like normal daylight (boring).

Also bear in mind that any iris f-stop smaller (bigger number) than f6.7 is going to result in really fuzzy images. So if you set the iris to auto when it's cloudy but then the sun comes out and the iris closes down to f16, you may as well scrap the footage, it will be terrible.

It's not easy - particularly long day-night timelapse.

My advice is to cheat!
Use manual settings for that beautiful sunset but when its dark, reset the camera to capture the city lights at the best setting you can with minimum gain (gain=grain). Of course you'll lose some continuity - but it's a trade-off.

If you must use auto, use the menu to restrict the automatic settings latitude available to the camera in auto mode.

Auto White Balance can be great, but it can also let you down badly. Don't rely on it if you can't do a retake.

Most important of all.
Go out there and shoot. Practice makes perfect and timelapse is great fun (except, possibly in winter, when you're standing around outside for hours on a freezing cold night only to find when you look at the footage that some dirt got onto the lens and you didn't notice in the darkness).

[Ted OMalley]

Andy,

Thanks for the post. I have a 24 hour shoot coming up, all timelapse, and this has helped me to consider a few things.

I'll test this, but I think I'll try this:

Start full manual during the day, adjust the camera for the daytime scene. As dusk approaches, allow it to get darker and darker. Once it is dark, slowly (over the course of 24 or 30 frames)adjust the iris/shutter/gain for the night sequence. Then, prior to dawn, adjust the same settings back to the day settings over the same period, and let the camera roll through the day.

Another option I have is to really cheat...

Shoot the day until dark. Stop. Shoot night till pre-dawn. Stop. Shoot day. Then, in post, cross dissolve between the shots, possibly throwing away part of the dawn/dusk footage. I'll never see the sun - I'm facing north and will be shooting wide, but not terribly wide. I'll try this out and posit a sample in the coming weeks.

Any other suggestions?

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by Ted OMalley

Start full manual during the day, adjust the camera for the daytime scene.

Be careful Ted.
If conditions are changeable as they are here in the UK today - sunny and bright one minute, then cloudy and dull the next, you may need to consider auto iris. This is because if you expose manually for sunshine, then the sun goes in, the footage will vary between perfect and very dark. If you expose for cloudy conditions, and the sun comes out, your footage will vary between perfect and burned out. In my experience it's not easy to guess a setting in between but on occasions like this, auto iris is ideal.

In this case, I would use a combination of ND filters and Gain (Normal -3 or High +3) to ensure the iris is at (say f5.6) for the very brightest conditions (it mustn't go over f6.7) then using auto iris, the camera has enough aperture stops latitude to open up for the duller periods.

Your footage will still reflect when the sun's in or out, and all be useable.

Of course, what I said in my post above will apply as dusk approaches (and again at dawn) but if you practice, you will be able to change settings very quickly and little continuity will be lost.

For those doing timelapse in fairly constant conditions (as I imagine Florida may be at the moment) full manual is still preferable.

Some samples of your trials would be very welcome.