Help with Time Laspe

[Brian Rhodes]

Help with time laspe ... I am in Haiwaii for the Pro Bowl an want to capture a sun set with my EX3 can any tell me the settings to use on the EX3

[Bill Ward]

Brian:

You've got a couple ways to do it. You can use the S&Q button on the outside of the camera, and dial it down to 1 frame/sec. If it's a sunset, expose for the beginning of the shot and let it run down to black. You can also do it on auto iris, but the transition is longer and less dramatic.

You can also go into the record menu and activate interval record. I'd still recommend 1 frame per second. You might also want to change your shutter setting from "speed" to "SLS" and pick something like 3-4 frame accumulation, to soften the movements.

A bigger issue you may run into is that the on-board ND filters on the EX-3 are not enough to fully dampen down the brightness of the sun at the start of the sunset time lapse, if you have a perfectly clear day...or start an hour or two before actual sunset. That's where a matte box with some ND/polarizing/color manipulation filters comes in handy. A grad filter can also be your friend.

[Brian Rhodes]

Thanks for the quick response

[Bill Ward]

So did the time lapses work for you?

BTW: everyone on the board hates you for being in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl Just sayin'... ;}

[Alister Chapman]

I would not use S&Q at 1 fps as each exposed frame is 1 second long so the camera will be ultra sensitive but also very noisy. I'd use interval record at 1 frame every 1 or 2 seconds.

I'd also use TLCS with a maximum shutter speed of 1/500 and maximum gain of +6db, iris limit at f11. Plus Auto iris. That way you can eliminate the need to use the ND filter during the daylight phase as the shutter will operate to keep the iris sensible without ND and as the sun sets the shutter will decrease as it is no longer needed. TLCS is your best friend with this type of shot, it's well worth playing with it and working out how it works.

[Bill Ward]

Alister:

Maybe it's because I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, but this makes little sense to me:

"I would not use S&Q at 1 fps as each exposed frame is 1 second long so the camera will be ultra sensitive but also very noisy. I'd use interval record at 1 frame every 1 or 2 seconds."

If the S&Q is set for one frame per second, but actually takes a second-long recording, wouldn't that be the same as a real time recording, and not give a time lapse look at all? That's not been my experience using the S&Q for timelapse. That being said, I normally use interval record.

I'm going to try your recipe for TLCS!

[Alister Chapman]

In normal modes if you shoot 30P then each frame is exposed for 1/30th of a second. In S&Q at 1fps the camera takes 1 frame every second, each frame is exposed for 1/1 of a second, thus 1 second per frame, unless you use a faster shutter speed. S&Q clips play back at 25/30fps so 25 or 30 of those one second long exposures are played back every second and thus the footage is speeded up 25 or 30 times.

[Ian Ellerby]

Hi Alister

I have a pmw-350 and following your suggestions tried the sunset timelapse on TLCS and it worked really well, until the sky went orange and then the white balance changed completely and suddenly I got a purple sky on video! I can't seem to have the TLCS running and stick with a single white balance, or have I not quite understood the auto part of it. By having TLCS (EZMode) on, does that always mean that white balance is always auto?
I went for 1 frame every 4 seconds.
Thanks Ian

[Doug Jensen]

I suggest that you forget about TLCS and setup the camera for manual exposure and manual white balance. That is the right way to do it. I have never seen a TLCS time-lapse that looked very good.

[Chuck Fishbein]

I shoot a lot of time lapse but never tried this. Won't the TLCS over compensate for darkness, forcing the image to stay lighter, longer (on a sunset) or will it max at the 6db?

[Les Wilson]

I have two shots at an interesting sunrise this week and am willing to try TLCS and manual if we can settle on recipes.

For TLCS, these are the settings from the EX1R manual with defaults in parenthesis:
Level: +1.0 / +0.5 / (±0) / –0.5 / –1.0
Mode: Backlight / Standard / Spotlight
Speed: –99 to +99 (+50)
AGC: On / (Off)
AGC Limit: 3 / 6 / 9 / (12) / 18 dB
AGC Point: F5.6 / F4 / (F2.8)
Auto Shutter: On / (Off)
A.SHT Limit: 1/100 1/150 1/200 (1/250)
A.SHT Point: F5.6 / F8 / F11 / (F16)

Is this the recommended TLCS recipe?
Level: ±0
Mode: Spotlight
Speed: +50
AGC: On
AGC Limit: 6
AGC Point: F2.8
Auto Shutter: On
A.SHT Limit: 1/250
A.SHT Point: F11

What's the strategy for manual?

[Doug Jensen]

The best strategy for manual is to set you your shot the day before just after sunrise and note what all of your exposure settings are. Then pack up and go shoot something else.

Then, the next day, come back a before sunrise when it is still dark and set the camera up using the exact same settings you wrote down the day before. The image in the VF will be totally black, and that's what you want to start with. Now lock the camera down and start the time-lapse. You'll have a guaranteed perfect exposure after sunrise because you already determined what that exposure will be.

[Alister Chapman]

You can use all or part f the TLCS functions.If you don't want auto iris, switch the iris to manual. If you don't want auto white balance, switch the white balance switch to preset, if you don't want auto shutter turn the shutter switch to ON and set the shutter speed.

The beauty of TLCS is that it can be limited in it's range and this is how I use it. I will normally set the AGC limit to +6db. Use preset white set to 4400k (you can set the preset white in a picture profile). I set the AGC point to f2.8 as I want open iris and minimum gain. I set the A Shutter point to f11 so as to reduce diffraction softening. I normally set level at -0.5.

Doug's method is perfectly valid and great when you know in advance what your exposure needs to be, but most of the time lapses that I do that is not a luxury I have. In addition TLCS behaves more like our own vision. As the sun sets (or rises) our own vision adapts to the changing light, so to some degree we expect to see some detail in the pre/post sun part of the shot, it's almost never absolutely dark. In my Singapore sunset shoot I used TLCS on the F3 (and auto iris/auto shutter on the FS700) to help go from bright sunshine to dark city lights and I think it's very effective. A fixed exposure would not have worked, my daytime exposure was 1/250th shutter, f11 and after dark +6db gain, 1/25th shutter, f1.8. That's about a 10 stop difference. On the F3 I had to manually ride the iris but TLCS helps here as it will normalise the exposure via the shutter and gain helping keep the exposure near constant. Singapore By Night 1080P - YouTube

[Doug Jensen]

Alister, that shot does look very good and is a nice example of subject matter and a location where TLCS might be worth the risk. But I still would not advise beginners to use it because so much can go wrong compared to a straight-forward manual time-lapse. For every good TLCS time-lapse someone has shown me, I've seen 20 bad ones, and most of those wouldn't have benefited from TLCS even if it had performed flawlessly. Your clip is certainly an exception.

[Dave Morrison]

Looked very nice Alister. Were the moves done in post or did you have a motorized head? If it's the former, do you shoot in 1080 and then make your moves in a 720 timeline?