**Using Handheld Time-Lapse Equipment**

One of the advantages of using handheld time-lapse equipment is its portability and convenience. Unlike traditional tripods, which can be bulky and heavy to carry, handheld time-lapse cameras are much more compact and lightweight. This makes them ideal for capturing footage in a variety of locations and situations, from urban streets to natural environments. Additionally, the flexibility to grip or hang these cameras from railings or other objects allows for greater creativity and control over the shot.

**Stability vs. Portability**

While handheld time-lapse equipment offers many advantages, it's essential to strike a balance between portability and stability. Without proper support, the camera can be prone to movement and blur, which can ruin an otherwise excellent time-lapse sequence. However, with a little practice and planning, it's possible to capture smooth, stable footage even when using handheld equipment.

**DSLRs for Time-Lapses**

While DSLRs (digital single-lens reflex cameras) are capable of capturing high-quality time-lapses, they can also introduce some challenges, particularly related to exposure consistency. The moving parts inside the lens, such as aperture control mechanisms, can cause slight variations in exposure between frames, leading to flickering or inconsistent lighting effects. This can be mitigated with careful planning and technique, but it's essential to understand these limitations before attempting a time-lapse shoot.

**Workarounds for Flicker Issues**

When using DSLRs for time-lapses, one common workaround is to shoot wide open (i.e., with the aperture fully open) in bright lighting conditions. However, this can result in overexposure and loss of detail. Another approach is to use manual focus lenses or shoot in live view mode, which allows for more precise control over the aperture setting. This can help minimize exposure inconsistencies and reduce flicker issues.

**Camera Settings for Time-Lapses**

When shooting a time-lapse, it's essential to have manual control over your camera settings. Start by turning off autofocus and fixing the shutter speed and aperture for consistency. Set the ISO to Auto mode to allow the camera to adjust the exposure setting while maintaining stability. This combination of settings helps ensure that each frame in the sequence has consistent lighting and focus.

**Frame Rate Considerations**

The frame rate you choose for your time-lapse will significantly impact the final product. A common choice is 24 frames per second (fps), which follows the traditional film standard. However, other frame rates may be preferred depending on the desired outcome. For example, a higher frame rate like 60 fps can create a smoother, more fluid motion, but it requires more footage to achieve the same duration as a lower frame rate sequence.

**Output Frame Rates**

When outputting your time-lapse video, consider the standard frame rates used in different regions and industries. In the US, for example, the television standard is 29.9 fps, while in Europe, it's 25 fps. YouTube supports up to 60 fps, but this can result in a higher storage requirement and may not be necessary for all applications.

**Final Thoughts on Time-Lapse Production**

By understanding these principles and techniques, you'll be well-equipped to produce stunning time-lapses that capture the beauty of your chosen subject. Remember to plan carefully, control your camera settings, and choose the right frame rate for your final output. With practice and patience, you can create impressive time-lapses that showcase your creativity and artistic vision.

In the next video, we'll explore post-production techniques for time-lapse footage, including editing, color grading, and visual effects. Whether you're a seasoned filmmaker or just starting out with time-lapse photography, this series is designed to help you improve your skills and take your creative work to the next level. So join us in the next video as we dive into the world of post-production and explore how to bring your time-lapse sequences to life.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enover the last month I've been incorporating a lot of time-lapse footage into the videos on this channel and in this video I'm going to show you how I make them there are essentially two different ways to shoot a timlapse you can shoot video and speed it up later in your editing software or you can shoot a series of still images and Stitch them together in post production I prefer to go with the still image route because it gives me a more finite level of control over the final look and honestly I think in the end it just looks better now it's not always possible depending on what kind of equipment you have with you but that is my preferred method so let's talk about cameras the first thing that you can use that may be the most obvious is you can use use your cell phone and you can use your iPhone it works great if you have an Android device generally something where you can download an app that will control the whole time lapse and there are a lot of good ones out there I tend personally to prefer apps that will allow me just to save a series of jpegs that I can offload onto Lightroom or something and then do my post- production there um but there are apps that will go ahead and Stitch it together and save it as a movie file and that is very useful if you want to upload to Instagram or share immediately from the phone but the phone actually makes a great time-lapse tool the other thing that I like like to use um and I actually own two of these but this is um I've talked about these on the show before this is called a Mobius action cam and the mobus action cam is actually very interesting uh in that when the first iteration of the GoPro came out um I thought they were very overpriced and I wasn't crazy about the quality GoPros are excellent now and they've definitely caught up but I bought these at the time and I actually own two of these and they're numbered this is number two what I like about the Mobius action cam is there's no screen no viewfinder no nothing just a tripod mount and you might want to use a level or something if you're going to use this to shoot a time lapse these two metal plates on here are actually a heat sink and the way this works is you just simply turn it on there's a mode selector which allows you to select between doing Stills and video and you can set it to either one you can take video footage with this or you can take Stills and there is a time-lapse mode which is this yellow mode right here so all I have to do is press the start button once this is mounted to a tripod and these work really well the upside to these is they're really cheap you can get one of these for under $100 I can't remember whe they're 60 or 80 but they're very inexpensive and they work great the downside is is they don't have any Frills there's no viewfinder there's no screen on here or anything you're just going to have to kind of use your instincts on that and point it in the direction and deal with it from there does get a pretty large image so it does work very well they do not do well in low light necessarily but you know you're getting what you pay for so this is a nice alternative to using something like a GoPro and the fact that it does interval based shooting built in makes these excellent and I've used these quite a bit I the reason I have two of them too is I like to be able to set them up and do multiple time lapses from different directions or different angles at one time the camera that I'm doing pretty much all of my time-lapse work on these days is this one and this is a little point and shoot this is the Sony RX100 Mark III and I absolutely love this camera the image quality is outstanding I don't have any of the flickering issues all of the time lapses that you're seeing throughout this video uh we're done on this camera and I absolutely love it the only problem with the RX100 Mark II is is it does not have a way of doing interval-based shooting in the camera this is the same problem you're going to have on a DSLR so you're going to need one of these and this is an intervalometer and I bought this on Amazon you don't need a fancy one I probably paid $10 $20 for this it wasn't expensive and basically what this does is it uses the multi-port on the Sony so make sure you've got the right one for your camera as far as the connection goes and you set this up to do shooting at intervals and so I set this up at intervals I usually move between 5 and 10 seconds and so this one's set up for five right now I crank it up to however many shots I want it set to 3.99 right now which I think is maxed out what I do is I plug this in you hit start stop every 5 Seconds it takes a picture so this allows me to set it up and I can go on and do something else if it's a longer time lapse and I don't have to sit there and babysit it um you are going to need something like this cuz you do want that interval based shooting to be very consistent but you don't need something fancy the only other thing I would recommend is you know you're going to need tripods and the ones I like to use the most a lot of times when I travel I'll mount a camera in a window or I'll mount it to you know the car or something you can get these tripods with suction cups on them they work extremely well um a lot of times these things will come with attachments and so I have an adapter for my phone as well so that really helps and the other thing I recommend is check out they make you know Joby makes these gorilla pods and you can get them in different sizes and I actually like using these better than my big tripods cuz it's a lot less stuff to carry and you can literally grip these to railings or hang them from things and they do an excellent job but you do want stability because you need to keep the camera still during a time- lapse now let's talk about dslrs for just a second dslrs can be used to do time-lapses certainly but one of the things that you can have as a problem in the end result is what is a flickering effect where the exposure is slightly changing and some frames are a little bit darker and some frames are a little bit brighter the problem with dslrs is there are a lot of moving Parts namely the way the lens works with the contacts that control the aperture so for instance when you look through the viewfinder on a DSLR you're seeing that aperture wide open and the reason is to allow all the light imposs to assist in precise focusing and composition and being able to see what happens is when the moment the picture is taken the lens will shut down the aperture to what the aperture setting is and then release it and open it back up one of the problems that you can have on dslrs is just a little bit of inconsistency in then aperture and this usually happens on less expensive dslrs so if that happens there are workarounds and you're going to need to consider how to do that because it is a serious pain to deflicker footage in post- production a couple the workarounds that I like to use is you can shoot wide open unfortunately if you're shooting in daylight this isn't going to work cuz it's going to be too bright so you're going to either have to use Indie filters or another option is you can actually attach old manual focus lenses or shoot in live view do something where the aperture stays at the exact setting uh where you're going to want it for the time lapse and not opening and closing cuz that's ends up what's causing that flicker problem from time to time having said that you really don't need a lot of resolution for video in fact you only need about 2 megapixels for HD video and only 9 megapixels if you want 4K video I used a Nikon D40 for years that was just kind of my dedicated time-lapse camera and it worked just fine when you're shooting a time lapse you're going to want to have some manual control over your camera the first thing you want to do is turn autofocus off you don't want the focus recomposing during your time lapse you also want to fix the shutter speed and aperture for more consistency on my RX100 Mark III I use manual mode with a fixed aperture and fixed shutter speed but I set the iso to Auto so the camera was still autom metering to a degree but it's not going to change a setting that will add a shift in the final time lapse let's talk about frame rate for a second now frame rate refers to the actual frames per second that move by in your final footage I shoot everything at the film standard of 24 frames per second so I make time lapses with that in mind this means that 24 images will go by in a second 240 images is 10 seconds of footage if I need 10 seconds of final footage and I shoot at 5sec intervals this will take about 20 minutes to film for that 10 seconds of final footage another thing that'll help you considerably is to consider what your final frame rate is going to be now I tend to film everything at the American Film standard which is 23.976 frames per second if I'm outputting for television the US Standard is 29.9 frames per second if you're in Europe the standard is 25 frames per second now YouTube will actually support everything upwards of 60 frames a second which I'm really not a big fan of personally um I like there to be a little bit of motion a little bit of flow and like anywhere from 24 to 25 upwards of maybe 30 frames a second is what our eyes are used to seeing in media but anyway just note also that 60 frames per second is going to require a lot of footage just to film because you're at a much higher frame rate at that point so that about covers how we actually shoot a time lapse and in the next video I'm going to show you how you stick it together in post production if you guys enjoyed this video please remember to like it and share it with your friends and as always subscribe to the Art of Photography so you'll always be up to date on all the latest and greatest videos we do here and uh join me in the next video where we talk about post- production on a time lapse and I'll show you how you put it all together so I'll see you then later\n"