All language subtitles for 02 - Why Timelapse

Yeah, I mean timelapse at its most simplest form,

it's just the evolution of time.

We're going to be seeing a passage of time taken from one moment to

another moment and we're going to be able to see everything that

happens in between and that's what a timelapse is.

There's a lot of different things you can do with timelapse,

you can shoot clouds,

you can shoot people, you can shoot shadows,

you can shoot cars, events and even long-term timelapses.

We're able to see the evolution of spring,

summer, and winter happening all at once.

There's so many different things you can do with timelapse that it's almost limitless.

I think some of the most stunning things you can see through

timelapse are shadows and clouds.

These are things that you see every

day throughout your life and they're always just there,

they're just kind of stagnant and you never actually see them in motion.

But when you're able to look at them through

the screen and see them over like a four or five hour time period,

you're actually able to see them come alive.

To me, being able to see shadows sweep across the land or across an old dirty television,

it's really impressive to see and really inspiring because you're able to

see the sun moving basically and with clouds,

there're so many different formations,

and so many different organic parts to it,

it's just really cool to see,

and the only way you can do it is with timelapse.

Here's a couple of timelapse that'll show you exactly what I mean.

In this shot, we're using a motion control dolly rig in Arizona and recapturing

a lateral move of the cloud sweeping across

the plains and a tree in the foreground moving to the left,

really gives you a nice sense of perspective and depth.

In this shot, we've got some really nice,

beautiful clouds and what I've done is,

I've taken my shutter speed and dropped it down to two seconds.

So, it really flows and creates this very cinematic flowly look.

In the same aspect,

I've taken this shot which is a picture of LA and I've stationed it on top of

a bridge and you can actually see

the cars passing by and streaking underneath the bridge.

For this particular shot,

I used a nice two to three second interval with a one second shutter speed.

One of my favorite things in the timelapse is astrophotography.

In this particular scene,

we had a 30 second interval where we actually had the shutter speed at about 25 seconds

and you can actually see the Milky Way gliding across

the screen with a really beautiful acacia tree in the foreground.

One of my favorite things in timelapse are shadows.

In this scene, we've got a really nice,

rusty TV that's in front of

a window and you can actually see the clouds sweeping across the TV,

and this shot in particular was about a three hour shot.

Sometimes you really want to capture unique perspectives.

In this shot, we actually put a camera on the side of

a New York City cab and you're able to

run it all the way through town and this is one of the cooler shots,

live shot, and really easy to do,

just a simple camera and a suction cup grid.

Some of the most basic subjects for a timelapse are clouds,

moving cars, people, shadows, events,

and then just the overall elapsed time,

and these are the most common things you're going to find out there,

and really easy to film and fun to film too.

Some of the most difficult timelapse is the film are

yearlong timelapses where you're in a construction project or you're

doing some type of elaborate seasonal project

where you want to capture the different changes of the season.

These are projects that are going to require a lot of

different types of gear and a lot of time,

and it also makes your camera unavailable for that period of time too.

So, you have to understand that you're going to be

losing your camera when you're shooting long-term timelapses,

but those are by far the most difficult to do.

For this particular project,

I think the best way to do is to go out into your world and explore it first.

This is called the scalp process.

Some of the easiest elements to capture in the city,

obviously it will be your people,

their cars, and their architecture.

If you're in a city where there aren't a lot of people,

where there's not a lot of architecture,

you can do the landscape.

There's plenty of different varieties of whites,

actually if you can get it, just showcasing your particular location.

Let's talk about the three-point dynamic rule and this is

something that I've kind of made up my own.

But the three-point dynamic rule basically means that to create

a dynamic timelapse you're going to need

three different elements to timelapse there in the scene.

So, the easiest way to do that is by using cloud motion, cars, people,

or adding an imposed zoom,

which is where you're actually going to create

a motion or a movement inside of the computer.

It's the easiest to do, to add a third element of motion.

Sometimes though, the next step for

the most or more advanced users would actually be using a motion-controlled slider.

This is going to give you one of those access of motions

where you can add a perspective motion or a pan or a tilt,

and then utilize clouds, shadows,

people, cars to add the elements.

So, the more elements you have of timelapse,

in your timelapse, the more dynamic and more rich and robust it feels.

So, a lot of people will go out and they'll put

their camera down and expect something to happen,

but what you really want to do is you want to make sure you have a rich,

dynamic range of timelapse options.

So, you really want to be out there calculating and figuring out well, do I have people?

Do I have cars? Do I have an event happening?

You want to be able to make sure you have three of

these six elements basically in your shot to produce the most dynamic shot possible.

What I mean by dynamic is that it's going to be

the most interesting thing for people to watch because

no one wants us to watch a stop sign for four minutes, its boring.

You want to be able to see clouds moving, people moving,

cars moving, light sweeping across your subject,

you want to have all of these different elements working

together to produce something that's really cool,

really fun, and really inspiring.

Yeah, I think going through this process,

you're going to maybe run into a few issues shooting timelapse.

Some of the most common issues that you're going to have are types of flicker,

wobble, different types of white balance issues,

then you're also going to have problems with maybe post-production interval.

So, it's really crucial to make sure that you have

all of these different types of elements locked down

before you start because once your timelapse

starts and something happens in the middle and it screws up,

you're pretty much toast,

you've got to start all over again, which really sucks.

So, what I want to show you guys is how to prepare yourself so you

don't have these issues going into

your timelapse and when it comes out, you're good to go.

So, some of the issues that you're going to find are,

if you leave on any type of auto-focus or any type of vibration reduction on your lens,

you're going to come up with

some artifacts and you're going to be also seeing some wobble,

and some wiggle, and some jiggling in your shots.

This is going to produce an unstable shot and here's an example of one that I've used.

This is something that I shot six years ago,

when I left vibration reduction onto my lens and as you watch this clip,

you can actually see the lens popping up and down and that's because

the lens is actually trying to communicate as it's sitting on a tripod,

it's actually trying to level itself out,

but it's really just causing more vibration and shake inside the camera,

four hour timelapse and you don't want that.

One of the main issues that you're going to have is making

sure everything auto is off on your camera.

If you leave anything that's white balance or

shutter speed or aperture or even auto-focus,

all of these different types of

auto features are actually going to screw your timelapse up.

So, you really want to make sure they're all turned off.

Yeah, I think wind is one of those factors that you don't

necessarily think about when you're shooting a timelapse,

but wind can be really damaging to your shots.

So, you really want to make sure that you've got

a strong foundation and a really sturdy tripod.

So, what you're going to do,

is you can either weight down your tripod to make sure that

the camera doesn't shake or use a very sturdy tripod.

These are the types of things that are really going to

be crucial to create a really nice timelapse.

Another problem that can arise is flicker.

Flicker can be caused by a lot of different varieties.

It can be caused by different types of light entering your lens from different angles.

Let's say, a car light is directly in front of your lens and it comes in,

that's going to cause flicker.

Other times too is if you're using a non-manual,

and so this is anything that has an auto-focus feature.

The aperture never actually goes back to the same location twice.

So, after the shutter clicks,

there might be a small,

minute difference in your aperture and that little difference is actually going to

cause flicker because the exposure is going to change just

slight enough for the exposure to change.

You'll notice that in your timelapse because what's going to happen is you'll

just get this really constant flicker going back and forth

and that's because your aperture is firing and not

closing or opening to the same spot every time.

Timelapse is one of those things that really can draw

someone in that's new to the community or new to

photography because it's something that's really interesting and

a lot of people love watching it because you don't see it every day.

It's something that's new and it's fresh

and it's always interesting to watch what's going

on because there's so many different details

in a timelapse you don't necessarily notice throughout your day.

It's one of those things that you maybe you fall in love with.

I fell in love with it and I love timelapse,

but you want to make sure that you take care when you're setting your camera.

So, it's really important that you use the right settings and that you have

proper weight management and gear when you do your shot.

When I first started out doing timelapse,

I bought the cheapest gear I could find,

I bought like a 5D Mark II and a really cheap lens.

I went out there and timelapse,

then I was carrying around a giant battery pack to power

all my equipment and it was just one of those things where like,

this will never catch on, like who would want to do this in their right mind,

and you get better at it and you're like,

"Oh, okay, this is kind of fun.

Let me go out there and buy some more lenses and new cameras."

It gets really exciting and really fun.