Time Lapse

[kayeb Profile Private message]

How do you create a time lapse video or slideshow in Producer? I have a friend who is going to be taking some still pictures of an artist drawing. They are wanting the pictures to have the time lapse look.

Thanks for your help,
Kaye

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

Not 100% sure what you mean, but what I think of would be the result of simply having lots and lots of pictures and run them pretty fast. Normal video is 24 frames/sec but a decent fraction of that would probably work, maybe .1 sec frame time with a cut transition to start with. Not sure how many slides/sec it can keep up with in Preview or as EXE (function of the machine its running on) but that would give the right effect, I think.
Dick

[kayeb Profile Private message]

Thank you Dick for the information. I have seen a few Time Lapse shows in Producer and I was wondering how they did them. I'm not sure how many photographs I am going to have to work with either. I was wondering if you would have 0 cuts in between each slide or if you would use key frames or what.

Thanks again,
Kaye

[heckydog Profile Private message]

After I read your post a second time I understood it to mean that your friend will be taking still photos while an artist draws a picture. And you then want to speed up the process.

If that is correct then what I would do is videotape the artist as he draws the entire picture. Then using software, (there's lots of choices), you can extract every Nth frame as a still photo. When you add them to a PSP slide show it will create a time lapse video.

I did this for a road trip from Chicago to Omaha. I had to change tapes every 90 minutes. When I got home I used a simple program to extract every 42nd frame to make a 10-1/2 minute time lapse video from a 7 hour trip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKJxXFlnYl8 the end result

Joe

[kayeb Profile Private message]

Thanks Joe for replying. Yes that is how the process is to take place. He takes the still pictures and I'm to create the slideshow. What external software do you use? Is there any way without external software and doing it all in Producer?

Kaye

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

I'm not sure how many photographs I am going to have to work with either. I was wondering if you would have 0 cuts in between each slide or if you would use key frames or what...

Well there's always more than one way to do something in ProShow. But to start with you can just drop the images on the timeline set a duration for all of them and a cut transition (0 time). See how it looks and fiddle with timings until you like it. You can I think collapse it all into one slide and use keyframes to control the timing if you want as well.

Basically just decide how long you want the sequence to last and divide the images by that for the duration of each. If you had 50 pictures and wanted the time last to run for 10 seconds then each is .2 sec duration. With anything over about 2-4 images per second the viewer will never really see any one image just a flow thru the sequence. Once you get up around 10-20 images per second it will start looking like a video with everything happening very fast. One trick I'd definitely use is to hold the very last picture in the sequence for a few seconds so the audience sees the completed project long enough--might want to start the same way with a shot of a blank canvas/paper holding it long enough for the audience to realize what they're seeing.

There's really no difference between that way of creating a time lapse video than any other show except that, at least for that sequence, there's really only one thing in every picture.

One other thing. To be most effective the person shooting this should have the camera on a tripod in a fixed position and the pictures taken at a consistent interval--every xx many seconds. Lots of guidance on line for creating effective time lapse photo sequences and if they're not experienced doing this it might be good for them to check it out.

Dick

[kayeb Profile Private message]

Thanks Dick. I will let them know because I don't believe they have ever shot anything for time lapse.

Kaye

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Thanks Joe for replying. Yes that is how the process is to take place. He takes the still pictures and I'm to create the slideshow. What external software do you use? Is there any way without external software and doing it all in Producer?

Kaye

You can do it just the way you described, using a still camera and taking photos at intervals. As Dick stated it's almost an absolute necessity to have the camera mounted on a tripod. Then all you have to do is bring the pictures into PSP. In a case like that don't use real high resolution photos if you're going to have hundreds and hundreds of photos. It makes it easier for PSP to process things. Depending on the camera, there may be an intervalometer available that can take pictures at a specified interval. That will take the guesswork out of that part.

My camera uses miniDV tapes and I used a simple program called WinDV to capture every 42nd frame of the video. I also tried using Photoshop because it has the ability to repeat actions over and over using a batch file I created. It worked fine but PSP bogged down with all the photos.

Joe

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

As Joe points out, many cameras will set up the time lapse and do it for you, though it can be done manually but it's tedious for anything more than just a few minutes. In any case, they need to think the photo sequence through and tell you how many images they plan to have -- they just estimate the time period in minutes and the number of images per minute.

Dick

[kayeb Profile Private message]

Thanks Dick and Joe. I did email them yesterday after your responses and told them they definitely had to use a tripod.

Kaye

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

For it to work, the images all need to be at the same size as well as position on the picture. A tripod can work, (and is certainly better than hand holding), but they need to make sure the camera is in the same location for each shot (put tape on the floor where the tripod legs go would help). Another way that is often used for time-lapse type stuff over a long period is set up a bracket of some sort for the camera clamped to a shelf etc that allows you to set the camera there with the same position each time. I think I would experiment with the transition between the images - I would think that cross-fade would work very well using maybe 1/3 the slide time. For the best effects, the lighting should be the same (as well as the exposure) in each frame.

mikey

[kayeb Profile Private message]

Thanks Mikey. I will tell him what you said also. He has never done anything like this before and he moves around alot when he takes pictures. So, I am going to reiterate to him what you all have said.

Kaye

[photoray Profile Private message]

Hi Kaye. I am specifically looking to learn how to use PSP to do Time Lapse vids also for the holidays. I was wondering if you will be able to post an example of your results when your done or at least tell how it went, etc.

Most of the info I have found from a Google search indicated Photographers were putting their still images together in other software first like Vegas, then using PSP for the other stuff to finalize with. I don't see why this is necessary to do if we can just use PSP for the whole thing.

Thanks.

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Most of the info I have found from a Google search indicated Photographers were putting their still images together in other software first like Vegas, then using PSP for the other stuff to finalize with. I don't see why this is necessary to do if we can just use PSP for the whole thing.

Thanks.

Photogs do it in other programs first because it is the best way to do it.

Consider for example if you want to make a time lapse video that's just 2 minutes long. Even at 24fps that's 2880 still photos. A typical slide show done by folks on this forum might have a couple hundred photos. I tried to do a time lapse using just PSP and when I got around 800 or 900 photos (about 30 seconds) PSP got bogged down too much.

Instead of doing one photo per frame you could use fewer photos and have them on screen longer but then it doesn't look like a time lapse, it looks like a bunch of pictures going by really fast. You lose the smooth motion.

Here's an example of what really good time lapse photography should look like:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/4038064[/vimeo]


Joe

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Hey, that guy is good !!! I know how he did most of it, but how does he get the obviously moving shots (like from a car or boat) to not have any bad motion ? My guess would be tracking software that he targets at a mountain or something. Maybe just good stabilizing software before grabbing the sequence out of it. Definitely good stuff !!

Here is another example of some time lapse stuff that I had found some time ago. This guy is really good !
http://www.vimeo.com/22439234 - he apparently uses a Canon 5D for a lot of his stuff.

mikey