Tutorial: Shooting a Timelapse

Posted December 17, 2008 // Tagged as Tutorial // 7 Comments ↓

I couple of days ago, I posted a timelapse that I took with my D80. At this current time, the D80 has no intervalometer settings – this means that it cannot pictures every so many seconds, fail? So, we need an alternative to take a timelapse.

How I do it:

I use Nikon’s Camera Control Pro 2 software to control my camera – it’s a hefty press tag for a simple tether application. Download the free trail, it’s for macs & pc’s! Camera Control is availible for not just only the D80, it works on most of the D range!  D3, D2Xs, D2X, D2Hs, D700, D300, D200, D100, D80, D70s, D70, D60, D50, D40X, D40!

I tell the application,  I want to do a timelapse, and set it to take a picture every 2 seconds until I stop it. [Example Screenshot]

Once you have finished taking your timelapse, we want to snap them together. I use quicktime pro, as it is the only application I know that does this;

 
It’ll ask for how many frames per second, I set mine to 6; but the choice is yours. I will generate your clip, now you need to save it. File>Save>Self Contained Movie. Now you are free to do what ever you want to with the movie. I add music to mine normally, some nice background music.

Timelapse(s) from James Bayliss on Vimeo.

7 Responses

  1. William Hook

    December 17th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

    Is there a way to do this with the EOS 400D?

  2. James Bayliss

    December 17th, 2008 at 9:45 pm

    I believe using the provided software that came with your 400D there is a utility that allows you take time lapses.

  3. William Hook

    December 17th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

    Well, there’s something I don’t do much. Actually using the supplied CD. I genenerally just plug stuff in and download it off the makers site if I need it, even if I have the CD within reach. Which I’ll do now. :P

  4. rmaspero

    December 17th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

    I use iStopMotion for my timelapse’s, but it will not work with my Nikon D50 so I assume it wont work with most DSLR’s. I think you can also create an action in Automator that uses image capture.

  5. ondra

    December 18th, 2008 at 12:26 am

    mr. bayliss, so much fucking love to you!!!

    I know I wanted to script the damn Nikon Capture software, but this does…well, what is needed :]

  6. Kiro

    December 24th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Hey this is great! I’ve always wanted to do one of these with my camera, but didn’t really know how. xD I’ve got a window right by my desk that I could try to do one on. Thanks!

  7. Choosing Tethered Shooting Software for Nikon DSLR Cameras | The Photo Geek

    May 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    [...] configuring and triggering your camera remotely can be extremely helpful when doing product, macro, time lapse or self portraiture [...]

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