Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with timelapse

What do I need to take a timed photo, outdoors, once per day for six months without touching the camera --unless I am just periodically switching out a memory card?

john.c.herman — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:21:07 -0800

What do I need to take a timed photo, outdoors, once per day for six months without touching the camera --unless I am just periodically switching out a memory card? For the sake of this project, I have a pretty limited background in photography and even less in time-lapse photography. I have a small budget which I am aware I could spend on the camera alone. I have done some searching, and it looks like I will need a solar panel to power the project. I am hoping there are people out there with first hand knowledge.

Any suggestions (or links to similar projects) would be very helpful.

Creating a map image from a geotagged image?

jaimev — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:12:12 -0800

Is there a Windows or OS X utility that takes a geotagged JPEG image and generates an image of a map containing a pushpin or dot showing the location where the image was taken? Also, it would be nice to control the size of the output image and the map scale.

I'm planning on taking a sequence of still images, geotagging them, stitching them together to create a movie (like this), but adding an overlay of a map image on the lower right corner showing the current location.

That's where this utility would come in - to generate the map overlay images.

Normalize my photos!

bjrubble — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:22:16 -0800

Is there any software that will allow me to get a series of photos (taken from roughly the same vantage point) to "match"? I have a set of photos that I want to turn into a timelapse slideshow. The problem is, the perspectives/angles are almost but not quite identical. I'm looking for some software (preferably for a Mac) that will allow me to get all the photos lined up properly.

Ideally, I'd like to find something akin to a photo stitching program, that would match features on each photo to map them automatically. I suspect that this would be more difficult here than in a panorama, since the lighting on the features is different across the photos.

Second best would be something that allows me to define the features myself, and performs transformations from there. Years ago I recall playing with several photo morphing programs that had this sort of interface -- ie. define a set of matching control points on each photo, and map a set of transformations from them.

Third best would be something that allows me to superimpose one photo on another, and move/scale/skew it in place.

The second and third options seem like they could be fairly trivial Core Image applications, so this may be verging into mere laziness on my part.

Also, most of these images are standard (~6mp) photos, but some are panoramas (20-30mp). For this purpose, though, I wouldn't need to be working with the full-size images.

What is an online tool for creating timelapse movies?

greenknightwatch — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:31:16 -0800

Are there any web-based video editing services that provide "Speed up" effects to create time lapse movies? I have taken movies about 60 minutes long. I'd like to speed them up by a factor of 16x to 64 x. Windows movie maker is too slow, and doesn't preview the sped up time-lapse movie clearly. Maybe there is something better on the web. Id be interested in hearing about either online video editing services with this capability or open source software.

decaying human flesh?

donabean — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:52:55 -0800

does anybody know of a video of a human body decaying in time lapse that last longer than 5 minutes? where would you go to find such a thing if it exists? for an art project a friend of mine is freaking out trying to finish. thanks in advance, peoples.

Toronto the flat, condo-full Toronto!

pseudostrabismus — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:27:20 -0800

Please help identify buildings in two photographs depicting the area around Toronto's CN Tower, in 1976 and 2008. I've posted two photos of Toronto, both taken near the CN Tower, one from the mid-1970s, and one from this year. I would like help identifying the buildings in the photos. The photos are taken from slightly different vantage points, sorry about that!
Any help ID'ing the buildings - and specifically any buildings that are seen in both photos- would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Calling All Ecohydrologists

a_green_man — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:39:45 -0800

What does a river look like from above, over time? If you were to look at a river estuary from a satellite over a period of 100 or 1000+ years, what might it look like? A writhing snake-shape whipping at the lake/ocean? How much will it 'roam'? What might it do? I'm thinking more of flatland deltas where the terrain isn't terribly channeling.

and I would love to see any animations/movies/etc that would illustrate how a river moves over time. Do any of you know of anything like this?

Help me build a simple intervalometer!

lord_yo — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:02:58 -0800

Help me build a simple intervalometer! I'm trying to build a simple intervalometer, i.e. a device which gives my camera regular impulses to shoot a picture at a defined interval. It would enable me to do custom time-lapse series.

Hooking up my camera to such a device is not a problem, as my Canon EOS 400D uses a easily available cable jack for the remote control.

I can solder, and have a basic understanding of electronics components. However, I don't know how to build the device itself. I'm looking for an DIY electronics kit (could be programmable, but doesn't has to be) or cheap hackable gadget (timed blinking lights? kitchen timer?) that I could convert into an impulse-giver.

The device would need to be configurable to set the following parameters:

- Time off - e.g. 500ms
- Time on - e.g. 10ms
- (optional): number of repetitions - e.g. 1000x

Example for a commercially available device: [pClix]

Help me build a small, light, battery-powered time-lapse photography rig?

mathowie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:02:41 -0800

I'd like to do a time-lapse movie of photos taken every 30 seconds during a week-long, 500 mile ride I'm doing later this year. But the rig has to be small, light, automatic, and run for hours a day without a recharge. Is this possible? (something tells me Make Magazine probably already covered this at one point) I have a small front rack like this one that I could mount a camera (up to a digital SLR) on, but I'd like it to be fully automatic so that when I turn it on, it starts taking shots every x seconds until I turn it off. Ideally, I'd want this to weigh less than a couple pounds and the other big limitation is that I'm on a bike so there's no cigarette lighter to plug into. This would have to be battery-powered and run for anywhere from 4 to 8 hours a day between nightly charges.

Consider money is no object and I'll buy the largest CF cards available so memory storage shouldn't be a problem either.

In the end, I'd love to have a <5 minute movie of my entire week, seen as I saw it, off the front of my bike as I ride across Oregon.

Who Made This Lovely Music?

LeeJay — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:16:25 -0800

I am looking for the source of the music in a time-lapse video. I have been wondering for quite a long time where the music for this video (WARNING: link leads to large time-lapse video) came from. I swear I've heard it before. Sounds like the score to a movie I've seen. Anyone know where I can find this? I think it's beautiful. (I first came across this video here, in a post to Mefi.)

How to shoot an 18000 frame time lapse?

Pink Fuzzy Bunny — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:58:59 -0800

I want to turn a 10 hour drive into a 10 minute time lapse video. I have read through the question that was asked last year on this same subject, and I need some clarification on some points.

The video I want to shoot is a continuous shot of my trip, no cuts or breaks.

From the research I have done, it sounds like the best way to archive this is to hook up a still camera to a laptop and have it capture on a timer.
I have an old Canon G1, but it cant take and transfer the shots fast enough for what I need (1 frame every 2 seconds).
I also have a Nikon d80 DSLR, but I am wondering if taking 18,000 frames in a day (10 minutes at 30 frames a second) will adversely affect the lifespan of the camera?

Another option is to buy a webcam, I noticed that the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 ships with a 2mp sensor, would this give me enough quality for later projection of the movie?

To store the shots I am thinking of having the camera hooked up to my laptop because its going to make a lot of data. Will running my laptop off a DC inverter in a moving car harm either my alternator or the laptop?

Are there any other cheap ways to do this?

Make a DVD to play at 1 frame per minute?

bystander — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:46:18 -0800

Make a DVD to play at 1 frame per minute? I want to take a bunch of time lapse photos, shot 1 minute apart, and play them back on a TV in real time, so the TV mimics a window. What software can I do this with, preferably on windows?
Ideally, I want to stick a DVD in the player, press play and then it plays for 12 or 24 hours. Is this possible? I know some DVD players have photo slide show functions, but my preference is to just play a very slow movie.

Taking time-lapse video of a construction project?

bondcliff — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:32:04 -0800

How can I make a self-contained device to take a time lapse video of a construction project? Better still, how can I turn said device into a webcam? If all goes well, construction will begin on the house in a couple of months.

I'd love to get it on video. I'm a geek. I love to do things for no other reason than because I can. I love to build stuff.

Primary goal: Upon completion of the project, to have a time-lapse video of the entire thing. Say, take one frame at noon every day.

Secondary goal: To have a webcam on the site that I could view whenever I wanted.

I have some spare hardware I could use, including an old Dell Laptop with Win 98 and Ubuntu on it. I have a Logitec camera that will plug into the laptop, I even have an old Olympus digital camera. I could throw a few bucks towards the project though I'd like to keep the costs down.

I envision some sort of weatherproof container holding the laptop, battery, and camera. The project will take nine months to a year so the device will have to work through all types of New England weather.

Once I get the hardware down I'm sure there's enough OSS out there to do the rest. Ideally if the thing rebooted it would start right up again.

The main problem with achieving goal #1 is the lack of power at the site. Not only will there be no electricity at the site during the early phases of construction, but the camera would be located on a tree or shed at the rear of my back yard, too far to run an extension cord even if there was power at the house. What sort of battery pack would I need to keep this running? I'd be close enough to visit the site once a week or so but I wouldn't want to have to change batteries more often than that. I have one of these but they're only good for 40 hours at most.

I've thought of solar but there are too many trees in the area, I don't think it would be reliable. There might be an hour at most on a good day when a panel got some sun, but that's about it. Also, that would probably cost way too much.

Keep in mind I don't want to involve the contractor in any way. I figure they have enough to deal with I don't want them having to worry about the owner's silly pet projects. I'd tell them about it just so they knew I wasn't trying to spy on them.

I know my neighbors but I'd feel weird asking them if I could run an extension cord from their house for nine+ months. I'm hoping to avoid that.

To turn it into a webcam I'd need the first goal met, plus a net connection. I don't see any way around this beyond asking the neighbors if I can hook up a WAP somewhere. Is there a way to rig up some sort of cell phone modem that called up a dial-up ISP once a day?

I know it seems like I've answered a lot of my own questions but I'm hoping someone out there knows about some device that I haven't yet thought of. How do people build those www.watchabearshitinthewoods.com cams?

Stitching 7000 jpegs into one video file?

bering — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:42:13 -0800

So I took 7000 pictures (jpeg) with my webcam over a period of 12 hours. How do I stitch them together into a time-lapse video? I've tried searching AskMefi, but haven't had any luck. This thread gives a number of suggestions, but none of them seem to fit my problem. This program would probably be able to do it, but there doesn't seem to be a download link on the webpage.