time lapse?

[chaunceytanton]

Wondering if anybody knows where I can find examples of timelapse cinematography with the cooresponding film speeds. I will be shooting city time lapses and would like to see what, for example, traffic will look like at 1fps, 5fps,9fps,and 18fps. I own Baraka, and Poowasquatsi,etc. but i want to find a site with examples with the film speed the shots were taken at. thanks, chaunceytanton

[Alex]

I don't know of a site. One problem with viewing on the internet is there is no "standard" 24 or 25 frames per second. Sometimes the setting is "dropped" to 15 frames per second or less, and usually it's "fields" per second, rather than frames per second. some play as few as 4 frames per second! (If you have DSL, this may be less of an issue.)

One other thing to consider. Lens magnification matters as much as what filming speed you use.

For instance, if you shoot with a wide angle lens, 5 frames per second will look different than 5 frames per second in the telephoto mode.

Also, just as important an issue, is the action coming towards camera, or is the action moving left to right or right to left? Between direction of the motion, and the lens magnification you choose, can be the most important issue in regards to determining the desireable frame rate, or what the effect is you want to achieve.

Back light versus front light can also change your frame rate choice. I think what you are asking for is cool, I just don't know where to get it on the internet.

I'd consider doing a test roll in Super-8, if you have the time! The trick to determining the frame rate and what you want to achieve is calculating how many frames it will take the motion to travel either left to right, or top to bottom, then you can do calculations that will help determine the speed you want.

[TA 152]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 28, 2003 04:40 AM: Message edited by: S8 Booster ]</font>

[nahie]

You can get a rough idea of the timings by shooting video. Shoot an hour of video and then digitize it to your PC (make sure you have enough storage). You can then mess around with the timing to see what speed you're looking for. I don't know if you're familiar with AVISynth but it has an option "select every" and you could tell it to select every 1, 9, 15, whatever frames. Just don't forget that NTSC cameras shoot at 30fps so there may be some math involved to get the correct numbers for your film.

[chaunceytanton]

As for "Digital 8mm". Let me know if this would be a correct interpretation of the information you provided.
-With a wide angle lens as it pertains to time lapse sequences, I could choose a lower film speed due to the fact that the action would take longer to cross the frame.
-In contrast, telefoto settings would require a higher frame rate due to the fact that the action would take less time to cross the frame.
-The direction of the action affects frame rate selection similarly because action coing at or away from the direction of the camera would take longer (lower frame rates possible) than action which crosses in front of the lens( higher frame rates).
-As for direction of the light source I'm afraid I'm hypothesis-less?!! thanks let me know. thanks,chauncey

[Alex]

That's a very good interpretation, Chaunceytanton.

The video idea is a good one that nahie mentioned, and thanks Super-8 Booster for sharing those sequences.

I don't have a definitive conclusion to the issue of front-light versus backlight. I think it may be a case by case basis.

The issue to consider is what does the eye gravitate towards during a time-lapse sequence, and then would that change depending on the scene was lit?

[chaunceytanton]

S8 Booster-
i will have to check out the clips on another computer because my good one is down but i'm stoked and thanks to you for that.
Nahe-
a friend and I have considered utilizing that technique however I don't have the digital equipment necessary.
S8 Digital-
can we run a hypothetical situation in order to determine a fps rate.
ex.- Traffic. Lets say it takes a moving car on the highway 3 seconds to move entirerly through the frame. At 9fps the car would last aprox. 1 second of playback time(24fps). At 5fps the car would last aprox 3/4sec of playback time.
At 1fps the image would last 1/8second of playback time. This i understand.
Now, for what I presume is the heart of this topic; There seems to be two kinds of timelapse shots. The first seems to be when the images are shot real time and sped up in post. The second is when the images are shot with lower frame rates resulting in a much more 'jumpy' or 'segmented' result(not sure of the word to use there). So how would you go about balancing the two, frame rate and obtaining the desired timelapse(jumpy or smooth).
On ebay i saw a card which claimed to calculate a timelapse shots. Anyone know anything about this?? thanks, til tomorrow chaunceytanton

[Alex]

The fact that you understand that there is a difference between speeding up real time and shooting time-lapse may be your biggest advantage.

They are different looks. If you speed up existing footage, then you're probably better off shooting video so that you can shoot more to begin with and keep your costs down.

However, don't forget your shoot at 5 frames per second, transfer at whatever speed you want option,
this can give you a lot of flexibility.


When you speed up live video, you can end up with multiple images of the same thing on the same frame, at different positions within the frame.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but different from a film style of time-lapse.

[Alex]

Hey Chauncey, how has your time-lapse shooting been going? What camera are you using these days?