So… I’ve been bitten by the timelapse bug and this video is an attempt at scratching the itch. Some would say that timelapse photography and timelapse videos are trending right now. The truth is, this form of photography has been popular for many years now.

But what is timelapse photography…?

Here’s what Wikipedia says:

Time-lapse photography is a technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing.

This basically means that video or multiple still images are sped up considerably in order to show the passage of time. The resulting video is one in which things seem to be moving very fast. For this reason, timelapse photography has been used to show (among other things):

• landscape and celestial movement
• plants growing
• evolution of a construction project

My attempt – the grunt work

For my first attempt, I wanted to show the setting of the sun. I fished around the Internet for examples, tutorials and the like, and understood the general concept. So I set out to Morne Bruce, arguably the best nearby location to capture the setting sun.

To be honest, I was less concerned about getting a good image, and more interested in making sure I could use the camera and its settings properly. There was a lot of trial and error as I fiddled with the various menu options. I was finally successful in setting up my Nikon D7200 to capture 300 images at the rate of one image every 15 seconds. This works out to a 75 minute wait, as the DSLR clicked away.

My error: I miscalculated the number of shots required to capture the setting sun, and ended up going into the night. I was curious about what the resulting night images would look like, so I let the camera keep on clicking (the resulting night images were rubbish!)

After the 300th click, I packed up and went home to edit the shot. The first thing I did was delete the night photos. Then I edited the remaining 150 images in Adobe Lightroom CC.

I had to deal with 150 images looking like the one on top. I edited them tastefully to look like the image at the bottom, because that’s what the scene looked like to my eyes at the time.

Thankfully, Lightroom allows me to edit one image and copy those settings over to other images, so I wasn’t tasked with editing each image by hand. 

When I was done editing the still images, I exported them and dumped them into Adobe Premiere Pro, my go-to video editing software. It’s hard to believe, but when all 150 images were strung together, the resulting video was approximately 4 seconds long!

My attempt – The Result

I slowed down the video (technically, I halved the speed) to 8 seconds, added some music and slapped on my logo at the end. Here’s the result:

 

Feedback!

Now that you’ve read about my experience and seen the video, tell me what you think in the comments below! Thanks!