Now comes the really exciting part: click on the button on the far right side of the timelapse window that says "Start Timelapse". So if I know that a print will take 3 hours, i'll add an extra 10 minutes just in case.
I set this for the duration of the print (plus some, just because the timer isn't completely reliable).
Some trial and error is good for this, just to see what you like. I set it anywhere between 10 and 20 seconds for taking photos of my 3D printer, depending on the time of the print. Depending on what you are doing, this can vary greatly.
You can download it at this link:ĭid you download it? Good! Now go ahead and turn your camera on and connect it to your computer via USB. This program ended up being one of the only ones that supported my camera, and should work with most Nikon Cameras as well. There are some other ways to do this, but because my computer was already going to be controlling my printer I would rather have the photos go directly there and kill two birds with one stone!
I learned about tethering your camera to a computer in order to use a software that would be able to remotely control your camera. Unfortunately I didn't have this luxury and dug a bit deeper. Many Nikon cameras happen to have a handy built-in timelapse setting that's as easy as clicking Menu > Shooting Menu > Interval Timer Shooting, and then fiddling with the settings until you have the time between intervals, length of timelapse, and photos per interval that you would like. The first thing that I did was dig through my camera's settings. It would be cool to make one in the future!
(An intervalometer is a type of remote control that you can set to make your camera take photos at certain time intervals) Basically, it does what the free software I found does, but without the aid of a laptop.
I didn't really know what an intervalometer was before I started learning how to do this process, so I don't really foresee myself needing to get one as long as my camera can be tethered to my laptop. It was nice to push myself and see what I could find about about the capabilities of my camera! I see myself investing in a tripod soon (or making one!). I personally don't have either and wanted to try and see how much I could do with as little equipment as possible. Some techniques that others use involve tripods and intervalometers. If you timelapse is going to last all day, there is no need to take a photo every ten seconds! However, if your timelapse is only going to be an hour or so, definitely err on the side of more photos.
So you will want to think about how much time you want between photos, and how long your timelapse will last. However, if you want the block-y feel that some timelapses can provide (in a good way!), go ahead and take less photos. Also, the more frequent photos you take, the smoother your timelapse will be. So depending on what you are filming, if you want a smooth video of the sun rising and setting, you would want to adjust your photos so that they match this setting (24 frames / 1 second = 1/24th of a second per frame, or a length of. Generally speaking, most videos are shot at at least 24 frames per second. It would be pretty boring to watch this happen all in one go (maybe not that boring, but it would definitely take a while!), so making a timelapse is a cool way to showcase a longer event in a shorter period of time. You have probably seen tons of timelapses of the sun and clouds moving across the sky. Great question! A timelapse is a filming technique that takes an action (in my case, a 3D printer) that can take a long time, records it, and plays it back in high speed.