Basic Timelapse settings

[Tariq]

Hi All,

I am using v 2.3 on my 600d and am looking to capture a night to day time lapse video of the sky above my house. I will set up the camera when it's dark and leave it there until the sun appears and I have a lot of clouds within the video as well.

I come from a video background so please bear with me. I understand that using f22 will keep everything in focus, which is what I am looking to do however in low light is there a setting in ML where the aperture remains the same but the shutter opens and shuts depending on the light?

[nanomad]

I think it's called Blub ramping, altough I've used it for day->night transition and not the inverse condition

[screamer]

hi, yes, the feature you are searching for is bulb ramping. and about the f22, for timelapses (especially with night timelapses) the best approach is to shot wide open, and there's 2 main reasons for that. the first is that the final video is in a much lower resolution of the original shots, so the gain in details closing the lens is irrilevant. the second is that wider apertures means no sensor dust spots (more evident in timelapses than in photos because they stay still when the rest is moving). but of course it depends on what is the lens you are using

[Tariq]

If I take pics at f 2.8 as I am using 16-35 Canon how will I know if the clouds will be in focus when the sun comes out?

[a1ex]

Try to focus at the hyperfocal distance. If there's nothing on the sky, I usually focus on the farthest tree or distant object that I can find. If it's too close, I focus a bit on the far side, so the tree becomes slightly soft.

If it's full moon, at f4 you will need 15 seconds at ISO 400 ... 1600. If there's no moonlight, you will need a few minutes at ISO 6400. At least these are the numbers I've used in my experiments.

[Tariq]

Should the camera be on manual mode and if so even when selecting bulb remap auto the picture is way over exposed. what shutter speed should I be using?

[a1ex]

Let it run, as in the tutorial.

[Tariq]

I am having a little issue not sure why

Lens is set to 2.8 manual mode,
Camera set to M mode
Intervalometer is set to 2 seconds
Bulb/Focus set to sunrise
Max Ramp speed set to 0.050

Expo menu set to ISO 1600
Shutter 1/25

http://imgur.com/a/rhqa2#0 every 5 - 8 frames a picture is brighter than the rest. I have uploaded 7 images here. The first is bright and so is the 5th

Any reason for this?

[a1ex]

Yes, it's explained in the user guide. Use slower shutter speeds.

If you shoot RAW, you can deflicker in post. This script handles this kind of flicker very well: www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=2553

[vijayforvictory]

I am a big fan of Time-lapse videos. And I never had a chance to try this in my 550D as it doesn't have Intervalometer.

Thanks to ML 2.3 which has a cool Intervalometer. I managed to capture few time-lapses during sunset and after sunset.

Here are my settings & gears.

Camera  : Canon EOS 550D
Lens : Canon EF 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Mode : Aperture Priority Mode (Av)
F Stop : 22
Focus : Manual (Used Auto Focus to focus the land&sky then turned off AutoFocus)
ISO : 100
Interval : For every 10 Seconds

These  settings gave me a great set of 500 clicks.

Best part is, after sun is set, the shutter time is automatically increased by the camera as it is in Aperture Priority mode. So, all the photos well in focus.

These basic settings work for any time of the day.