Yeah, photography is one of those things where even 10 years in, i'm sure photographers are learning something new every day about their trade.
My main intention is to take simple time lapses of indoor garden plants, from seed to harvest time, under different lights to indicate how those plants grow under those specific lights.
I've dabbled with the time lapse function in my wyze v3 security camera, and I've found that I like setting it to take a picture every 10 minutes, and I'll usually set it to run for 80 hours at a stretch. If i do my math, that's 6 pictures an hour--144 pictures a day--480 pictures per time lapse. At 24fps (which i understand is 'cinematic' fps?) that'd be a 20 second video.
Of the 4 methods you mention, i think the closest to what i'm currently doing is #4, which is ideally what i'd like to do; many photos strung together to form smooth stop-motion.
Ideal duration of these time lapses: 20-30 seconds, which I could later edit together to form one long cohesive time lapse. Frame rate: 24-30fps seems ideal for this, without breaking my budget.
Resolution: I only know enough about cameras to know that picture resolution varies from camera to camera, even if you're shooting in the same given resolution, because lenses and sensors and whatnot. And I'm sure thats only a half-right assertion, i'm sure there's way more to it or less to it, i dont know. The only camera i have experience with is on my cellphone. 🤷♂️
Ideally i'd like it to be high enough resolution for me to see the movement of the bugs and mites on the soil, while the plant in still in focus.
I can share a youtube link to a video that is basically exactly what i'm trying to do. I'm sure there are other cameras with better resolution, but again--My budget is small, ideally i'd like to find a used camera on ebay with just one lens so I can gently dip my toes into this extraordinarily expensive hobby. My only other option is just buy a cheapo camera off amazon.
