Shooting Timelapse - Some Lessons from the field (part 1)

First things first. Grammar! Who says time lapse is two words? Let’s put an end to that nonsense right now. It must be just a matter of time before timelapse takes its accepted place in the modern lexicon as a single word, without the accusatory red squiggly line treatment from Microsoft Word, and we can all go back to worrying about more important things. I also refuse to use the apologetic, hyphenated version ‘time-lapse’ – either you’re a word or you’re not a word! Good. Now we can move on.

So, why do you need to shoot good timelapse video?

There is an ever-growing demand for video content. Whether you’re a small business owner or a multi-national CEO, video marketing has become crucial to engaging audiences and driving sales.

The great thing about timelapse is, when done properly, you can achieve great looking results on a very modest budget. Hollywood production values are beyond the reach of most businesses, but timelapse video does not require huge budgets and large crews. It is the most cost-effective way to instantly upgrade your production values and show your audience that you mean business.

It is relatively easy to achieve a big budget look with a just a little bit of know-how. And showcasing your production values lets people know you’re serious. Done well, it looks cool and people love watching it – which means they are likely to share it.

Plus, timelapse video is a great addition to your storytelling toolkit. Whether you need a stand-alone clip or a killer bit of b-roll, timelapse helps to take your visual creativity to the next level.

The best thing is, anyone can make the step up from amateur to professional looking footage with a basic grasp of timelapse fundamentals.

This is not a ‘how to’ guide – for a more in-depth look at f-stops, shutter speeds and color temperatures, you can check out some of our other blog posts, including this ‘essential guide to timelpase.'*

(*coming soon along with our essential video guide)

We will touch on a few technical aspects as we go through each stage of timelapse shooting, and I do want to give an overview of the workflow from pre production to post, but mostly I want to focus on some of the things that nobody told me when I was starting out. By trial and a lot of error, these have become my top timelaspe tips.

This is also not a ‘do not do’ guide. In fact, if you have the time, feel free to ignore my advice and go out and make the same mistakes I did, then come back and compare notes (Learning by doing really is the best way). Of course, if you don’t have time, and you want to jump straight into shooting great looking timelapse, you’re in the right place.

So, for the first item in our ‘not a do not do’ guide…

Don’t shoot sunrises.

Just forget about shooting sunrises. You will be disappointed with the results, no matter what you try. They are not sunsets in reverse (as we’d like to imagine them in our minds) and there are all sorts of science-y reasons for this (the angle of the sun, atmospheric conditions, under cooked dust particles in the air etc).

Even if you can overcome all the technical issues required for dealing with the huge exposure shift as day breaks, morning skies tend to be flat and monotonous compared to their all action, fire-breathing sunset cousins.

Instead, you have to be sneaky. Shoot sunrises indirectly. One of my favorite ways is to point the camera away from the rising sun (i.e. West) towards a city skyline (anything glassy and reflective) and wait for the sunlight to rise up the buildings in a dramatic burst of energy.

I love to shoot at dawn, but I have learned to forget about making the sky the center of attention – the sunrise itself is almost never my subject. Much better to shoot the streets waking up, the shift from artificial to natural light as streetlights and office buildings power down, their energy transferred to the moving bodies of cars, planes, boats, buses or people.

So, while sunrises are destined to disappoint, you’ll find much more reward if you…

Shoot sunsets (just make sure you arrive early)

Dusk is nearly always the best time to shoot (some directors have made an entire career out of it). The key to capturing that magic golden hour and the dynamic shift from day to night is preparation.

Know in advance what time the sun sets – to get the best results, you’ll want to shoot the entire golden hour before sundown and capture the entire blue hour period and beyond (see below).

So, what time does the sun actually set? Apps such as sun seeker will tell you all you need to know about sundown timings. They can even pre-visualize the arc of the sun across the sky, which is great for location scouting and figuring out the best spot to be in.

If sundown is 7.32 PM you should be shooting from 6.30, and that means arriving at least 45 minutes before that. You’ll want to be on site no later than 5.45 to give you time to find your spot, frame up and go through your preflight checklist.

My best results have always come when I’ve had ample time to prepare properly on location. There’s nothing worse than making basic technical mistakes because you were in a rush to set up and start shooting.

There’s nothing worse than sitting through a 3-hour shoot with the nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten something. More than once I’ve waited through shoots only to find out, due to my hasty set up, I hadn’t double-checked my focus! That’s why I now always carry a checklist with me.

That's it for Part One - join me for Part Two where we get into apps and settings and all that good geeky aperture stuff!