4K hyperlapse (walking/motion blur) using Android phones?

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dylansmith

Well-known member
I notice action cams like One R or gopro can do this seamlessly in camera. I was searching for similar apps on Android platform, but it seems ALL of those apps have not been updated for years.

I have a very capable P40 Pro with me - any suggestions on how I can use it to make a great looking walking 4K hyperlapse?
 
Do you have a link to a great-looking sample you like?

Those impressive, professional hyperlapses you sometimes see in commercials (or many YouTubers do them) are made with devices that have the correct settings and are stabilized.

If your phone can take photos, preferably automatically in intervals, and you're able to lock exposure and control shutter speed, you're more than half way there. The next step would be to use a gimbal (assuming you won't have access to other more advanced gear).

Back in the day, we used to walk and manually take photos every few seconds and you'd be surprised how good some of them came out (I was).
 
this is one of the examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-KDX7xwdOQ (see the sample walk up to building clip)

note I'm referring to hyperlapses (which are processed via videos), not timelapses (stitched through intervals of many photos).

I do know how to make timelapses but it is extremely tedious (post-processing wise). just looking for a quick & dirty way to get half-decent hyperlapses..
 
Real hyperlapses are always photos, never video. But they have movement in them opposed to timelapses which are mostly static.

They of course can be created by simply recording a lot of footage (and removing frames) because at the end of the day one frame is one frame whether it's a photography still or a frame from a 24fps motion picture sequence, but creating them with photos is the proper way to make them.

And any movement is done physically by walking, running or traveling on a moving object, or in post through various techniques that manipulate the image through keyframes and camera movements/tracking.

What the person in the video is doing is obviously more post-based than traditional and organic hyperlapses, but he also says around 1:30 that you can "totally do this walking handheld taking a photo every second" (which again was the old school way of doing it as mentioned above).

Many modern stills cameras take photos and make videos out of them so it's super easy these days. No tedious workflows.
 
By the way, just to provide you some more information (which may help in the overall knowledge):

The reason they are always stills is because about 10-15 years ago people became really obsessed with creating videos from photos because photo acquisition hardware specifications were always so advanced over compressed video recording hardware (and prices and computers really started to improve as well).

In 2010-ish, when most video cameras were barely resolving a thousand or so lines of resolution, stills camera were 4K and shortly on their way to 5K, 6K and eventually 8K+ frames.

Ever wonder why hyperlapses look so good? It's all of that resolution, dynamic range, and color (especially RAW color) that you see.

Back then, interval recording was mostly used in video camcorders. Today, you can make a hyperlapse with a more modern camera that records video every second or few seconds, but only an amateur would attempt that because the quality is so much lower compared to photos.

Now in your case, if you're just asking how to do it with video recording with your phone then why don't you test it out? Record walking a few hundred feet down a road and then remove frames in post. If you're shooting 60fps, keep the first frame then remove the next 59, then keep the one after that, then remove the next 59, etc.

You can play around with the frames and how you manage them, but this is actually more tedious than by doing it with stills which you could test out as well. Down the same road...take a picture, walk a few steps, take another picture, walk a few steps, take a picture, etc. Take at least 200 pictures for around 8 seconds (24p timeline).

Once you understand the basics of a hyperlapse, you'll understand how to make them really well.
 
The downside of stills or camera/phone that does hyperlapse in camera is you don't have flexibility that you would have to creating it in post from a normal video. There is also a difference with speeding up footage and doing true hyperlapse. But I understand what the OP wants. It's similar to slow motion, where some cameras allow to either film at 120p and then slow it down in post or to bake it in. This makes post work much quicker.
 
There is no downside of using a stills camera because that is the way you do it. It is always the first option.

Everything about it is better; higher-resolutions, more dynamic range, more shutter speed control, better lenses, more post flexibility when shooting RAW.

Creating a hyperlapse out of a video recording is always the #3 option when you don't know what you're doing or you can't do it with the #1 option.

The #2 option would be to use a video camcorder that has interval recording, but most will produce a final product that will look like it's from 2003.

A lapse is a passage of time. In the context of frame acquisition, you want to pass time between frames. Now you can pass this time (as mentioned above) by creating it from a real-time video recording in post, but it's such unnecessary work with modern day tools.
 
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