Help needed. need to do "tricky" timelapse scene

mastermind

mastermind

Well-known member
I need to do a timelapse scene for my movie www.janedoemovie.com where basically we start on a live action shot of an actor, camera dollies away then stops on a locked position. from there we do a timelapse within the same shot from day to night, then dolly back to the talent and its night.

my plan is simple:

-start on the actor
-dolly away to my second frame
-lock down the camra, change to photo mode
-do my timelapse (will need to rescale the photos i guess to match the 1080p frame)
-after timelapse, switch back to video mode and dolly back to my talent.

my main problem is i have virtually no experience with timelaps photography. Only time i've done it is with the hvx using their interval rec. mode.
whats my best option to do this on the 7d. easiest to tell you the truth because i dont want to complicate my life unneccessarily.

i'm thinking of starting the scene right at sunset, that way i'm not doing my timelapse for very long. there may be cars driving by in frame so ideally i would like to see the cars taillights whip by during the timelapse. i would normally just record this and speed it up later however with the clip record time limitations this may not necessarily be an option. or could i just get a HUGE CF card and hit record every time it stops then just speed up in post? thats the direction i'm leaning in right now. but problem there is i cant afford to buy a huge CF card, are CF cards even rented?

how does an intervalometer work?

shooting this scene this week so any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
 
i was actually thinking of just using the canon software that serves as an intervalometer instead. on a tight budget and i already have that. does that work well? i assume it would. i'm testing it out tomorrow night.

my main concern doing this is when i set my shutter for the video portion of it, then i switch to photo mode to take the stills portion of it i want to change my shutter to 1/2 a second as i heard that will yeild the best results. however the problem there is now matching my exposure will be tricky...I'm scared there will be a glitch in exposure from one frame to the next when i change from video to still due to the shutter change. i know i can adjust my iris however there will also be a depth of field change there so i guess i can adjust my ISO instead..then i can just tweak the color in post to match the ISOs. am i right?

I'm thinking sunset should take an hour so shoot an 30mins before sunset and 30 mins after and assume about 30mins worth of sunsetting so 1.5hours total. i would like a 15 second sequence give or take so if my math is right i'm planning on shooting a frame every 30seconds with a 1/2 second shutter.

I'll do some testing tomorrow night and let you guys know how it goes.
 
NoahK said:
Sure you can totally pull this off- and you can do a little smoothing in post to fix it. But I'd highly highly recommend you get the external intervalometer for your camera. This makes it a lot more simple:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/164271-REG/Canon_2477A002_Timer_Remote_Controller_TC_80N3.html

If you can't find one for rent- it's worth every penny and you could always resell it as they are compatible with most Canon cameras and in demand.

Noah
Click to expand...

I agree with Noah but you can find the same thing made generic on ebay for about $50. I've got one for my Nikon and it works great.
 
This is doable but ambitious. Timelapsing a sunset looks great however, at the end the timelapse is generally under exposed because you set your exposure while the sun is still up.

Trying to start and end with proper exposure is one of the more difficult things to do in timelapse. Generally you want to shoot your timelapse in full manual, depending on changes in your seen if you have the camera set to AV you'll likely get some flicker/strobing and if you have it set to TV you won't get that nice smooth timelapse look a longer shutter provides, and as you already pointed out, in either setting you'll experience a change in DOF.

You may want to break the shot down into three parts, the transition from the live action actor to the timelapse, the timelapse and then the transition back to live action. Then all you have to do is figure out how to make the transition seamless. If you have a fully manual lens that might help.

For much more detailed advice you might try going here: http://timescapes.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=3385a26ed2a9ff3786997e4bee305da0
These guys do some amazing timelapse photography.

Good luck, sounds like fun.
 
ChuckS said:
You may want to break the shot down into three parts, the transition from the live action actor to the timelapse, the timelapse and then the transition back to live action. Then all you have to do is figure out how to make the transition seamless. If you have a fully manual lens that might help..
Click to expand...

Yeah i'm considering that as a back up option however we then completely loose the wow factor. not that the shot is THAT "wow" however it just adds a bit of oumph by doing it all as a single shot. I've also considered seamless transitions from live to timelapse however nothing really works that i've though of atleast.

I may just end up doing it strictly in video mode. just shoot, move the camera, lock it down and keep rolling. whenever the camera cuts out then just hit record again. since i'll be speeding up the footage i guess that will hide the stop/record moments as it will be too fast to even notice..

more advice folks :)
 
very good idea. However am i able to do exposure bracketing if shooting timelapse controlled by my laptop?
 
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