GH4 Shooting sunset and sunrise time lapses with the GH4

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blando3

Well-known member
I've been experimenting with time lapses with the GH4 and am getting the hang of shooting daytime time lapses pretty well. However, I tried a sunset time lapse, and the end result was basically a fade out because the aperture and shutter speed and ISO were all fixed. After watching some YouTube tutorials, it seems as though I want to turn the main dial to "A" for Aperture Priority. Is that right? This means that I set the aperture manually, but the camera adjusts the shutter as the light changes?

Will this cause flickers or anything else I'll need to correct in post? I plan to try this tonight but any tips ahead of time would be appreciated.
Thanks!
 
Are you referring to software plugins or plugins for the camera (firmware updates, etc)?
I'll report back with my results.
 
There is an option in the GH4 Timelapse menu for "exposure smoothing." You would have to play with your frame rates to see how many frames are needed, and how quickly it changes when "smoothing."

For example, with a setting of 1 image per hour at sunset, "smoothing" won't help a lot (to take an extreme example of course.) There were a lot of different tutorials on the settings required to do a Timelapse for the recent lunar eclipse. That was pretty similar in terms of exposure variation, from something in "full sun", for our normal moon, to very dark.

Good luck! Have fun.
 
Okay, here is my end result:

https://youtu.be/2nD2dtWJFD8

I'm happy with it as a first try, but it's very noisy as it gets darker.
My settings were as follows:

GH4 with Lumix 14-140mm
f10 (no particular reason, I thought in the middle would be a good starting point)
Aperture Priority mode
Auto ISO
Auto white balance

I'm thinking that the noise is from the high ISO the camera used (it was up to 3200). Should I open the aperture all the way next time? Set a manual ISO? I'd like deep focus if possible.
Please let me know if I should change any settings to improve the results.

Thanks!
Andrew
 
I don't think that's too bad. Using f10 is probably not the right aperture; I'd recommend f4 or f5.6; the depth of field should be pretty broad at 14mm. In general with MFT, f10 yields diffraction problems and unsharp images.
 
blando3 said:
Okay, here is my end result:

https://youtu.be/2nD2dtWJFD8

I'm happy with it as a first try, but it's very noisy as it gets darker.
My settings were as follows:

GH4 with Lumix 14-140mm
f10 (no particular reason, I thought in the middle would be a good starting point)
Aperture Priority mode
Auto ISO
Auto white balance

I'm thinking that the noise is from the high ISO the camera used (it was up to 3200). Should I open the aperture all the way next time? Set a manual ISO? I'd like deep focus if possible.
Please let me know if I should change any settings to improve the results.

Thanks!
Andrew
Click to expand...

What were your settings in regards to time intervals between pictures taken
 
aljudy said:
I don't think that's too bad. Using f10 is probably not the right aperture; I'd recommend f4 or f5.6; the depth of field should be pretty broad at 14mm. In general with MFT, f10 yields diffraction problems and unsharp images.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Gonna try again with my Voigtlander 25mm tonight or tomorrow.

RedChalice said:
What were your settings in regards to time intervals between pictures taken
Click to expand...

I set it to one exposure every 6 seconds, but by the time it got dark, it was processing each frame for nearly 30 seconds...does that make sense? Again, not sure if I should let the camera adjust the shutter or set it manually.
 
You should turn off long exposure noise reduction for immediate photo turnaround. That was pretty smooth though.
 
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