FS7: Sunrise Timelapse - Interval Settings, etc?

[Vintegreo]

I'd like to shoot a sunrise and have my location and time all figured out so I can get the sun to rise through a given vantage point. I'm planning to shoot 1 frame every 3 seconds and use Auto ND to try to help manage the exposure on the fly. I figure if that's too slow of an interval, I can always speed it up, although I've also thought about doing 1 frame every 5 seconds.

That said, if you've done this can you enlighten me on good settings?

I tried to do a sunset once and thought it looked rather "stuttery." This time around I thought I'd set the shutter speed to 1/12 of a second to try to get a bit of motion blur on the shot. Perhaps it should even be longer.

Suggestions and thoughts appreciated!

Thanks!

Tim

 

[OnSet]

I tend to use the longest possible shutter speeds to eliminate small detail motion in many of my time lapses. With a very long shutter speed, something like a bird flying across frame in the distance will virtually vanish into a momentary slight dark smear.