Time Lapse + Panning, Tilting and Zooming

Mcph55

Mcph55

Active member
Hey guys,

I have a question about some effects that I am trying to achieve while I shoot time-lapse with my D90 (in still photos, using an interval-meter)


Basically I am trying to make some time lapse shots for the feature I am working on, and i want some of the shots to pan left or right, just like they did in some of those beautiful Planet Earth time-lapse shots on Discovery

I know they used a motion control system for the Planet Earth ones. They basically set a special pan and tilt head to gradually pan or tilt over the course of a few days, thus resulting, in a smooth pan for the finished product.

Since I do not have the money for an expensive motion control system, my question is, how can i do this at home?

My initial thought was i could shoot the lime-lapse, then throw it onto my computer in 2k or 1080p and then just do it all digitally, like have a digital "window" pan or tilt on the larger image. Since my feature is in 720p i figured this would be a good idea.

The problem is, I have no idea how to do this. I would assume that it would be done in Final Cut and After Effects or Motion.

Can anyone shed some light onto how i might go about doing this?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

(I do not know if this is the right forum, because it is a complex question so i am going to post it in a few sections)

Thanks,
 
Can anyone shed some light onto how i might go about doing this?
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There are a lot of options depending on the exact effect you are trying to achieve.

You can keyframe images in FCP using the Motion tab in the Viewer. If your goal is to add some motion to an otherwise locked-off time-lapse then you can try putting all your images into one sequence (with the proper duration for each image, use the still duration setting in User Preferences to set the duration for all your stills when you import), nest that sequence in another and then keyframe the nested sequence's motion using the Viewer's Motion tab. You can read up on key-framing in the FCP manual.

You can do more advanced effects in Motion, but I'd say try doing it all in FCP first.
 
DJ, thanks for the info. I know what your saying about the pans an such. Ideally i would love to be able to do it manually, and i know nothing can replicate doing it like they do in Planet Earth. But unfortunately I dont have the time. Plus i have seen digital pans and they should work fine for what im doing. But i agree, digital panning vs. a regular pan is like the old "zoom" vs. "dolly in" comparison.
 
Cools,

Thanks for the info, I have gotten a few other replies form other threads and everyone seems to think doing it that way will work well (if im going to do it digitally)

thanks a bunch man, it helps a lot!
 
Your only problem will be if you have some depth/perspective to the scene. You won't get the real drama of foreground elements moving at different relative speeds to mid and background.

If you want to shoot it static and add motion in post, you can drop all those images in quicktime (pro) and export as a movie. Then import that into FCP and use the motion tab to resize and pan it. (That seems a little simpler than all the nested-sequence stuff - but you won't have control over frame duration... but then, anything longer than 1 frame per image may seem kinda choppy).

If you're into the time lapse and would be present for every frame, you might look into a small geared head, and see if turning it slightly for each frame would do the trick. I did that a few years ago and it worked well - and I just used a cheap geared head for a small camera, nothing pricey.
 
Actually the best way to do it might be using a telescope motor head.

One of our camera people just bought a $200 unit and installed it under a HVX200. It was a $85000 project and that little cheap motor added immense value to the show.

We were able to do long term pans and tilts/across a variety of locations very quickly and cheaply.

I do not have the exact model we bought but I'll ask him when he returns from assignment.
 
DJDecay said:
Awesome, I was not quite sure home much of that look you were willing to loose/sacrifice. When you have it, if you can throw it up on YouTube or VIMEO. I'd love to see how much "cheating" one can do with DSLR sized interval-meter material.
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I definitely will DJ. Like I said the shots are for the feature I am working on, we are going to use them to help the narrative flow better, so they will be peppered throughout the finished narrative. But once I do my tests and try some of this stuff out I will def post my results.


emretufekci said:
Actually the best way to do it might be using a telescope motor head.

One of our camera people just bought a $200 unit and installed it under a HVX200. It was a $85000 project and that little cheap motor added immense value to the show.

We were able to do long term pans and tilts/across a variety of locations very quickly and cheaply.

I do not have the exact model we bought but I'll ask him when he returns from assignment.
Click to expand...

That actually sounds like a really good cheap alternative if you were doing a project that needed a lot of very precise pans or tilts. For this project I wouldn't be able to do that, but in the future it sounds like a great alternative.
 
illking said:
This might help.
http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2009/09/23/timelapse-and-photo-video-techniques/
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Hey thanks for the link, Just watched the video.

Thats really awesome, I def wanna try that some time. Although he calls it time lapse, what he is doing is more of a really fast time lapse, shooting at 4-8 frames a second is really fast, but it gives you that nice effect.

Its def a great idea, and it gives you that sort of jittery feeling. Shooting it so fast is what allows him to get reasonalble results when he tilts and pans becuase he is shooting so fast, it would be much harder if he were sitting there for 4 hrs inching along to get a smooth pan :grin:
 
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