Shooting a timelapse with the VX2000. at DVinfo.net

Marius Svendsen · February 9th, 2003, 09:35 AM

Ok, I wanne go out in the city on day and film a really awesome timelapse, let's say in daylight(using a VX2000).
What is the best shutter/exposure setting for greating really nice timelapses? The timelapses on CNN is fantastic, anyone seen them?
How long should I film a timelapse for?
Very greatfull If anyone could fill me in with how to best adjust my camera for a good and clear/smooth timelapse and maybe tell me how to proceed in the editing to get the best results. I use After Effect 5.0/Adobe Premiere.

Thanks alot up front. Please share any clips of a timelapse if you have made on!:)

Boyd Ostroff · February 9th, 2003, 11:00 AM

We had a big snow a couple days ago, and I setup my VX-2000 to run all night looking out my porch window into the woods, starting with dry ground and ending 10 hours later with 8" of snow.

I guess exposure and shutter speed depend on the lighting conditions and you should expose just like you do for normal filming. In this case it was night, with incandescent floodlights so I went into full manual mode wide open at +18db. After some earlier experiments I didn't like the effect of using auto exposure and white balance since you don't see the changing light conditions. Of course this meant that by 7:00 AM or so the exposure was totally burned in and I shut down the camera.

I set the interval to shoot for 1/2 second every minute which compresses an hour into 30 seconds, so I ended up with about 5 minutes of video. After watching, that was way too slow to get a very interesting effect, so I went into Final Cut Pro and experimented with various amounts of speed-up. I ended up increasing the speed by 2500%! This really showed the snow piling up and the trees bending over dramatically, and gave me about 12 seconds of video that showed a 10 hour period.

Obviously all this is highly dependent on what you're filming and what effect you want, so expect to do some experimentation.

Marius Svendsen · February 9th, 2003, 01:07 PM

That sound good, could you post the results somewere on the net? Would love to see it.
Ur saying that u had the shutter and white balance on auto, but you set the exposure to manual wideopen at +18db, wouldnt the picture get all over exposed?Like when it started to lighten up?

Do you recoment only using the exposure at manual when doing timelapses?not shutter or wb?
I guess it depends on day or night. which shutter would u used on a sunny day for timelapse? Ive heard`f4 and f3 is a good shutter speed for timelapse, but how do i know that the shutter is on f3 or f4?I only see the shuuer adjusting like this when I look in my viewfinder: 3, 6, 25 50 and so on....no F letter like "f4".
Sorry if I ain't making no sense, just people telling my different things:/

Boyd Ostroff · February 9th, 2003, 03:58 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Marius Svendsen : could you post the results somewere on the net?

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ostroff/snow-3.mov

It ain't great art or anything, just an experiment. It's about a 5MB file at 360x240, 15fps with sorenson 3 compression. I like to manually scrub the Quicktime slider back and forth to watch the snow pile up and the trees bend over. If you look closely you'll see the "ghost" of a few deer crossing in the middle about halfway through the movie. :-)

> Ur saying that u had the shutter and white balance on auto, but you set the exposure to manual wideopen at +18db

No, actually I set everything on manual with shutter at 1/60 and whitebalance for tungsten. I did change the color in Final Cut Pro afterwards to give the the blueish cast though.

> Ive heard`f4 and f3 is a good shutter speed for timelapse, but how do i know that the shutter is on f3 or f4?I only see the shuuer adjusting like this when I look in my viewfinder: 3, 6, 25 50 and so on....no F letter like "f4".

You're confusing shutter speed with lens opening. The 3, 6, 25, etc are shutter speeds and should be read as 1/3, 1/6, 1/25, etc. The "f" numbers are the lens (aperture) openings and are manually set with the "exposure" button and wheel just in front of the LCD screen. At the rear of the camera, set the "auto lock" switch to the center position. Then push the "exposure" button. Now turn the thumbwheel and you can manually set the lens opening. You will see it displayed in the viewfinder (or LCD) as F3.4, F2.8, F2.4, OPEN... then 3dB, 6dB, 12dB etc. When you see "OPEN" it means the lens is at its maxium opening, then the "dB" numbers correspond to the amount of gain (amplification of the video signal) you're using, with 18dB as the max. As others have observed, the VX-2000 and PD-150 have exceptional low light capabilities and produce a decent picture even at high gain settings.

Marius Svendsen · February 9th, 2003, 05:03 PM

Ok, thanks for that Boyd, the timelapse looked really good:)
Can I give you an advice, next time when your filming a timelapse, set the Shuuter speed to 3, it will look really good when speeded up! I got this advice from a very good videographer.
Thanks for all the info, it really helped!

David Hurdon · February 9th, 2003, 05:57 PM

Boyd, that was well worth watching, thanks. What is it that's moving just above the centre left of the frame during the last few seconds? It looks like reflected eyes in the head of something lying down, or falling over slowly.

Boyd Ostroff · February 9th, 2003, 09:32 PM

I think what you're seeing (on the left margin of the image in the middle) are some rhododendron leaves bowing down from the weight of the snow... but then again, I do live in the pine barrens of New Jersey so who knows what mysteries the night may hold ;-)

Mike Rehmus · February 9th, 2003, 10:15 PM

Great shots. What was that white stuff again?

February 9th, 2003, 09:35 AM	#1
Marius Svendsen Regular Crew Join Date: May 2002 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 79	Shooting a timelapse with the VX2000. Ok, I wanne go out in the city on day and film a really awesome timelapse, let's say in daylight(using a VX2000). What is the best shutter/exposure setting for greating really nice timelapses? The timelapses on CNN is fantastic, anyone seen them? How long should I film a timelapse for? Very greatfull If anyone could fill me in with how to best adjust my camera for a good and clear/smooth timelapse and maybe tell me how to proceed in the editing to get the best results. I use After Effect 5.0/Adobe Premiere. Thanks alot up front. Please share any clips of a timelapse if you have made on!:) __________________ Marius Svendsen Interlaced Media svendsen_ms@hotmail.com

February 9th, 2003, 01:07 PM	#3
Marius Svendsen Regular Crew Join Date: May 2002 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 79	That sound good, could you post the results somewere on the net? Would love to see it. Ur saying that u had the shutter and white balance on auto, but you set the exposure to manual wideopen at +18db, wouldnt the picture get all over exposed?Like when it started to lighten up? Do you recoment only using the exposure at manual when doing timelapses?not shutter or wb? I guess it depends on day or night. which shutter would u used on a sunny day for timelapse? Ive heard`f4 and f3 is a good shutter speed for timelapse, but how do i know that the shutter is on f3 or f4?I only see the shuuer adjusting like this when I look in my viewfinder: 3, 6, 25 50 and so on....no F letter like "f4". Sorry if I ain't making no sense, just people telling my different things:/ __________________ Marius Svendsen Interlaced Media svendsen_ms@hotmail.com

February 9th, 2003, 05:03 PM	#5
Marius Svendsen Regular Crew Join Date: May 2002 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 79	Ok, thanks for that Boyd, the timelapse looked really good:) Can I give you an advice, next time when your filming a timelapse, set the Shuuter speed to 3, it will look really good when speeded up! I got this advice from a very good videographer. Thanks for all the info, it really helped! __________________ Marius Svendsen Interlaced Media svendsen_ms@hotmail.com

February 9th, 2003, 05:57 PM	#6
David Hurdon Major Player Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 484	timelapse with the VX2000. Boyd, that was well worth watching, thanks. What is it that's moving just above the centre left of the frame during the last few seconds? It looks like reflected eyes in the head of something lying down, or falling over slowly. __________________ Site:http://www.faceliftmarketing.ca Blog:http://www.websitevideo.blogspot.com

February 9th, 2003, 10:15 PM	#8
Mike Rehmus Wrangler Join Date: May 2002 Location: Vallejo, California Posts: 4,049	Great shots. What was that white stuff again? __________________ Mike Rehmus Hey, I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel!

February 9th, 2003, 11:00 AM	#2
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	We had a big snow a couple days ago, and I setup my VX-2000 to run all night looking out my porch window into the woods, starting with dry ground and ending 10 hours later with 8" of snow. I guess exposure and shutter speed depend on the lighting conditions and you should expose just like you do for normal filming. In this case it was night, with incandescent floodlights so I went into full manual mode wide open at +18db. After some earlier experiments I didn't like the effect of using auto exposure and white balance since you don't see the changing light conditions. Of course this meant that by 7:00 AM or so the exposure was totally burned in and I shut down the camera. I set the interval to shoot for 1/2 second every minute which compresses an hour into 30 seconds, so I ended up with about 5 minutes of video. After watching, that was way too slow to get a very interesting effect, so I went into Final Cut Pro and experimented with various amounts of speed-up. I ended up increasing the speed by 2500%! This really showed the snow piling up and the trees bending over dramatically, and gave me about 12 seconds of video that showed a 10 hour period. Obviously all this is highly dependent on what you're filming and what effect you want, so expect to do some experimentation.

February 9th, 2003, 03:58 PM	#4
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	<<<-- Originally posted by Marius Svendsen : could you post the results somewere on the net? http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ostroff/snow-3.mov It ain't great art or anything, just an experiment. It's about a 5MB file at 360x240, 15fps with sorenson 3 compression. I like to manually scrub the Quicktime slider back and forth to watch the snow pile up and the trees bend over. If you look closely you'll see the "ghost" of a few deer crossing in the middle about halfway through the movie. :-) > Ur saying that u had the shutter and white balance on auto, but you set the exposure to manual wideopen at +18db No, actually I set everything on manual with shutter at 1/60 and whitebalance for tungsten. I did change the color in Final Cut Pro afterwards to give the the blueish cast though. > Ive heard`f4 and f3 is a good shutter speed for timelapse, but how do i know that the shutter is on f3 or f4?I only see the shuuer adjusting like this when I look in my viewfinder: 3, 6, 25 50 and so on....no F letter like "f4". You're confusing shutter speed with lens opening. The 3, 6, 25, etc are shutter speeds and should be read as 1/3, 1/6, 1/25, etc. The "f" numbers are the lens (aperture) openings and are manually set with the "exposure" button and wheel just in front of the LCD screen. At the rear of the camera, set the "auto lock" switch to the center position. Then push the "exposure" button. Now turn the thumbwheel and you can manually set the lens opening. You will see it displayed in the viewfinder (or LCD) as F3.4, F2.8, F2.4, OPEN... then 3dB, 6dB, 12dB etc. When you see "OPEN" it means the lens is at its maxium opening, then the "dB" numbers correspond to the amount of gain (amplification of the video signal) you're using, with 18dB as the max. As others have observed, the VX-2000 and PD-150 have exceptional low light capabilities and produce a decent picture even at high gain settings.

February 9th, 2003, 09:32 PM	#7
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	I think what you're seeing (on the left margin of the image in the middle) are some rhododendron leaves bowing down from the weight of the snow... but then again, I do live in the pine barrens of New Jersey so who knows what mysteries the night may hold ;-)