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Time-Lapse Tips: Patience

I recently started creating time-lapse videos, more as a hobby then a profitable venture but it has been a blast and a great way to slow things down and relax.  The most important thing I have learned is patience, you really need to put the time in and experiment to capture the vision and style you’re looking for.  Nothing feels worst then spending 2 hours attempting to catch a sunset and the clouds roll in and next thing you know you’ve wasted 2 hours that you will never get back.

Here are a few essential tips that have helped me the most so far:

  1. Editing your photos: I prefer to edit my images before creating the video, I feel like I have more control over creating the look and feel I want in Lightroom then in After Effects.  With Lightroom you can create a custom User Preset > Choose an image from your time-lapse and go to > Develop > in the left side at the top of your Presets panel click the plus sign (+) create the preset name and save it to the User Presets folder > Go back to your library and select all the images from your time lapse > In the top right you will see Quick Develop > Click on Saved Preset > User Presets > Select your custom preset and it will automatically apply to all the select images > Export your edited photos > now you’re ready to create the video.
  2. Creating your video:  This is probably the easiest step, with Quicktime Pro you simply open Quicktime go to File > Open Image Sequence and select an image from the folder that contains all the images you want to compile, select how many frames per second (24 is standard) and Quicktime will do the rest.

Equipment & Software:

  • Canon EOS 7D
  • Canon EFS 15-85mm Lens
  • Tokina SD 11-16 F2.8 (IF) DX – Ultrawide Lens
  • Giga T Pro II by Hähnel Timer
  • Manfrotto Carbon Fiber Tripod
  • Adobe Lightroom
  • Quicktime Pro
  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Adobe After Effects

Example: 10 seconds intervals

At first look the Giga T Pro looks like a simple tool to use but the manual is weak and so is any instruction online.  If you want to use it for a time-lapse you simply plug it into your camera > Turn your camera on > Next turn the Giga T Pro on > Choose the INTVL2 setting – the display looks like this 00(hours) 00′(minutes) 00″(seconds). If you’re shooting in intervals of 10 seconds, simply change the seconds and click play and your camera will start shooting.

Here are a couple examples of my first experiments:

How not to surf at Martinique from Timber on Vimeo.

Duncan’s Cove, NS – Time Lapse from Timber on Vimeo.

Posted in Outdoors, Play and tagged , , , , , ,

Coast 2 Coast

Not long ago I decided to accompany one of my good friends that were moving to Bristish Columbia on a road trip from Halifax to Vancouver, as a freelancer I have a little more flexibility then most friends that would have liked to make the trek, so I agreed to go.  Although working on the road can sometimes be challenging, overall this was a great experience and I am glad I did it. At first the task seemed daunting but after a few days of visiting friends and unfamiliar places we just got into a rhyme and it was a lot less painful then I expected it to be, a new addiction to Football Manager also helped pass at least three days too.

Numerous bags of beef jerky fermenting our organs, way too much McDonalds(only thing you can find on a highway in the US) and over 6,889KM on the road.  Here is the path we took:

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Coffee: Best > Oso Negro, Nelson BC  |  Worst > Simonson, Fargo Gas Station ND

9 days on the road can fly by pretty fast. (Daily Pic)

Check out some more pics from the trip on Flickr.

One of the funnest things we did was hit the slopes at Whistler Blackcomb in plus 22 temperatures.

Posted in Outdoors and tagged , , , , , , ,

Pollett’s Cove

Pollett’s Cove is one of the most scenic and untouched hiking trails in all of Nova Scotia.  Hidden in the Cape Breton Highlands it is a fair distance from any civilization so do not expect your cell phone to get any signal.  The hike took us about four hours on the way in and we cut it down to two and a half hours on the way out.  The way in is a bit slower because you kick off the hike with a huge mountain named “heart attack hill” to climb with all your gear.  We also did it in late fall and the weather was perfect for a long hike, not to warm that you will over heat and warm enough once you make it there that you will be comfortable around a campfire throughout the evening.

Click here for a more detailed description of the trail. 


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For more information on Pollett’s Cove check out Wikipedia.

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