Time Lapse - Building Project

[Throttle Body]

I'm about to have a house built, and would like to create a record of the construction. One idea is to take time lapse photos. During the build, I suppose that one photograph a day is probably enough over about 7 months, but I don't know how to go about this fairly cheaply. I had in mind that I could buy a cheap digital camera from Currys and stick it in a bird box on a tree, but it seems that very few cameras have a timer function these days, and certainly not for one photograph per day.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

[dubzter]

Probably not what you want to hear but................pick a spot and manually take a photo from it every day with what ever camera you have. That's what I would do.

[markmullen]

To do it properly I would buy a cheap laptop and a cheap dSLR, an older Eos for example. Then shoot tethered with an AC adaptor from a garage or a window straight into the laptop.

[GetCarter]

Throttle Body said:

I'm about to have a house built, and would like to create a record of the construction. One idea is to take time lapse photos. During the build, I suppose that one photograph a day is probably enough over about 7 months, but I don't know how to go about this fairly cheaply. I had in mind that I could buy a cheap digital camera from Currys and stick it in a bird box on a tree, but it seems that very few cameras have a timer function these days, and certainly not for one photograph per day.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Your main problem with the above would be battery life - you'd probably have to recharge the battery over 100 times. The simplest way would be to buy the camera, gaffer it into the right place, make sure it's waterproof, then tell your project manager (or whomsoever), to walk over once or twice a day, turn it on, take a snap and turn it off. This way you'll only need to recharge < 10 times. If (as many do) the lens retracts when it's turned off, it *should* remain watertight and free of gunk if it's placed somwhere sensible.

Edited by GetCarter on Sunday 26th June 09:30

[mike9009]

Rather than manually taking, cant you set a tripod up with a fix on the rotation angle. That way you don't need to leave the camera outside, and can recharge the battery etc.

Mike

[Throttle Body]

Thanks for your various comments. The suggestion that I should get the builder to take the photograph once a day might be the best one.

I was wondering whether to buy myself a second-hand camera, such as a Lumux FX20, and a plug-in timer remote which would trigger it to take a photograph each day. However, I don't know what the camera will do between shots. Will it go to sleep, or will it be switched on the whole time, draining the battery?

[GetCarter]

Throttle Body said:

Thanks for your various comments. The suggestion that I should get the builder to take the photograph once a day might be the best one.

I was wondering whether to buy myself a second-hand camera, such as a Lumux FX20, and a plug-in timer remote which would trigger it to take a photograph each day. However, I don't know what the camera will do between shots. Will it go to sleep, or will it be switched on the whole time, draining the battery?

The latter I'm pretty sure... I do a bit of time lapse and my camera is always on.

[Mr Pointy]

From Google:

http://www.gardenature.co.uk/shop/product.php?pid=...

You might need to visit it once a month to change the batteries though.

Alternatively:

https://www.harbortronics.com/Products/TimeLapsePa...

But you my not want to spend that much.

[JJM]

Have a look at this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrHrDmv0e7w&fea...

[Throttle Body]

Mr Pointy said:

From Google:

http://www.gardenature.co.uk/shop/product.php?pid=...

You might need to visit it once a month to change the batteries though.

Thank you, Mr Pointy. The ProjectCam looks perfect. The price is very good too. I might buy two. Once the build is finished, I think that the family can have some great fun taking time lapse photos of lots of other things too.

[GetCarter]

Liked the look of that, so just bought one. Will post results here.

[GetCarter]

OK Project Cam... It's obviously NOTHING like as good as a DSLR doing the same thing, but it's waterproof and cheap! This is 3:30 to 7.30 this a.m. It would be reasonable in good light - but it's metering is pretty crap. Also the lens is a very soft... but for the money it's quite fun. I bet it's much better close up than distance (It allows down to about 12") Filming a plant growing would be ideal as it'll run for days and take up to 7500 photos (on a 4gb sd card). It'd be perfect for ...as it says on the tin 'monitoring a house build' Wish I'd had one 6 years ago!

I took this in high res (about 2500 px wide) and knocked it down for the web. The fade in is NOT me, it's the camera reacting to the dawn.

http://www.stevecarter.com/ProjectCam1.wmv

[illmonkey]

Cheap tripod fixed somewhere so you can just set the camera up, and attach to the tripod?

You'd not need to worry about batterys etc.