GoPro time lapse Photography

[kevin63]

I am planning to do some time lapse photography with my GoPro Hero 2 but could do with some ideas and tips.
It would be great to see your GoPro time lapse and if you could mention the settings it was taken with then that would be even better.

[mrmr96]

This dude shows a cheap n simple way to make a rotating base for time lapse sequences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suY33LzuLcU
Basically it's a kitchen timer with a screw each end to turn the camera during shooting.

[kevin63]

Nice one, being an engineer, that would be easy to make. Project one sorted.

[JulianHJ]

If you're using a Mac, Timelapse Assembler is a good free program to compile the images.

[kevin63]

I'm on windows 7 and using Windows moviemaker live so will have to check out how to do time lapse videos with that.

[mrmr96]

Don't use either of those! Use the Cineform software which you can get from the gopro website. It's better than windows movie maker for assembling time lapses IMO.
http://gopro.com/3d-cineform-studio-software-downl...
(It'll do the 3D stuff, but that's not all it's for. It's basically good for pretty much everything the go pro can produce!)

[jonny33]

I filmed this all on a go pro the other day the time lapse at the beginning of the clip was made using the same very IKEA kitchen timer as shown above. I Used 2 second intervals over about 15 minutes and then edited using the free go pro cine form soft wear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWUtopCejxk&fe...

[kevin63]

Don't think that's the right video, that's the Dambusters, which I went to, so was good to watch anyway, I filmed this there but not with a GoPto http://youtu.be/eIJc5MqEDmA

[jonny33]

Nice video. My external mic I used on my SLR faulted whilst recording so had to resort to the GoPro footage . The begining titles were a time lapse of the valley. Here is another video of a travel time lapse I did for a joke for my mate when we went fishing. It was shot a picture every 2 seconds and played back at 24 fps but i think it could of done with being slightly slower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sjogs8z6AM&fe...

[slinky]

It's surprisingly easy to do in Movie Maker, one thing to watch out for is the file name appearing on all of the images. Click on the file name in the first image, hit CTRL-A then delete. Job done.

The ikea kitchen timer works well for panning time lapse, I've done it a few times. Search YouTube for boostbyslinky and you'll find a couple of my TL videos..

[kevin63]

Love both the on road time lapse, never really thought of doing that. Thanks for the file delete tip.

When doing long time lapse, do you connect to a power supply, my GoPro cuts out if I plug in with power, (wifi back on) so is there something I should be doing to do it this way, or can't I film and power at the same time or is it something to do with the WiFi pac.

[slinky]

Skeleton case and a cigar lighter - USB adapter..
I should add, the run to thirsk was done without a charger..

Edited by slinky on Saturday 18th May 11:06

[JonRB]

I've done a few time lapses using my GoPro Hero3

I use the open source program "FFMPeg" to assemble the resulting pics into an MP4 video. Since it is a commandline tool it could be daunting for some, but it is very powerful and once you have a suitable set of parameters that work for you, they can be put in a batch file, turning the whole process into a double-click thing.
I'll post up the actual parameters I use when I get home tonight if anyone is interested.

Here's an example of what I've created:
http://youtu.be/BMq5Sz9ekuE

[slinky]

Sorry, misunderstood your question about external power.
Mine can definitely record while plugged in, although IIRC it changes modes when plugged in, so you'd need to start with it connected.

[JonRB]

slinky said:

Sorry, misunderstood your question about external power.
Mine can definitely record while plugged in, although IIRC it changes modes when plugged in, so you'd need to start with it connected.

Yes, I've noticed that too. You need to plug it into the power and then set it running (say, with the app) and not the other way round.

[kevin63]

JonRB said:

slinky said:

Sorry, misunderstood your question about external power.
Mine can definitely record while plugged in, although IIRC it changes modes when plugged in, so you'd need to start with it connected.

Yes, I've noticed that too. You need to plug it into the power and then set it running (say, with the app) and not the other way round.

Thank you both, I'll try that because I'm sure I was pluging it in once started.

[Rogue86]

Startrails.de is also useful software for stitching a timelapse together, plus its free!

[ecsrobin]

QuickTime Pro is what I use to stitch them together think its around $20

[JonRB]

I mentioned earlier that I use the free and Open Source FFMpeg and would look up the command line up with I got home.

What I do is rename the files from the GoPro with Bulk Rename Utility by TGRMN Software (it's free). I get it to sort by datetime over subfolders (since the GoPro creates lots of folders during a timelapse) and rename them as sequential 5-digit numbers from 00001.jpg thru to whatever, and to move to one location.

Then I run the command

 ffmpeg -r 25 -i %05d.jpg -vcodec libx264 -crf 25 -aspect "16:9" -s "1920x1080" OUTPUT.MP4 

This reads in 25 of the GoPro's pics for each second of output, forces it into 16:9 aspect (since the GoPro saves 5MP Wide to 4:3 aspect incorrectly), and downsamples to 1080p HD @ 25fps (ie. PAL) since the GoPro captures 2592x1944 in 5MP mode. It then outputs a nice well-formed MP4 file which I can bring into a video editor if I want to process it further.

[JulianHJ]

Cheers, Jon, that looks really handy.