A tutorial I have read discusses locking the aperture of a manual lens:

Quote:Firstly, use an old, fully manual lens on your digital body – one of those lenses where the aperture control ring is on the barrel of the lens. On the lens mount, you need to jam something (a small piece of plastic is good) into the gap on either side of the small lever that controls the aperture size in order to fix it at one position. This way, the aperture is stuck at the f-stop you designate and cannot open and close as normal when the camera shoots a frame, thus eliminating any potential fluctuations. This method is a bit fiddly and it means that you have to predetermine your aperture before you attach the lens to the body.

Doesnt a manual lens stay fixed at the f stop at which you set it? It does at least on my old Nikkor manual primes...

Yes, with my manual nikkors this works as well.

The quote came from this BBC guy who I have seen multiple shooters reference this blog post as a definitive source for timelapse techniques:

http://timothyallen.blogs.bbcearth.com/c...tutorials/

Are you familiar with him?

Regarding the Aperture setting, I don't know a lot about lenses but I thought a manual lens meant that the aperture is locked open at the f/stop which you manually set it to.

I made the experience that it's not necessary to lock the lever with a plastic, just set the aperture manually and go. There is no aperture flicker in my sequences if I do this.

(02-13-2013 01:56 AM)Joe Vandaly Wrote:  Regarding the Aperture setting, I don't know a lot about lenses but I thought a manual lens meant that the aperture is locked open at the f/stop which you manually set it to.

Manual lenses have no auto focus motors and you're right about the f-stop bit.
If you want to set the aperture and keep it there set the camera to A (aperture priority) and set the aperture (f-stop) on the lens .
On the old Nikkor lenses and all the others there is a ring with all the f-stops marked on it. Set the f-stop to the line on the top of the lens barrel. It clicks when you move it around.
That will lock the aperture in place. You then need to dial in the aperture setting on the body too on digital cameras and the camera will then sort out the exposure for you.
Also you may need to dial in the lens details into the menu its called "non cpu lens data". That will tell the camera all about using that lens.

It's not as complicated as it all sounds though.

Please do this in manual (M) mode, not A !!

(03-09-2013 01:46 AM)gwegner Wrote:  Please do this in manual (M) mode, not A !!

"A" definitely if you do it in "M" you'll be messing with the shutter speed all the time to get a constant exposure. Let the camera do the work it's good at measuring light.

Look at the title sequence on the first page on my website it's shot in aperture priority with no post production fiddling, you won't be able to do that in M without a bulb ramp thingy.

@LiftAndShift, sorry, but you will never get good time lapse sequences if you work in "A".
Do what you want, but don't try to convince others to do those mistakes.

(03-09-2013 02:16 AM)gwegner Wrote:  @LiftAndShift, sorry, but you will never get good time lapse sequences if you work in "A".
Do what you want, but don't try to convince others to do those mistakes.

Oh dear, I work in A all the time 24 hrs a day. I sell time lapse movies all the time to major companies in the UK and have been broadcast on National Geo and I was the principal photographer at the London 2012 Olympic Stadium where I did loads of time-lapse in A.

I must be doing something right, surely.

Have a look, it's all shot in aperture priority.
Adam
I'll add a smiley to show I'm a friendly face.

It makes a huge difference, if you make construction time lapses or other long term timelapses (in that case I agree with you, A is okay most of the time) or if you shoot Landscapes and rather "photographic" and artistic time lapses. In that case A will introduce flicker where you need real smooth results.

For the artistic/photographic works that most of the LRTimelapse users do (however LRTimelapse has great features for construction and long-term time lapses as well) - the M mode combined with the holy grail approach (watch my tutorials) is the way to go since it gives the best and smoothest results. That's what most of the time lapse photographers want.