This post was last modified: 2012-08-08, 13:17 by scotta.

I have also just set up a camera to do a long term time lapse
It is an old canon powershot s2 iS running chdk. It has been configured to take a photo every 10 min, between 7:30am and 6:30 pm, 7 days a week ( they are working weekends)
I've built a mount and fixed it to the window sill on the 8 th floor of our office.
I've set it to manual, iso 100, f8, 1/80.
It is a massive site; about 6 football fields

I'll post some previews and the setup

A question for bas; are you using manual or auto for your shooting.

Hi Scotta,

Remember that it is going to be winter, so manual shooting is out of the question in days were the sun comes later then 7:30.
Best bet is the P-stand (program stand) set it for iso 100, but leave the aperture and shutter to the camera.
And disable auto-focus to, if you can do that on a powershot?

Regards,

Bas

Hi Scotta,

Remember that it is going to be winter, so manual shooting is out of the question in days were the sun comes later then 7:30.
Best bet is the P-stand (program stand) set it for iso 100, but leave the aperture and shutter to the camera.
And disable auto-focus to, if you can do that on a powershot?

Regards,

Bas

Thanks Bas,
Don't really have to worry about winter: live in Singapore pretty close to equator not really any seasons...... very hot all the time !

I've set the CHDK script to autofocus when it starts then does not do it again (unless the camera is turned off). Seems to be working ok. CHDK is pretty amazing and feature rich. I might modify the script to set the ISO and aperture and just vary the time. See how that goes for a couple of weeks.

I'm using a couple of 2Gb SD cards, just swap them once a week to get the images off. They should however only need swapping once every two weeks or less.

I've shot some 1000 images already (they are not really big, it is only a 3mb camera). I'll slow the frame rate down soon, but I was keen to get some images to test everything. I've done some test renders: Whilst I very familiar with LR, still figuring the LR timelapse functionality. I'll post some up on youtube over the next few days.
Cheers
Scott

I have posted the first test results on youtube
http://youtu.be/zuaxWwqXjfs

Lucky you with no seasoning
Test results look good, although you can see that its an 3 Mpx camera.

What you need to think about is the following:
With the manual stand you will get luminance differences in cloudy days or sun.
Those can be a lot, so the cloudy days will not be fairly lighted. If you are going to deflickr those, it will bump up the exposure and produce a lot of noise in the shadow aereas. I can see that already now.

If you are shooting M mode to avoid flickr, its not the way to go in my opinion.
Flickr is bound to happen in construction timelapses cause of the fact the interval from picture to picture is to far off. To much is happening all the time (clouds, sun, shade of buildings coming up etc.)
If you have a change, just try the P stand for a week and see what the results are for that.
It will give you more evenly luminated images, which produce flickr in themselves to but in my opinion, trying to keep the luminance value the same, is easier for the eye to see, then going from dark to light etc etc. Especially when you later on speed things up!

Regards.

Bas

Lucky you with no seasoning
Test results look good, although you can see that its an 3 Mpx camera.

What you need to think about is the follow the manual stand you will get luminance differences in cloudy days or sun....
Bas

What I have ended up doing is using Av mode. Set the camera for f8. ISO 100.
Seem to be working ok, more flicker than m but better quality pictures.
Scott

This post was last modified: 2013-03-08, 18:52 by LiftandShift.

Spot on Scott. It's looking good.
Your camera settings are right on the money too.
Steady with the Ken Burns effect though.

I take a photo every 2 minutes for my long term projects. I get loads of data especially when I've got 5 cameras going at the same time. But it gives me loads of footage and that's what you want.
Adam