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DP Stage Zero Setup for Timelapse

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#1 jackspade
Hey everyobne, i have a question concerning the settings for the length the slider goes during a timelapse shoot. I always struggle with it. It either takes to long to finish one full slide or its too short.

How do you guys set the value for, lets say a 45 minute shoot so that the cart slides from the beginning to the end of the rail?
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#2 photoSentinel
Hey Jack,

There are some good tutorials by Dynamic Perception which include how to do the math, etc. This is a good place to start: https://vimeo.com/32809674

That said, I'm not sure you want to be moving the whole six feet in every time-lapse. You'll notice watching time-lapse movies that some of the best motion is really subtle and moves just a little bit. If you do too long a movement, the distance between each photo ends up making the footage look jumpy.

Good luck!

Matt

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#3 scotchtape
Tooth method wins. It's on the tutorials.
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#4 AlanDyer
The trick, as per the "tooth method" instructions at DP, is that the Stage Zero has a belt with 300 teeth. So in a typical 300-frame time lapse you want to set a motion speed that moves the dolly 1 tooth per move.

I set the MX2 to "Fixed SMS" under settings, then use a speed of about .83 cm per move. That seems to produce a total move along the full length of the rail over 300 shots. Using a different number of shots or adding in Lead in/out and Ramping frames will complicate things.

And the total amount of move also seems to vary with exposure time.

Experiment indoors with various combination of what you think will be typical exposures and frame counts until you get one that works without coming up short or overrunning the rail length. It is the trickiest part of using the DP gear with the older servo motors which don't allow setting an end point.
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#5 Zaren
Hi Jack

I have the DP stage zero and have been using it for about a year now, i start with 72" per hr as a base, this is the total length of the rail. You can then increase or decrease the value from here depending how long you want to shoot for and how many frames you want to capture. It's not an exact science but it has worked for me, especially if you just need to rock up and set up quickly, obviously if you plan the shoot in advance you can work out all the maths to get exactly what you want.

Hope this helps

Z

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