Hello everyone,

New to timelapse, but I've caught the bug Does anyone have any experience with long term drone hyperlapses?

Next month, I'm shooting a drone hyperlapse of a large construction project that will last for 2 years. I'm using an app called Litchi to create waypoints, or just a 360 orbit, and just save the mission for a somewhat consistent flight each visit. Consistent GPS will be a challenge. Drone: Mavic 2 Pro or Phantom 4 Pro. I'm planning to shoot video (30fps), a full 360° orbit every 2 weeks or so, and then just combine the videos and speed them up in post to produce a final 1-2 min single orbit video. I'm also planning to take pictures every 2 seconds while trying to keep my shutter speed at 1/2 sec using the same ND filter each visit. I would like to see the difference in quality between a ramped up video vs a hyperlapse.

1. Dumb question---Will LRTimelapse combine or merge videos?
2. Maybe even dumber----Since lighting will be different every site visit, will an inconsistent aperture make post processing (aligning videos or pictures) a problem?
3. For pictures----Will a 1/2 sec shutter speed will give the right motion blur for a project this long?
4. How do you determine the optimal speed to fly? Planning to fly each mission at 4 mph (6.4 kph).
5. Is there an advantage to using Phantom 4 pros mechanical shutter vs Mavic's rolling shutter?
6. Will a perfect circular orbit be easier in post processing vs a rectangular orbit (more straight lines)? I'm guessing it'll be quite a headache to merge and line videos up in Adobe Premiere. I haven't used LRTimelapse yet, but from what I've learned, the pictures will be easy to align.
7. I'm a little worried about file storage as well as having to switch a battery out during flight. I only get about 25 mins max/battery. Do I need to fly the full orbit each mission, or could I get away with just flying an overlapped section that will be combined into the final video? ....

Lastly, for pictures, am I thinking about this correctly?-----If my final video is 2 min, at 30 fps, I would need 3600 (2 x 120 sec) images. So, if I'm flying every 2 weeks, that's a total of 52 site visits, which is about 70 pictures/section (3600/52) of the final orbit video. So, I could just fly that short section, with overlap, each visit, or be on the safe side and fly the entire orbit. Not sure if this makes sense.

What I do know is that flying a consistent mission with the same parameters, other than exposure, will be key to make a smooth and interesting 2 year hyperlapse.

Any help and advice is appreciated.

Roy

Hi Roy, that's certainly a scenario where there is not much "best practice" meaning that I think not many have done that before.
I'm not really into Drone Hyperlapse, but I can give you some advice from my experience... Others might jump in and add there experience and ideas here, so thank you for using the forum.

1) No, LRTimelapse is for timelapse work on image sequences. To combine videos, you can use any video editing software, for example Davinci Resolve.
2) Not necessarily. LRTimelapse is quite good in smoothing exposure changes (Visual Deflicker). For an orbiting shot, A Mode might be the way to go to cope with the brightness differences.
3) Sounds reasonable, but this heaviliy depends on how stable the drone flies. I think most drones might be able to expose for 1/2 seconds without blur, but you should try that.
4) From my experience fly as slowly as possible. You can still accelerate afterwards. Personally I'd program an orbit and use Battery life to fly around once very slowly.
5) For image sequences, I don't think so.
6) I think a circular orbit will be more pleasant.
7) How would you switch battery during flight?! I don't think that's possible.

As I said, I'd fly the whole orbit each time. Chose days with very similar weather. Do it as often as you can (not only every 2 weeks).
Assembling the whole thing will be a lot of manual work in selecting the right images etc. As I said, there is not really a best practice for that...

Good luck with your project and keep us posted!

ha...yes, switching a battery "during" flight is impossible, at least for now. I meant switching the battery during the mission. Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated!

Roy, regarding your question no. 1: at least in the Mavic 2 Pro you can store the JPEG or RAW format footage beside the video. So it should be easy to process it later in LRT.
But as Gunther alread mentioned, watch your total flying time within a session. You should not exceed a flyingtime of 25 min, so that you have a battery level (around 15%) left for a safe return.

Drone hyperlapses are awesome.