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Timelapse

Lesson 105 from: Fundamentals of Photography 2016

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

105. Timelapse

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

17:26
2

Welcome to Photography

13:08
3

Camera Types Overview

02:00
4

Viewing Systems

28:43
5

Viewing Systems Q&A

08:45
6

Lens Systems

32:06
7

Shutter Systems

13:17
8

Shutter Speeds

10:47
9

Choosing a Shutter Speed

31:30
10

Shutter Speeds for Handholding

08:36
11

Shutter Speed Pop Quiz

09:06
12

Camera Settings

25:35
13

General Camera Q&A

14:38
14

Sensor Sizes: The Basics

15:33
15

Sensor Sizes: Compared

19:10
16

Pixels

20:13
17

ISO

21:13
18

Sensor Q&A

13:34
19

Focal Length: Overview

11:09
20

Focal Length: Angle of View

15:09
21

Wide Angle Lenses

08:48
22

Telephoto Lenses

25:23
23

Angle of View Q&A

09:29
24

Fish Eye Lenses

10:39
25

Tilt & Shift Lenses

23:42
26

Subject Zone

17:19
27

Lens Speed

09:56
28

Aperture Basics

08:46
29

Depth of Field

21:49
30

Aperture Pop Quiz

13:23
31

Lens Quality

18:30
32

Photo Equipment Life Cycle

03:57
33

Light Meter Basics

09:25
34

Histogram

15:25
35

Histogram Pop Quiz and Q&A

10:58
36

Dynamic Range

06:03
37

Exposure Modes

15:58
38

Manual Exposure

09:38
39

Sunny 16 Rule

05:54
40

Exposure Bracketing

10:18
41

Exposure Values

27:21
42

Exposure Pop Quiz

26:43
43

Focus Overview

16:15
44

Focusing Systems

05:15
45

Autofocus Controls

11:56
46

Focus Points

07:35
47

Autofocusing on Subjects

20:19
48

Manual Focus

07:52
49

Digital Focusing Assistance

03:40
50

Focus Options: DSLR and Mirrorless

04:58
51

Shutter Speeds for Sharpness and DoF

05:20
52

Depth of Field Pop Quiz

12:14
53

Depth of Field Camera Features

04:54
54

Lens Sharpness

09:58
55

Camera Movement

05:20
56

Handheld and Tripod Focusing

04:32
57

Advanced Techniques

07:12
58

Hyperfocal Distance

06:50
59

Hyperfocal Quiz and Focusing Formula

04:36
60

Micro adjust and AF Fine Tune

05:34
61

Focus Stacking and Post Sharpening

05:52
62

Focus Problem Pop Quiz

18:07
63

The Gadget Bag: Camera Accessories

25:30
64

The Gadget Bag: Lens Accessories

12:46
65

The Gadget Bag: Neutral Density Filter

20:43
66

The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters

08:55
67

The Gadget Bag: Lens Adapters

05:43
68

The Gadget Bag: Lens Cleaning Supplies

04:34
69

The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories

15:57
70

The Gadget Bag: Flash and Lighting

05:08
71

The Gadget Bag: Tripods and Accessories

18:50
72

The Gadget Bag: Custom Cases

11:20
73

10 Thoughts on Being a Photographer

07:37
74

Direct Sunlight

25:04
75

Indirect Sunlight

18:49
76

Sunrise and Sunset

18:39
77

Cloud Light

14:48
78

Golden Hour

09:50
79

Light Pop Quiz

07:53
80

Light Management

14:00
81

Artificial Light

13:56
82

Speedlights

16:02
83

Off-Camera Flash

27:38
84

Advanced Flash Techniques

09:49
85

Editing Overview

08:24
86

Editing Set-up

08:06
87

Importing Images

16:45
88

Best Use of Files and Folders

20:54
89

Culling

20:56
90

Develop: Fixing in Lightroom

18:13
91

Develop: Treating Your Images

10:53
92

Develop: Optimizing in Lightroom

14:51
93

Art of Editing Q&A

06:01
94

Composition Overview

06:53
95

Photographic Intrusions

10:10
96

Mystery and Working the Scene

16:18
97

Point of View

09:11
98

Better Backgrounds

16:02
99

Unique Perspective

11:02
100

Angle of View

15:06
101

Subject Placement

41:14
102

Subject Placement Q&A

05:18
103

Panorama

07:39
104

Multishot Techniques

13:57
105

Timelapse

16:13
106

Human Vision vs The Camera

20:07
107

Visual Perception

08:35
108

Visual Balance Test

22:56
109

Visual Drama

12:25
110

Elements of Design

28:57
111

The Photographic Process

12:28
112

Working the Shot

27:38
113

The Moment

04:42
114

One Hour Photo - Colby Brown

1:04:32
115

One Hour Photo - John Keatley

1:03:05
116

One Hour Photo - Art Wolfe

59:01
117

One Hour Photo - Rocco Ancora

1:01:20
118

One Hour Photo - Mike Hagen

1:01:20
119

One Hour Photo - Lisa Carney

1:00:52
120

One Hour Photo - Ian Shive

1:08:00
121

One Hour Photo - Sandra Coan

1:10:29
122

One Hour Photo - Daniel Gregory

1:06:07
123

One Hour Photo - Scott Robert Lim

1:05:41

Lesson Info

Timelapse

The final topic we'll talk about is shooting photos at different times to create a time-lapse, and, you know, this is another area where we're just barely touching on the world of video. But I really like time-lapse. This is the Duck Dodge in Seattle. There's a boat race and I've been driving by these boats on Wednesday evenings in the summertime, and I've always kinda wondered, where are the boats going? What's the course, what are they doing going back and forth. And when I put it into a time-lapse and when I put it all together, I was able to see what's going on. And if you think about it, time-lapse is the opposite of photography. Photography is where we freeze a moment to see what happens in a very short period of time. Now, we're taking a moment, and we're kind of extending it, so that we can see what happens over a long period of time. And so, it's a different way to see the world. When you look at a cloud, can you really see the shapes that it's changing? It's hard to stay conc...

entrated on a cloud, but when you play it back, it has, I don't know, it's a very zen feeling just looking at that cloud repositioning and reforming itself in a new way. And so there's a lot of great time-lapse photography out there, I've only dabbled in it a little bit. I plan to do more, it's just one of those great things that we can do with the digital cameras, and a lot of the newer cameras will allow you to either shoot the individual elements of the time-lapse in the camera, or you can actually have a final video produced right in camera. So if you need something right away, you can have it built in right in some of the newest cameras. And so if you do want to do this, you're going to need a digital camera, you're gonna need an intervalometer, which is sometimes built into the camera, sometimes you have to add it on with an extra device, you're going to need to be able to support that camera, either from a tripod or a sliding rail system if you want to get real fancy, and then you're gonna need a bit of time. And so, couple things you need to be thinking about. How many shots to you want to get in this time-lapse and what's the distance between each of those shots in a time, what's the interval of those shots. And so, you want to think about your final clip, how long is your time-lapse going to be. Now realize, first off, that standard video runs at 30 frames per second, Hollywood does their movies at 24, so 24, 30, 30 is pretty common if you wanted to put something up on YouTube for instance. And, most time-lapses are, you know, they're kind of interesting, and so you're probably not going to be doing a four hour time-lapse looking at something, you want a nice little clip, like ten seconds, and so ten seconds times 30 frames means you want to shoot 300 photos of a particular subject. So we have our interval, the time between the shots, and how long is that gonna be? Well, a fairly short interval would be one second. There are some time-lapses that I've seen that they take one photo per day. I think there's a nice photo in New York of the not the world, what's the new World Trade Center, Freedom Tower Freedom Tower, thank you. Freedom Tower going up over years, and they shot like, one photo a day on it, and so that would be really long. So most of the time for your typical time-lapse, we're talking about a difference between one second and one minute between pictures being taken. Alright, first off you need to find something that's gonna look good, speed it up, and so you have to use your imagination of something that's moving. You're gonna have your camera on a tripod, or some sort of slider system for this. You're probably gonna want to have your camera very much in a manual mode, there are certain things that you don't want to change like the white balance or your depth of field. Now there's a couple different ways of doing this, you can go with manual exposure or you can go in aperture priority. Traditionally, I've tried to choose scenes that are not changing radically in brightness and I would use manual exposure for that. Aperture priority has a problem on a lot of cameras, because our cameras work in third stop increments, and when you play video and change a third stop, it's a big deal. If you're into movie cameras, cinema cameras, you'll notice that they can change in very fine increments on the aperture. And third stops is fine for individual photographs, but when we're doing a movie it doesn't always look so good, and so I'm gonna throw a shout out to one of the camera brands that is unique and special... Fuji. Fuji has something very special about their cameras. When you put a normal camera in aperture priority, it might go from a 1/30 to a 1/40 to a 1/ to a 1/60 of a second. When you put a Fuji camera in aperture priority, it'll go from a 1/30 of a second to a 1/32 of a second to a 1/34 of a second, to a 1/38 of a second, so they don't just go in third stops, they go in extremely fine increments. I haven't really been able to figure it out, but it's probably with a tenth of a stop difference. And so I shot some of the time-lapses, back from the lighting section, remember in the lighting section, I had the sunset and sunrise of the city? That was shot with a Fuji camera in aperture priority, and it kept the lighting fairly smooth in that. And so then you're gonna set up the number of photos that you want to take and the interval on them. Now there's some cases where you just simply set the interval and you come back to the camera, and turn it off when it's done. And so, okay, yin-yang, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, oftentimes you want to have something in the frame that is stationary, so, because there's going to be all these things moving, people need to have some kind of reference point for what's stationary. You're gonna use up a lot of battery power, so turning off the LCD in the back of the camera is one way of saving a little bit of battery. Make sure that you have fresh batteries in there, because if the batteries die in the middle of this thing, it's gonna be hard to get the battery, a new battery in without moving the camera or disrupting the time-lapse in any way. Depending on what your needs are, there's a chance that you will only need medium or small sized JPEGs, depending on whether you're going with HD or 4K screens, we have more than enough resolution in our cameras that we don't need to be shooting in full resolution. However, if you do shoot in full resolution, that does allow you more options later, but it's gonna come at the expense of shooting lots and lots of data, so if you have a good idea of what the final time-lapse is gonna be and how it's gonna be used, you can more efficiently shoot that if you shoot it on the smaller size. So as far as the timing tips, 60 seconds times five minutes is 300 seconds. So, if we know that our final image is going to be images, we can shoot a picture every second for five minutes, and that's going to make a nice video clip. And then we can kind of just multiply this out. If we do a picture every two seconds, we'll go for ten minutes, and that will also equal 300 images. And so you can just kind of figure this out for whatever it needs to be and so kinda the trick is, how long is the final video, and how long do you need to shoot to make that final video look interesting. Every second? Sometimes that's too quick. Every minute? Maybe that's too much. And so as I said, you need to find something interesting, speed it up. And so one of the more unusual things that I came across, and I looked at it and I said, I want to see what that looks like speeded up. And it was just some water and some foam with this little river, and just watch what this does. Alright, I think if you were smoking the right type of thing this would be even more interesting, (audience laughing) but I think even without smoking something, this was still interesting to me. This is a more difficult one to shoot, because each photo is a 30 second exposure. So my camera would shoot for 30 seconds and then I would give it a short little break, like ten seconds, and then we'd do another 30 second exposure. I gave it a little break just to make sure that the exposure it could save the file and the sensor wasn't overheating, so that's why I wanted to give it that little bit of break. Now I shot this next one at a little bit higher resolution, and then what I did is I zoomed in, and this is in post-production using a video software program, and then I did a little bit of a Ken Burns panning or zooming back effect on it. And this in Varanasi, India, this is one of my favorite time-lapses, just because that is just one crazy intersection, look at this bus, it's trying to get across, I can't get across, I can't get across. To heck with it, I'll turn. (audience laughing) I had a friend who built a homemade slider system, and so we were down here at the lake using the slider system. So now when you have the slider system, you have a whole nother affect of motion adding motion into the time-lapse. And so even though there's nothing moving, the trees aren't moving here, but the camera is moving, and so these slider systems can be a little expensive. He built it for about $200 in parts. And this is my favorite one here, notice how I'm really low to the ground so we have a little bit of foreground movement, we have some background movement as well. A great way of showcasing a scene. Now, yin and yang. This is how you're supposed to do it, do it completely the opposite direction. Now, I did something that's called a hyperlapse, but I didn't know it was called a hyperlapse until about three or four years later, and I realized, oh that's what they've decided to call this technique. I was coaching the cross country team and I wanted to show them, I wanted to give them a visual, to visualize what the cross country course is. And so I went down to the cross country course, and I took a photo, and then I took three steps forward, and then I took another photo. And I took three steps forward, and I took another photo, and I did that for three miles. And I kinda calculated everything out, I wanted the final video to be 60 seconds in length, and so this is a great little warm up for any of these kids who are going out to run this three mile course, this is what it feels like to go around the course, and what you see. Now, if I was to go back and do this, the technique I would use, is I would use a monopod. Because my arms were dead tired from lifting my pound and a half camera up and down, up and down, for about, this took me about four hours to do. Because, you have to stop, you have to point the camera perfectly straight ahead. If you were to do this from a bicycle or an ATV or something else like that, it would end up being much, much more bouncy. What looks unusual about this is that the horizon point, the focusing point that we're going to, is relatively steady. And so I would use a monopod so that I could more easily keep the camera in the same position, but it does take a lot of time, and you're exhausted when you're done. (audience laughing) Alright, so you gotta finish off the time-lapse, and so you're gonna have to use some sort of editing software, and so usually what I'll do is I'll download everything into Lightroom, and I'll do some quick fixes, like I'll crop it to the 16:9 aspect ratio, make any sort of basic lighting changes or contrast saturation that I need to make to the entire group of images so that they all have the same look to them. And then, every once in a while, like in the slideshow, I've just given you right now, put a few of those time-lapses in there, and it really wakes everyone up from looking at still photographs. Now, having finished this section, the pessimist in me, the 17 year old version of John, would say, you've given all this ideas about what's good composition, is it a free for all, can you do anything and it's good composition? Well, I'm glad to say I have no photos to support this section. But just to give you some thoughts. What is bad composition, what does that mean? Alright, so here are some things that I think are bad composition. Too much information in the frame, information overload. The subject dead center, when it maybe shouldn't be. Putting that subject, remember that tree, way off to the side of the frame. Those distracting backgrounds, think about those backgrounds. Is your subject obscured, what you're actually trying to look at, not fully visible. For doing people photography, really thinking about things that are just kinda awkward. Having too much dead space that doesn't have any sense or reason for balance in there. And that tilted horizon, that's gonna drive people nuts. We just don't like that tilted horizon. Those are some of my ideas of what bad composition, and I do not have any plans to photograph these situations, so sorry you're just going to have to use your own mind for visuals on this section. So, John, can you combine panorama stitching and focus stitching in one picture to get a very sharp picture for framing. Sure. Yes, you can. You can combine all sorts of those combinations, and I'm gonna buy stock in hard drive companies if you decide to do a lot of panorama, focus, time-lapse stitching, because you could end up just shooting tons of photos, so you really have to nail down what you're gonna do because I was with somebody who was trying to shoot HDR time-lapse, and the amount of data that they were shooting, because every time the camera shoots, it has to shoot three or five photos, it's lot of extra work. So figure out the minimum amount of work that your camera needs to do out in the field, and that will minimize the amount of work you need to do getting back on the computer side of things. [Woman With Laptop] Great, thank you. So John, you had mentioned that there's some cameras that offer HDR? Yes. And also time-lapse, that could render it to a movie. Do you know any off the top of your head? The ones that, well there's two different things. One is the HDR, and I know that a number of the Nikon's and Canon, like the Canon 5D Mark 3, I think that the Nikon D750 and the 810 and the 800 will do HDR. And as far as the new movies, I believe the new Nikon D500 will do it, and there was a new Canon, I'm trying to remember, I don't have that off the top of my head. [Male Audience Member] Okay. I'm thinking that one of the Sony's does that as well. I'm sorry, the problem is is that I know these cameras really well when I study up on them, but when you hit me up when I'm not prepared, I don't have all the answers. [Male Audience Member} No problem, thank you. John, one of the things about panoramics that really, really annoys me, is we go out and we do three, four, five pictures that we stitch. Now we got this little strip. What do you think, or what is the technique you do what you want to do four pictures across, four pictures across, four pictures across, and make a bigger image out of it. So you don't have this annoying little strip. Yeah, the little strip is hard to work with. And here we kinda get back to aspect ratios and how we're gonna use them. You know, maybe you're gonna have a newsletter, and you do need just a little strip. That's kinda nice to have that. But it's very hard to display and frame a very narrow little strip. And so, it is something to consider. And so one of the things I did, is I was at Ikea, and I saw this nice frame, and it had three individual vertical images, or maybe no, yeah I think it had three vertical images and all spaced out, and I though you know, if I took my mat cutter, and cut off the middle portions of it, I could end up with a nice frame for a panoramic image. And so yeah, you do have to be aware of this, and there's all sorts of creative ways. Doing one panorama in three layers, hadn't really thought about it. Initially I'm kinda not a huge fan of it, but if you wanted to fill the area, you know, I'm willing to take a look at that. I'm not going to judge it quite yet.

Class Materials

Free Download

Fundamentals of Photography Outline

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Learning Project Videos
Learning Projects PDF
Slides for The Camera Lessons 1-13
Slides for The Sensor Lessons 14-18
Slides for The Lens Lessons 19-31
Slides for The Exposure Lessons 32-42
Slides for Focus Lessons 43-62
Slides for The Gadget Bag Lessons 63-72
Slides for Light Lesson 73-84
Slides for the Art of Edit Lessons 85-93
Slides for Composition Lesson 94-105
Slides for Photographic Vision Lessons 106-113

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Love love all John Greengo classes! Wish to have had him decades ago with this info, but no internet then!! John is the greatest photography teacher I have seen out there, and I watch a lot of Creative Live classes and folks on YouTube too. John is so detailed and there are a ton of ah ha moments for me and I know lots of others. I think I own 4 John Greengo classes so far and want to add this one and Travel Photography!! I just drop everything to watch John on Creative Live. I wish sometime soon he would teach a Lightroom class and his knowledge on photography post editing.!!! That would probably take a LOT OF TIME but I know John would explain it soooooo good, like he does all his Photography classes!! Thank you Creative Live for having such a wonderful instructor with John Greengo!! Make more classes John, for just love them and soak it up! There is soooo much to learn and sometimes just so overwhelming. Is there anyway you might do a Motivation class!!?? Like do this button for this day, and try this technique for a week, or post this subject for this week, etc. Motivation and inspiration, and playing around with what you teach, needed so much and would be so fun.!! Just saying??? Awaiting gadgets class now, while waiting for lunch break to be over. All the filters and gadgets, oh my. Thank you thank you for all you teach John, You are truly a wonderful wonderful instructor and I would highly recommend folks listening and buying your classes.

Eve
 

I don't think that adjectives like beautiful, fantastic or excellent can describe the course and classes with John Greengo well enough. I've just bought my first camera and I am a total amateur but I fell in love with photography while watching the classes with John. It is fun, clear, understandable, entertaining, informative and and and. He is not only a fabulous photographer but a great teacher as well. Easy to follow, clear explanations and fantastic visuals. The only disadvantage I can list here that he is sooooo good that keeps me from going out to shoot as I am just glued to the screen. :-) Don't miss it and well worth the money invested! Thank you John!

Vlad Chiriacescu
 

Wow! John is THE best teacher I have ever had the pleasure of learning from, and this is the most comprehensive, eloquent and fun course I have ever taken (online or off). If you're even / / interested in photography, take this course as soon as possible! You might find out that taking great photos requires much more work than you're willing to invest, or you might get so excited learning from John that you'll start taking your camera with you EVERYWHERE. At the very least, you'll learn the fundamental inner workings and techniques that WILL help you get a better photo. Worried about the cost? Well, I've taken courses that are twice as expensive that offer less than maybe a tenth of the value. You'll be much better off investing in this course than a new camera or a new lens. I cannot reccomend John and this course enough!

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