Weekend project - How to make great timelapse videos with smartphone
VENICE BEACH, Calif. - Here's a fun project--taking great-looking time lapse video on your smartphone.
We see time-lapse videos all the time--from the opening credits of Netflix's House of Cards to the CBS This Morning show, where the world flies by at super high speed, as the camera takes a series of stills over time and speeds them up.
If you're not shooting time lapses this summer, you're missing out on one of the great tools of the smartphone. Time-lapse videos are way easier to make on smartphones than anywhere else.
The iPhone has a Time-Lapse mode built in to iOS software, while many Android phones will require you to download an app. Try Lapse It or Frame Lapse. On the iPhone, my favorite way of shooting time-lapse videos is going to the native camera app, and choosing the time-lapse option, which is at the end, after slo-mo.
Four essential things to know about time-lapse videos:
--You need patience. To get these shots, you need to be willing to put in the time, and let the camera roll for a long period of time--a minimum of 15 minutes, although 30 minutes to an hour is better. You want to catch the sunset? Put in the time. Bring a book or magazine to read, as you won't be able to check your e-mail or answer texts while the camera is rolling. My colleague Trevor Hughes likes to keep the camera on for at least an hour to capture night skies (Obviously, be sure your phone battery is fully charged before you start.)
--Handholding the camera is not an option.
Bad time-lapse videos all all have one common trait: they're shaky. Sure, the Instagram Hyperlapse app has built-in stabilization, but it will only go so far. A 5 to 10 second video, maybe, but that's about it. Think about it--can you keep your hand steady for 30 minutes?
You'll either need to place the phone on a table, in front of a book, or something like it, or do what the pros do, grab the tripod. (You'll also need an attachment to connect the smartphone to the tripod. I found one on Amazon for as little as $6.95.) If you don't feel like dragging a big tripod, try this little $25 tabletop special from Manfrotto. It's easy to tote and fits in your pocket. If table top is too low, stick it on a stack of books to raise the height. You can also buy a Gorillapod, which wraps around poles and the like, and start at around $25.
--YES, A SELFIE STICK CAN HELP: Why not? In the accompanying video, I held the camera steady with a selfie stick to get a time-lapse of skaters here. Now you can't handhold the thing--it would be way too shaky, but if you can lean it against a wall, that will do the trick. That's exactly what I did.
--MOTION IS A GREAT ADD. If you want to go ultra-cool and totally knock out your friends, invest $30 in a little contraption called Camlapse and stick your phone atop it, via your tripod adapter. The camlapse pans the room, like a good cinematographer, for a sweeping view of your vista, without any of the jerky hand movement you'd expect from hand-holding the camera.
Hughes is a big fan of Camlapse, and offers this tip: "have something close in the foreground to provide perspective on the movement and provide a depth of field."
Finally, there's a new $49.99 case just out for the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S6 and Edge that looks to potentially be a help, but be careful. The Anti-Gravity case from MegaTinyCorp. promises to stick on most surfaces, so theoretically you could take it out in the field, and slap it to a glass, or wall, and let the camera roll for a time-lapse that way.
But when I brought it out here and stuck it to a cement pole, it quickly fell to the ground and smashed the iPhone into pieces. Call me stupid for trying the pole, but the case didn't provide any protection, and I'm out big bucks getting the iPhone screen fixed.
Oh well. The price of art.
Good luck with your time lapse videos. Remember that Instagram has a 15 second limit for your time-lapse videos, but Facebook and YouTube have no limits, so try to go long. You can never have enough flying clouds, if you ask me.
Let us see your best work. Submit your videos here at usatoday.com/yourtake. And look for me on Twitter, where I'm @jeffersongraham and on Stitcher and TuneIn, where I file my daily Talking Tech audio reports.