So, again a question for the photographers in here.

What software would you recommend to create a time-lapse video from a sequence of shots from a DSLR?

Today for the first time a tried to create a time-lapse video (it is here - just a test, really poor stuff):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/taymtaym/9521063564/

I made a quick research to find out what people where using, and gave it a try with:

GoPro Cineform Studio (which does not seem to allow adding music)
and
Gromada Videomatch.

No particular reason to use them, other than to experiment with something free.

But, I thought I could get a much better insight from the EmpegBBS and, mostly, start a fun thread as usual

Time Laps videos can be shockingly beautiful, and I'd be not surprised if somebody here made some jaw-dropping video

I didn't make anything remotely beautiful, but I've made a time-lapse video before. I used Premiere Elements, though. The main problem for me was that my computer, despite being decently powerful, couldn't keep up with the memory requirements for making the video. I think it crashed during the rendering. It might have been another issue, but I certainly had difficulty.

If you find a good program for this I'll definitely be interested too. Premiere is good at it, but not fantastic.

I've also been creating a few with time-lapses with both gopro's and dslr raw frames. It started with the gopro on roadtrips, and it grew to running HDR frames on the dslr and consuming WAY too much hdd space.

I'm on a mac and currently using time-lapse, I render the raw images at the target fps, then import it into iMovie or Final Cut (add music and whatnot). I've also used time-lapse-assembler in the past and it's worked ok, but I ran into an issue I think with the processed HDR frames from my 5D (filesize too large I seem to recall)

Here is the first timelapse I ran on the 5d2 after I got my triggertrap v1 in the mail. Clouds @ 15fps

After waiting an hour, and watching 150gb or so disappear on my laptop, I found out I should really disable the stabilization on the lens before doing any more TL's. Here is my next attempt (stabilization disabled) the next day. Chittenango Falls @ 15fps

I've got a few more in the works, and I'm trying to add some movement into the mix but I haven't quite been successfully yet with building that rig

Thank you guys, and nice videos Oliver.

I am reading that Lightroom also could do it. I don't have Lightroom here, but I do have a license and I'll give it a try. Too bad ACDSee Pro does not have any such feature. I really like ACDSee Pro (Windows).

I've used ffmpeg in the past. The only hurdle was figuring out the command-line syntax, but google FTW!

I've also heard Lightroom can do a good job of it. I use Quicktime 7 on my Mac to assemble the image sequence then I edit in Final Cut Pro.

Cheers

Cris

That is quite a beautiful video there. I'd love to see more. I particularly like the clouds and their shadows.

You know, watching that video makes me think of something that I'd love to see...

Sometimes I like to take 3D photographs of large things such as clouds or mountains, by quickly moving perpendicularly to the object. Example: Flying past Mount Rainier on a passenger jet, just by snapping a bunch of photos as I flew past, I was able to choose two lined-up photographs, which, in the end, make an amazing 3D photo. Because the positions of the photos are very far apart, the resulting 3D photo (if you can view it with the cross-eye technique) looks like it's very small, as if you could reach out and touch it (and cut your fingers on the crags).

I'd love to see something like your time lapse of the clouds, done with two cameras, spaced very far apart so that the 3D effect is extreme. One could put up the two videos as side-by side images in a single video frame, so you could view it in 3D with the cross-eye technique, like my example linked above.

Maybe someday I'll get a couple of GoPro's and try it.

*EDIT*: Like this, only with mountains and clouds. Or more like this but with real things instead of CG.

*EDIT*: Okay This one is exactly what I'm talking about, except, they didn't get the cameras far enough apart, the clouds aren't quite 3D enough.

*EDIT*: Holy cow, it turns out that, if you upload the file to Youtube correctly (as a 3D video specifically), then Youtube offers a plethora of 3D playback options that you can select from the little "3D" menu at the bottom of the window. Chromatic, side by side, swap sides, etc. here is an example. Wow.

*EDIT*: Aha. there we go. That's what I'm talking about.

Thanks Tony.

I find cross-eyed videos particularly hard to watch. Chromatic 3D + glasses is also so annoying because I wear glasses myself. So, I am really not attracted by 3D, honestly. I should probably reconsider that.

In any case, I'd like to make a second attempt with sunset/sunrise. Then, I'd like to drag the shutter a bit more, even though cars on the road are not that big and relevant, and thoe are the only fast moving object that would benefit from dragging the shutter. Finally, I'd like to make it long enough for some nice music track to complete.

I think sunset and sunrise are a bit tricky though, as lighting changes so much.

When I made my video. I used LR Timelapse (back when it was free) to deflicker the RAW's and export to JPEG. I then used Quicktime Pro to generate full size (16 mpix) ProRes video files which I put in Final Cut Pro 7 and then graded with Magic Bullet.

If I was going to do it again, I'd definitely look at Sequence by Frosthaus to do the deflickering and video sequence generation.

http://frosthaus.com/sequence/

Top tip Andy!

I've got a project on the go at the moment, so I will give Sequence a go I think!

Cheers

Cris

Yes, I can't help but feel the LR Timelapse guy is going to lose a lot of customers to them. At €120 for the private version or €300 for the commercial licence vs. $39 for a copy that you can do what you like with.