Time-lapse is a technique that has always fascinated me since I can remember, but it was not until the beginning of 2010 that I really started to experiment with it seriously.

But first, what is Time-lapse?

According to Wikipedia it is a …

…  technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. For example, an image of a scene may be captured once every second, then played back at 30 frames per second; the result is an apparent 30 times speed increase. In a similar manner, film can also be played at a much lower rate than it was captured at, slowing down fast action, as slow motion or high-speed photography.

At the beginning of 2010 I bought my first DSLR camera, the Canon 550D, and thanks to that I was able to start experimenting seriously with this technique. And the first thing I did was to do tests, especially tests at night and on the street. The Time-lapses at night are the hardest to achieve. To have an idea, you can imagine taking photos every certain amount of time, at night, without flash and to objects that move at a certain speed. You can achieve different results by combining two of the fundamental factors in this issue of the Yime-lapses that are, the time interval between photo and photo and the shutter speed of the camera.

Of all the examples I made, I still have two that I want to present below. The first number in the video is the shutter time of the camera or how long the sensor was exposed to light and the second number is the interval in which the photographs were taken. All counted in seconds.

As you may have noticed, very different effects on the image are achieved, depending on which combination is chosen. Sharper or more blurred images, videos where things move faster or slower, everything depends on the intention or what we want to show in the video, in order to choose the combination that best serves us.

Well all these tests and studies culminated with the realization of one of the videos that I like the most of all that I have done. The video reflects a whole day from the window of my room and it took me 3 days to take all the necessary photographs to be able to complete it and one more day of editing and color corrections, etcetera.

As an interesting fact and out of all this Time-lapse theme, the music I used is from Moby. He has a website where he gives away the rights for non-commercial use of musical themes that he composes. I wish all the artists were like that!

And for all of you … from my window!

I hope this video touches the curiosity of more than one person who owns a DSLR camera and start experimenting with the Time-lapse technique. It is really fascinating what can be achieved with it, because I only touched the tip of the iceberg with my experiments. You can do so many different things. After my adventures with the Canon 550D, I started other ones with the GoPro 5 but, that is the subject for another publication.

What did you think of the video “… from my window”?

Have you had experience with the Time-lapse technique? How did it work?

PS: If you have examples of own works done with this technique, please post them in the comments.

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Cover Art Credit