Monday 8 September 2014

Lapse It Pro

I tried Hyperlapse to make a time lapse video of clouds and found that is not what the app is designed for. The way it crops slightly and then tries to stabilize the video plays havoc with stationary sections of the scene. Any still object, building, bushes, etc., wobble around in a small circular motion. Yuk! This has been noted by at least one other user in the reviews on iTunes.

I had a look round for an app designed for 'normal' time lapse and discovered that I had downloaded Lapse It Pro some time in the past when it was on free offer. (Present price £1.49) For some reason I had deleted it so I installed it  on the iPod Touch5 to try out.

To hold the iPod securely on a tripod I bought a Smartphone Tripod Adapter from Smoothshot which clamps mobile phones safely and securely and accepts a tripod screw in the base:

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Set up the iPod Touch on a tripod:

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Set the app to take a photo once every five seconds and settled down while it strutted its stuff for about an hour.  Of course the foreman (foredog) had to make sure I was doing everything correctly:

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Once I had stopped Lapse It a movie was presented. That was transferred to the MacBook to add a title and then uploaded to Flickr. The result being:



Fascinating to watch clouds drift across but also be created out of thin air, twisting and tumbling in upper air turbulence.

One thing to remember - start with a fully charged battery. When I tried it a few days ago it came up with a low battery warning after about 55 minutes. Today I started with it fully charged. After about 55 minutes, there was something like 3/4 battery charge left.

6 comments:

  1. Brilliant John.
    I will never get an iPhone or iPad but am impressed with how smooth this is.
    YouTube and Blogger have adapted fast to this low res demand.
    I'll see if I can better it for quality as I have 50GB of cloud time lapse to process.
    What I like about this is that it is quick, effective and appears flicker free.

    What I don't like is it can't be used for broadcast quality. I have just managed to sell some time lapse to the Warwick Davies production company and they were moaning that it was only 2784x1856px sRAW there were 1800 images. They only want it as a bit of fill to edit into fill. Their bloody Sony cameras aren't that good. I asked what they normally pay. They didn't say so I charged £400.00p plus £6.46p for the thumb stick thingy. I did tell them it flickers. I have solved that. Duplicate all frames pop them in a new video layer and stagger the new video layer by 0 .01s. If that doesn't work I bet you could get to a stagger of 0.05s before anyone watching on telly noticed. An editor phoned yesterday and confirmed it works. I should have asked for a consultancy fee.

    You don't so I didn't.

    I would just like to thank you for all your help. I am just starting to get a feel for movies. I never thought I would enjoy it. The challenge is immense from simple 3D title sequences to actually filming. Directors are bossy but I have to boss myself. Even though I have asked silly questions you have always been patient and helpful. Thanks.

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    1. Adrian: I was very pleased with the result. It was taken at 720 but can do 1080 which seems hardly worth it just to put on YouTube. Different if it was for a commercial use. Your sights are set higher than mine for video. I just record daily events for the blog.

      I had a brilliant teacher for pure mathematics when I was in the sixth form. He always patiently back tracked to what I did understand and gradually worked towards the unknown. I always tried to use that method when I was teaching. Giant leaps into new aspects of a subject are little or no help to understanding. I don't consider any questions silly. We all have to start from basics.

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  2. That worked really well! Good exposure all the way and very stabile.

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    Replies
    1. It did Wilma. I tried a time lapse Sunset last night but that didn't work anywhere near as well.

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  3. Replies
    1. Wilma: She always keeps a close eye on whatever I'm up to.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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