How to do time-lapse photography without a bridge

There are many kinds of time-lapse photography works, such as foreign Startrails, domestic Star Track Stack PS plug-in China version of StarsTail, Lightroom.

What is time-lapse photography?

You must have seen that kind of cloud moving very fast in movies and TV. Sunrise, sunset and plant growth are all completed in a short time-that is, time-lapse photography. An expressive way to show what is in front of you.

There are many devices that can shoot time delay, except cameras, camcorders and even mobile phones. What the camera can't do, the SLR can!

The biggest advantage of camera shooting delay is that it can be shot in RAW format, and there is a lot of room for color adjustment through later software. After shooting the video, the clarity and tolerance of the picture are incomparable with ordinary cameras.

When the current camera is still taking 4K photography as a big selling point, the photos taken by ordinary cameras can far exceed the resolution of 4K 3840×2 160.

Especially now, it is popular to shoot the starry sky in time delay. Under the condition of high ISO long exposure, the effect of shifting stars can't even be done by professional cameras, but SLR can!

The stability of tripod is very important for time-delay shooting. When it is windy and dusty outdoors, I will use a more stable camera tripod.

Simple preparation for shooting

In addition to the camera, there are only two basic requirements for shooting delay: a stable tripod; A programmable wired releaser (some friends realize the delay function by brushing firmware, so I won't introduce it here).

Incidentally, my bitter experience: I spent more than 1000 yuan on the Internet to buy Canon's original programmable cable release, and only 99 copies were available in continuous shooting. It's not as good as buying ke continuous shooting for 1000 yuan released by fake cable ... What a heart-stopping thing ... Later, I bought a highly reliable cable release, and there is no limit to the number of continuous shooting.

On the right is the original Canon line player, which can only take 99 pictures (what a fool! ), the left side is made of cable release, which can shoot infinite pictures continuously.

Programmable cable release settings are simple. Remember a few words: "Delay" stands for time-lapse shooting mode. "INTVL" refers to the interval time, and "n" refers to the setting of shooting times-this is true for most programmable cable releases.

For example, I want to take a picture of Zhang Yuncai rolling in the sky. If there is wind and the clouds move faster, I will take a picture every 3 seconds. Generally speaking, the number of shots is around 300.

Why take 300 pictures at a time? This is experience-because it was made on the computer in the later stage, each second video clip consists of 25 frames, 300÷25= 12 seconds. You can edit in this 12 second frame. The more shots you take, the more room for later editing.

Actual combat! Starry sky delay photography

In fact, taking a photo is a delay, so the basic requirements such as light, shadow and composition are the same. Here, taking the delayed shooting of the starry sky in Chaka Salt Lake as an example, the skewed abandoned telephone poles are taken as the main body of the photo and placed at the golden section 1/3. There is a galaxy on the right, which can be used to balance the picture. Then as mentioned before, it takes a long time to release continuous photos with programmable cables.

ISO:3200, exposure time: 30 seconds, aperture: F2.8

Post-production of picture materials

Post-production is divided into two steps: the first step is photo processing; The second step is to synthesize the video.

Lightroom (LR) is usually used for post-processing of photos, and LR can be said to be the most used software by professional photographers at present. There are many benefits, the biggest of which is that you can process photos in large quantities at one time. This is a perfect match for time-lapse photography.

Import photos into the interface after LR.

The first thing to do in LR is to adjust the color of the picture, such as increasing contrast and saturation. In addition to the basic color adjustment, there is also a very important option, which is noise reduction. For high ISO shooting with low illumination, post-noise reduction is essential. An important option in LR is the "Color" option in the "Noise Reduction" on the right panel. Pull to the right, and the color noise will gradually disappear. This is very important for low light shooting.

The second task is to set the picture scale. At present, all videos are in 16:9 specification, so we should also fix them on 16×9 when setting them. Then the original 3:2 photo frame is cut to make it conform to the proportion of high-definition video. All the above are adjusted on the first imported photo.

Set to 16:9 aspect ratio.

The third task is to apply the photo settings adjusted for the first time to all imported photos in a "synchronous" way. This batch operation of LR greatly reduces our labor intensity.

Specifically, click the "Copy" button in the lower left corner of the interface.

In the pop-up dialog box, select Cut and then click Copy.

Then Ctrl+A, select all photos, and click the "Sync" button at the bottom right. So all photos can be processed in batches according to the previous settings.

Finally, right-click to export the photo. Needless to say, remember to set the size of the long side of the resizing item to 1920 pixels. In this way, we can get a series of materials that can be used to make 1080P delayed video.

Little knowledge: the application of delay slide rail

The basic configuration of shooting delay is tripod and pay-off. If you want to shoot a better delay, you need to add another delay slide. The working process of the delay slide rail is based on the number of pictures you set to take, such as 300. Then it will automatically divide the length of the slide rail into 300 equal parts. Move one frame at a time, stop to take pictures, move another frame, stop to take pictures ... The video made in this way is that not only the clouds and stars in the sky are moving, but also the ground will move, and the picture is more attractive.

You can also use a tripod to support one end of the slide rail to form an angle. There are many ways to play, so you can study them slowly.

At present, the prices of slightly better delay rails in China are basically above 6000 yuan. And the portability is not good, suitable for friends who have cars to choose.

The black box in the picture is the controller, which controls the movement and stop of the slide rail, and the slide rail is powered by the lithium battery built in the controller.

Turn hundreds of photos into videos.

There are many softwares that turn photos into videos. I prefer the combination of LR+AE.

Working interface of AE

Step 1: Import files in the file menu (check the JPEG sequence, select the first file, and then select Import). It should be noted that before importing, it is best to rename all the photos to be imported in batch in order. For example, ACDSee can be used in Windows and AdobeBridge can be used in Mac.

Step 2: Click the third "New Composition" button to set the parameters.

Drag the JPEG sequence into the composition with the mouse.

Step four, export. Press CTRL+M (Command+M for MAC), set the path, and then click the "Render" button. AE is exported lossless by default, and the file size is relatively large. If the hard disk is tight. You can also choose a relatively small format as needed.

At this point, the basic delay segment is completed. If you need to go further, use editing software to edit the video material, with music subtitles ... that's how tourist short films are produced.

Then, the problem is coming!

What I said before was just the luckiest situation in time-lapse photography. Sometimes the hard-shot delayed picture will flicker after it is made into a video. That's a very painful thing. The reason is the lens.

The aperture of modern automatic lens is the largest when it is inserted into the camera (except LCD shooting). When the shutter is pressed, the aperture will be reduced to the aperture value you set, and then return to the maximum aperture. Repeat this process the second time you press the shutter.

Then, the problem comes-the lens aperture can't be accurately reduced to the same position every time, and occasionally there will be subtle differences. Judging from a photo, this difference is irrelevant. But in a video screen composed of 25 photos a second, the problem is big. When shooting, the exposure is inconsistent, some photos are brighter and some are darker. This directly led to the flicker of the produced picture.

I took a Canon EF 85mm/F 1.2 lens. The default state is full aperture. It will only shrink when the shutter is pressed.

Get out of here! Save time-lapse shooting

I use the software LRTimelapse to do the flashing work. The time to remove flash is before the original RAW file is imported into LR for image processing. Mainly LRTimelapse and LR remove flicker together.

Important: Before flashing, back up the RAW format of photos to avoid mistakes. At the same time, change the folder and path of photos to all letters to avoid the failure of the flash.

Select "flashback workflow" for the LRTimelapse interface diagram after importing RAW files, with three buttons above and four buttons below. Doing so many steps is a complicated process. My personal suggestion is that only by doing it a few times more, you won't feel too much trouble when you are familiar with it.

The blue curve in the upper left corner represents the different exposure of the photo sequence (no wonder it flashes, and the exposure is so unstable under the same setting).

Our guiding ideology for flash is to increase the exposure of underexposed photos, increase the exposure of overexposed photos, and reduce the exposure-of course, these are all done in batches through the software LRTimelapse.

Next to the button of the software, operate in turn. The first one is "Initialize", the second one is "Create Key Frame", and then save it.

Note here that we need to switch to LR, open LR and import photos. After importing photos, set the "filter" in the lower right corner of LR and select LRT- all keyframes.

Next, you only need to modify the set key frame photos. Adjust the color (as mentioned in the last issue, adjust one, copy the settings, and then paste ...), and then adjust the brightness of several key frames to be basically the same. The specific operation is: select the first key frame, hold down Ctrl, and then select the second key frame. In the "Settings" of LR, select "Uniform exposure of selected photos".

After adjustment, Ctrl+A selects all photos, and then selects photos → saves metadata to a file.

Next, go back to LRTimelapse and come to the second line of "Flashback Workflow". Click "reload" and then click "automatic transition" to make the exposure amount tend to be consistent. Then click "De-flicker". Remember to set a reference area in this step. The reference area is an area where there is no big picture change except flicker. For example, using the mouse to select a small piece of sky is to measure flicker with the sky. Then save it.

Next, continue to switch to the previous LR interface. Select "LRT Full Sequence" in the filter in the lower right corner.

In the "Gallery" state in the upper right corner of the software, Ctrl+A selects all photos of the delayed sequence. Then select Photos → Read Metadata from File.

Then you're finished. You will see that the color and brightness of each photo are changing. As for the next thing, you only need to export photos with the size of 16:9, 1920× 1080 or 4K according to the previous lecture, and you can complete the production of the delayed segment in AE.