Time-lapse Tutorial Part 2 - Combating DSLR Time-lapse Flicker

This tutorial is about what causes DSLR time-lapse flicker and what we can do to minimize it. Here's a quick overview:

1. Most common source: Automatic settings
- Overcome by shooting in full manual mode
2. Secondary mechanical source: Aperture flicker
- Shoot at low f-stops (wider apertures = less exposure variations)
- Use a manual lens
- Trick your camera into thinking your automatic lens is manual (lens twist)
3. Secondary mechanical source: Shutter flicker
- Shoot at slow speeds ( under 1/100th of a second)
4. Utilizing priority modes for scenes with changing light
- We will get flicker but we can correct with deflickering software
- Cover your eyepiece
- Bulb ramping

Hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have other tips or experiences.
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Learn more and see what's new at: http://www.LearnTimelapse.com

Music: Our Ego [Feat. Different Visitor] by Broke For Free is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Slam_Funk/Broke_For_Free_-_S...

Closeup Images of aperture and shutter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Focal-plane_shutter.jpg

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Time-lapse Photography
• timelapse
• flicker
• dslr
• Canon
• 7d
• tutorial
• photography
• deflicker
• yosemite
• half
• dome
• aperture
• shutter
• lens
• twist
• trick

[LearnTimeLapse]

Yeah, Its extra wear. The Canon 7d is rated at 150,000 shutter activations. Some folks get 300k. It all depends. You'll have to ask yourself why you bought the camera and if extra wear is part of the deal.

[littlecubed]

Hey! This tutorial was very helpful, but I have a question on something else. When putting all the videos together into a video, I use quicktime pro with "open image sequence" but everytime it turns out very slow or laggy. I'm not even able to view the whole time-lapse video and it just jumps from clip to clip. I'm wondering if you could help out with this? Once again, thanks for the awesome tutorials.

[LearnTimeLapse]

@littlecubed Is this after the movie is supposedly rendered? Does the video playback appear to be slow and laggy?

[kookiemoose]

This was very helpful.

[LearnTimeLapse]

@kookiemoose Thanks! glad it helped. Time-lapse flicker can be a little tricky so let me know if you have any questions implementing the tips.

[twinsane1998]

Hi thanks for the videos; s a new photographer (awaiting a canon 600d birthday present!), they are really informative however, I find it difficult to pick out your voice with the music playing and have to really concentrate to hear what you're saying. Keep up the great vids but could you maybe put the music more in the background, fade out for crucial vocals or have none after intro?

[LearnTimeLapse]

@twinsane1998 Thanks for the comment. I'll do better balancing the audio in future tutorials.

[rosscobossco]

I got an SLR for my 30th last month, so I'm a late starter, but my sister is a Pro Photogrpaher and is helping me she can. The rest of the time I'm relying on YouTube to help me out. I have to say after searching through many videos, that I find yours to be particualrly helpful. Your pace and diction make it very easy to follow what's being said and I just wanted to say thanks. I look forward to some more tutorials!

[rezjrprod]

@LearnTimeLapse amen...just was curious if that many in a row would cause any extra stress..but got the point..I did my first one shortly after watching your video its on my page..i appreciate the tutorials bud. Rob

[jaminthomas]

@rezjrprod As LearnTimeLapse said there will be wear on the shutter but these things are built like tanks. There are people i know that have more that 400,000 actuations on their 7Ds, 5Ds, 50Ds and equivalent Nikon models. Thomas Hawk (google him) has more that 300,000 activations (one shutter) on his 5D mark II. Why buy a pro level body and then be afraid to use the cameras in the conditions they were designed for? It costs about $200 to replace the shutter. Much cheaper than a new camera.

[rezjrprod]

does doing time lapse put any extra wear on the shutter?