Ten Top Tips For Getting Started With Time Lapse Photography

If you're a keen amateur photographer or even a pro and want to have a go at time-lapse photography and time lapse film making, I've listed some top tips to help you get started. Don't think you'll be able to do what the time-lapse movie specialists do and time lapse in all sorts of challenging conditions for long periods of time. That takes very special know-how and equipment. However, for simpler applications, and just to get you started, I'm going to give you ten top tips. Here goes...

1. If you have a camera with a built in intervalometer (timer) that's great. If not, you'll need to go shopping to buy an intervalometer. They are more commonly called 'remote control triggers' nowadays. But just make sure they have an 'intervalometer' function; that is a function that allows you to set up to take images at pre-set intervals. There's no use me recommending any intervalometers or remote devises here - as it really depends on what camera you have. But a bit of web research should give you some ideas of which one may be best for you. Before you get started properly, get to know the intervalometer and what it can do.

2. Timing is all-important. Like a good comedian, a good time lapse photographer must get his/her timing right! The most common error for all time-lapse newbie's is setting unrealistic intervals between exposures. If the intervals are too long, you wont have sufficient frames to do an edit. It is better in some ways if you have too many (as you can always 'lose' some). But just be aware that too many may mean your camera having problems with processing. Plus, you don't necessarily want to work the shutter on your camera too much! Setting the interval time between exposures is something that will come with practice and experience. You end up getting an instinct for it. But, a few things to bear in mind to help you are to A) think how long you want the time lapse sequence to last, and B) hold in mind that your edit will be sequenced at around 25fps (frames per second). Think! You'll have to get 25 exposures / frames for 1 second of sequence. Someone once asked us to take 4 frames over 24 hours for a week and edit a time-lapse sequence for them.......until we pointed out that the 'sequence' would only run for a fraction over 1 second!

3. Camera settings are important, and these all depend on the type of time-lapse you do and the various factors involved. It can get quite complex. But, to get started, just set the camera on AV (aperture value), set your f-stop modestly to around 4 and just a few hundred on your ISO (we don't want noisy images). This should give you a nice balance between controlling your camera and letting your camera decide some things for itself.

4. Get a tripod. It may sound obvious. But we've seen people trying to do time lapse by perching a camera precariously somewhere where it can easily be knocked. Remember, time-lapse photography and film-making only works by getting images that are captured from exactly the same fixed position. If you see a sequence edited together from frames that are different - because of camera movement - you'll see the whole sequence shaking and wobbling! No good! A tripod, locked into position will give your camera a nice stable platform.

5. Get a decent size memory card. It may sound obvious again, but it's another common error. As the proverb says, 'You have to cut your cloth according to your coat'. Take a test image. What is the file size that the image is coming in at? Now multiply this by the number of images you'll be taking. Is your card big enough? No? Then you'll need to do either the following OR a combination of the following: a) get a bigger card b) reduce the file size (quality) of your captures c) do a card-swap at necessary intervals (taking care not to knock your camera). The real experts may output to an external storage device.... They may insist on bringing their images in HD (high definition) and creating HD time lapse movies.... but I'm trying to keep things simple for you here!

6. Be aware of power issues. Again, if you are time-lapsing using a camera with a single battery, you'll need to be aware that it will run out relatively quickly. You'll know how quickly if you know your camera. To solve, you can use a battery grip to extend the time you have, or even better, get an ac adaptor and plug your camera into the mains!

7. Do indoor projects first. You can control your environment and the lighting this way. Outdoors, you potentially face greater challenges; the weather, changes in light, away from power sources and so on. We know people who have wrecked very expensive DSLRs by leaving them unprotected out and not noticing its been raining!

8. Stick to things that wont take too long to capture at first. What about an ice cube melting, for a really short time lapse? Then, as you become more ambitious and experienced, you could always progress to cress seeds growing or an indoor potted flower opening. A simple favorite is to deprive an indoor plant of water for a while, then water it and time-lapse its recovery! Another great one is to place a white flower in water, add food colouring to the water and time lapse the nice effect of the colour climbing up the flower as it drinks....

9. You have all your images. It's time for the edit. What? You can't edit? Well that's fine. Although again, the experts put their images through a number of processes in post production - we are keeping things simple. And what surprises most people is that there is a simple way to edit. It wont be anywhere near as good as what the experts do - in fact the experts wouldn't really call it editing strictly. However, it works for our purposes. The secret is throwing your images into one of the applications that just auto-sequence them together. I can't mention any of them here...but do your research.

10. I said there were ten tips..... so here is the tenth. Get your work out there, share it. Look at what others have done, join a forum, swap tips, practice, and above all...have fun getting started with time lapse photography.

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Packshot Photography - Getting Your Teeth Into Primal Instincts

If you needed any persuading as to the value and importance of packshot photography then it's important to look back a little in time. No, further than that. Quite a bit further - several thousand years in fact. Because to appreciate how we operate, react, respond and view the world today we need to look back at our history and development over the last few thousand years.

If you took a human from about 10,000 years ago and placed them in today's society then they pretty much would fit in, assuming you could teach them from an early age. We really haven't evolved much in many thousands of years, and we still carry about our primal instincts and our way of responding to the world around us.

A good packshot photographer knows that a catalogue photo, for all its glossy sleek appearance, is at its heart designed to target our most primal instincts, our base responses and to elicit that reaction from us which will inevitably result in our carrying a slightly lighter wallet around with us. Our world today is so full of text, sound, words and technology that it's easy to forget that all of this is still relatively new - even speech. Certainly our grasp of a written language is very recent indeed, and it was only a few generations ago that it would have been considered most unusual to be able to read and write.

We are, essentially, a predator, and as such our most keen sense is that of sight. Our ancestors would use sight to scan the forest or the plain, to identify quickly any potential threats, and any potential prey. We learned to use visual clues very quickly in order to make snap judgments, and quick decisions. Visual awareness was essential to stay alive.

Today we don't so much rely upon our sense of sight to watch for prey, since we can have frozen food delivered to our door, and as far as threats are concerned, there's relatively little chance of bumping into a mountain lion in Kettering town centre. However, we still retain those same instincts which saw us survive in the jungles and plains of Africa so many thousands of years ago. Today our visual acuity and our ability to respond without even thinking about it to visual clues is as strong as ever. Good packshot photography can take full advantage of this.

If you want to reach into someone's soul, you have to do it through the eyes. Words can only ever achieve so much, and are mere mathematics for the brain - they have to travel much further to reach the soul. A good catalogue photo needs to bypass logic and numbers, words and insurance options, and just reach out to the inner person and make them want it, feel they need it, and start to respond and react to it in a positive way even without thinking.

Because that's the thing with packshot photography - a good catalogue photo makes you respond before you have had time to think. It's the first reaction which is the more powerful - just as they say that first impressions count. If you see a photograph of something, you can feel desire for it even before your brain has decided that you don't need it, that it can't be justified, that it's too expensive or that you can find a better deal elsewhere. Once you're hooked, just like being a fish, it's very hard to escape.

Exactly how a professional packshot photographer achieves this would take up a mammoth book, perhaps several but it's worth being aware that if you're considering saving money by carrying out packshot photography in house, you may find that the plan backfires. Remember, a catalogue photo needs to do far more than simply show customers what your product looks like. A picture of a tasty boar may well sound attractive, but few of our ancestors would have survived for long on pictures alone. Give your customers what they need - feed them meat, not paper!

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Photography Tips for Getting Amazing Black and White Photos

In this post, we will check out a number of important photography tips regarding shooting in black and white. Black and white pictures generally are represented as a spectacular photography form as they are inclined to share feelings which could not be realized in a color picture. As you'll observe in this article, a lot of the photography tips for creating effective back and white photos focus on subtlety, and how to makes use of the strength of light and dark areas to bring out the details of your subject.

Utilizing Natural Illumination

Considering that black and white pictures are in reality grey, black, and white, we actually end up with a good variety of distinct tones with which we can work. Natural illumination is actually an effective method of obtaining expressive make up in the photograph. As an example, employing decreased light in the evenings may possibly cast a more somber, brooding scene as compared to making use of the gentle, misty warm tones of a morning sunrise or the harsh, sterile and clean lighting connected with the midday direct sun light.

These kinds of distinct lighting situations may be especially powerful whenever combined with monochrome landscape images. For example, common trees which might not necessarily amount to an extremely intricate arrangement in color can be captured early in the day or maybe late evening hours to create shadows and silhouettes that make for a considerably more fascinating scene.

Taking photos of Silhouettes

Maybe you have seen photographs of silhouettes that employed intriguing angles to generate a more intricate and interesting composition. The basic splendor of photographing silhouettes is that often it distills the form of one's subject to a simpleness that achieves a particular degree of feeling. Consequently one of the extremely vital photography tips pertaining to recording silhouettes would be to continually focus on the shape and form associated with your own subject matter.

Catching Emotional Images

Tonality is a major element in capturing emotionally charged black and white pictures. When you have mastered the capability to manipulate the available lighting and dark areas, you will start to notice ways to impart varying degrees of tone in to your photos to create the desired effect. One of the principal and most exciting circumstances of this in black and white pictures is the usage of incredibly stark contrasting concerning well-lit portions of the composition which are near to the white-colored end of the tonality range and darker components which usually show up closer to black. By developing these solid contrasts, you will frequently capture an aspect of dimension and depth of field helping to make the subject seems to be 3-D.

In this particular age of unnaturally over-saturated effects in color pictures, black and white digital photography can be quite a refreshing technique to offer splendid contrast to your shots. It can be a terrific way to draw the attention onto the discreet details and emotion of the subject. Once you master these kinds of black and white photography tips, you'll capture rewarding photographs packed with tonality that you may not be able to create with color photographs.

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