Words & Image/Time-Lapse: Dean Verner

Time-lapse Photography, capturing something too slow to see.

Like most, I have always been fascinated by time-lapse photography. Until recently it had always seemed out of reach without spending large sums of money for dedicated equipment and a tremendous amount of personal time. But now with the availability of digital cameras and much improved personal computers, getting impressive results is well within the reach of most.

It is likely that if you have any kind of digital camera (DSLR) and a tripod all that is required is the addition of one more piece of equipment, an intervalometer. Intervalometers will allow the photographer to have the camera automatically capture any number of images, and set the frequency of the images being captured.

I captured this time-lapse image in beautiful Killbear Provincial Park. Here are the details and settings of the image:

Camera: Canon 70D

Lens: Tokina AT-X 116 Pro11-16mm f2.8

ISO: 100; f9.0; 1/2500 sec; Focal Length set to 12mm

Total of 1513 images captured at 3 second intervals

There are quite a variety of other set ups that would also work to capture this image. One that I would like to point out is a smart phone and free apps. The only other requirement would be a stable location for the phone.

Once the images are captured they must be rendered into a video on a PC with rendering software. My favourite software is LRtimelapse, but there many others available, some free.

The results are spectacular. In this time-lapse image essentially 75 minutes of real time have been compressed into 50 seconds. You can see the movement of the sun, clouds moving in different directions according their altitude, sun beams shining through the clouds onto the water, the ice movement along the shore, and the changing colours of the snow.

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