Probably not a People forum question, but I am setting up to do a time lapse for a perfromance for my church. Its a big annual performance they do and the set is super detailed and a very cool transfomration of the sanctuary. The set-up will be multiple days and lengthy. I am planning on mounting the camera a Canon 50D and leaving it in place and only returning in the evenings to get the card to dump the images. Looking for advice or thoughts from anyone who has done this on camera settings, file size, length of time between shots etc... Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
CB

I would use manual settings on the camera taking into account the brightest the sanctuary will be and the darkest it will be durning the day and night. I would set the WB to something other then auto so the WB is consistant. The time length depends. Start by determining how long you want the finished movie to be and frames/sec then work out the number of days for shooting and the time/day that you run the camera. file size you can leave at the smallest jpg which should be plenty to show on a computer or normal tv

What Mark said. I assume you have Canon's electronic timer? If you haven't used it, play with it so you know how to set it up. Also, turn off the "Review" feature on your camera so the last picture doesn't always display. That will run y our battery down! And if it's in an accessible area, post a note around the tripod/camera asking people to please not touch the setup and perhaps leave your cell phone # in case they have any questions.

You might also want to consider securing your equipment with a bike lock. Help keep the church folk honest.

Thanks guys, I have the ac adapter to use as well but run a battery grip so I am not sure how that will work, may have to remove the grip for this go round. The bike lock is already ready to go and great idea on turning off the review and the post it note.

Thanks!

Mark's pretty much nailed the camera set-up, keep everything manual including focus, make sure the camera is rigged in a solid mount and don't touch it once it is rolling.

That's pretty much how I did these:

http://www.vimeo.com/2662842

http://www.vimeo.com/3307439

Liam, the top one was SO amazing, I had to watch it twice! Amazing, very inspiring stuff.

Liam, Awesome work!!! Very cool! What program did you use to edit those in as far as adding music, the zoom etc........

FSJ_Guy, The post-it note idea was awesome, left a LARGE Post-it on the camera explaining the why, when , what and how and my name and #. Good thing becasue the cleaning crew manager called wanting to know if I knew my camera was there.......The crew needed to vacuum and I told him to vacuum around it. Worked like a charm, again, great idea!

Thanks guys, I will post it in a few weeks when it is all said and done.

CB

liamh wrote:
http://www.vimeo.com/3307439

Wow, it's cool to see the cranes operating so late at night. Do they do construction 24/7 over there? I wish productively was like that here.

cbrownskl wrote:
Liam, Awesome work!!! Very cool! What program did you use to edit those in as far as adding music, the zoom etc........

FSJ_Guy, The post-it note idea was awesome, left a LARGE Post-it on the camera explaining the why, when , what and how and my name and #. Good thing becasue the cleaning crew manager called wanting to know if I knew my camera was there.......The crew needed to vacuum and I told him to vacuum around it. Worked like a charm, again, great idea!

Thanks guys, I will post it in a few weeks when it is all said and done.

CB


I don't know what Liam used but you can buy quicktime pro for cheep and do it in there including add music.

Thanks! I have quicktime pro already just need to play around with it alittle more I guess. Thanks!

Would definitely soon "more" rather than "less." Seems like you could always delete a few if nothing happened for a couple hours as opposed to missing a lot of action that may have occurred over just one hour.

Agree on the more. Shot the 2 day set-up before they shut down for the week due to the holidays. Threw it together in quicktime pro and it looked really cool until the lunch break the 2nd day, all this work and bam! nothing for about 120 frames and then back to work again. Will have to delete a few to save some time and keep it interesting. Thanks!

make sure to post the finish product. would love to see it.