Shooting a time lapse is quite a challenge. Shooting a good time lapse with changing lighting conditions adds complexity. The challenge is how to keep the time lapse both correctly exposed and smooth looking to prevent the “flickering”.
The “Holy Grail” time-lapse technique describes the process of capturing day-to-night or night-to-day time-lapses. Today, with Daniel Bergman and Adorama TV we discuss a couple of ways to capture “Holy Grail” the right way!
There are two ways to shoot these sorts of time-lapses: aperture priority or manual adjustment. Make sure the keep the focus set to manual. In aperture priority mode, you simply let the camera adjust the shutter speed. However, the technique only works well when the sky is clear. Conversely, if the sky is cloudy your camera sensor might be fooled by a sudden change of exposure when clouds move. So the exposure will jump around and the final time-lapse will not be as smooth as you would like.
When shooting on manual exposure, you only change your settings throughout the shoot. DO NOT move more than a 1/3 of a stop at a time. Instead, do it really slowly over a lot of frames to ease the transition. This might be ok if you are shooting for 30 minutes or so but will be a nightmare if you are shooting for hours and hours.
Whichever method you use, the sudden changes in exposure are going to be noticeable – those a called “flickers”.
To get rid of flickers use software like LRTimelapse or TLDF to smooth out your video and get rid of that flicker.
In the video example below, Daniel is shooting a time-lapse indoors and uses Lenskirt – a lens hood that protects against undesired reflection.
Also, to create smooth movement of the time-lapse, Daniel uses Syrp Genie Mini Panning Motion Control System that turns his camera gradually over time.
Watch the full episode with David Bergman and Adorama TV: