Timelapse photography using cheap compact digital camera

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 15:48

Hi there,

I am planning to create a time-lapse film of an installation of a large wind turbine. The time-lapse camera will be installed in an unsecured location for about a week and so there's a reasonably high chance that it might be stolen. As such, I don't want to use my own dSLR because my insurance won't cover it if it gets stolen.

Instead, I would like to investigate using a low-cost compact digital camera for the time-lapse. As such, I have several questions:

1) Does anyone know if there are any low-cost compact digital cameras which come with built-in intervalometers? (I'm guessing not). If not, any smart ideas on how to setup a low-cost digital camera to take images at a specified interval? My best idea so far is to take the camera apart and solder a couple of wires directly onto the "trigger" - I'd then build a simple timing circuit to trigger the camera.

2) Can anyone recommend a good low-cost compact camera? I'm hoping I can get one for about £100 or cheaper... if it's really cheap then maybe I'll get two and do a time-lapse from two angles.

Many thanks,
Jack

Jimmy_Lemon · 14 May 2007 at 15:51

I have just purchased a little trigger delay like device from someone on another Photography forum who made them himself - they fit the 350d, so not sure what else they might fit - but I am guessing you should be able to make one yourself fairly easy if you are mechanically minded.

Not a clue about a good camera - but will be interested to see what people suggest, as I have done some timelapse with my 350d and I dont think it can be doing it much good

fini · 14 May 2007 at 15:57

How about using one of thos throw away cameras that are £5 ish and then when getting it developed get them to stick it on CD - if I thought a camera might get stolen I wouldn't want to use anything more than that.

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 16:00

Jimmy_Lemon said:
I have just purchased a little trigger delay like device from someone on another Photography forum who made them himself - they fit the 350d

Thanks loads for the really quick reply! How does the trigger device talk to the camera? IIRC, the 350d has a socket for an external trigger, doesn't it?

Jimmy_Lemon said:
I have done some timelapse with my 350d and I dont think it can be doing it much good

Likewise! I've done some timelapse with my D50 (which I really enjoyed doing) but I believe the expected lifetime of the shutter is about 100,000 exposures. Which isn't much when you're knocking out 1,000 exposures in a few hours of timelapse filmmaking.

Maybe little compact cameras (lacking in a mechanical shutter) have lifetimes measured in years rather than in exposures.

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 16:03

fini said:
How about using one of thos throw away cameras that are £5 ish and then when getting it developed get them to stick it on CD

That might work for a very short timelapse project but I'd expect my timelapse camera to take several thousand images over the course of each project. Digital is the only way to go. The film gets played back at 25 frames a second so 1,000 frames is only 40 seconds when played back at 25fps.

Incidentally, I'm certainly hoping the camera *won't* get nicked! I think it's really quite unlikely that it'll get stolen... but still, the chance is too high for me to feel comfortable risking my beloved D50.

Messiah Khan · 14 May 2007 at 16:04

Lol, I seem to be knocking out a 1,000 shots in an hour or two when using my camera, never mind timelapse.

Edit; It might also be worth making some sort of 'nesting box' type thing to hide the camera in.

Helium_Junkie · 14 May 2007 at 16:30

Make sure you consider battery life as well. You may need to be able to turn off the camera between shots.

Just how far from a secure base location is this? Thinking of wireless webcam ranges.

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 16:36

Hi - thanks for the reply.

Helium_Junkie said:
Make sure you consider battery life as well. You may need to be able to turn off the camera between shots.

Yes, I'll almost certainly kill the standard battery. For this project I'm pretty sure I'll have easy access to mains power. For future projects I'll look into a solar charger.

Helium_Junkie said:
Just how far from a secure base location is this?

The camera will be located in an office, looking out of the office window. So it is fairly secure. I'll chain the camera to something to deter potential thieves. And I'll also have to figure out a way to prevent people from moving the camera by accident or intentionally. I'm considering the location "unsecure" because there will be people (who I've never met) using the office.

Thanks,
Jack

Helium_Junkie · 14 May 2007 at 16:38

Can it be connected to a PC full time?

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 16:49

Helium_Junkie said:
Can it be connected to a PC full time?

I do have a couple of old laptops that I wouldn't cry over if I lost, yeah - good point. I've got a Dell 266MHz PII (which runs Gentoo Linux) and a 300MHz Pentium which runs the devil's own OS (Win98).

Neither of them have USB2 (both have USB1).

Jack

Bolerus · 14 May 2007 at 16:59

anything that uses usb should work with usb 1 (you will just get the error message saysing it coudl be faster)

also, if you use a digi camera, as well as battery life, how are you going to handle memory card size constraints

I Dont think there are many "cheap" digitals that will take a 4 gig mem card for example, so, if you want a decent (you were talking 1000s right?) amount of pictures on a card you are going to have to go for a very low quality.

It is an interesting problem.

Using a web cam may be an alternative, but again that would be very low quality, even the good web cams tend to only go to 640 x 480 resolution (there really good ones do better i think)

easy solution is to give somebody the job of siting at the window, pressing the shuter release ever second

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 17:13

Bolerus said:
also, if you use a digi camera, as well as battery life, how are you going to handle memory card size constraints

I Dont think there are many "cheap" digitals that will take a 4 gig mem card

Oh, crap - really? I was hoping to use 4GB SD cards.

Bolerus said:
you are going to have to go for a very low quality.

Even the lowest quality JPEG setting with the lowest resolution should still look great when used in video. PAL video is only 768x576.

Thanks,
Jack

FakeSnake · 14 May 2007 at 17:16

As you have a PC available and a nikon...
what about the Nikon Capture control Pro?
http://www.europe-nikon.com/product/en_GB/products/broad/1122/overview.html

30day trial, then purchase, might be worth a look.

Worked a treat on my D200

dan_aka_jack · 14 May 2007 at 17:20

FakeSnake said:
As you have a PC available and a nikon...
what about the Nikon Capture control Pro?

Hi. Good idea if I was using my D50... but I don't want to use my D50 for this timelapse project. Instead, I want to buy a cheap compact camera and use that for the timelapse. I don't want to risk getting my D50 stolen.

Thanks,
Jack

Amp34 · 14 May 2007 at 18:21

dan_aka_jack said:
Oh, crap - really? I was hoping to use 4GB SD cards.

Even the lowest quality JPEG setting with the lowest resolution should still look great when used in video. PAL video is only 768x576.

Thanks,
Jack

The logitech quickcam pro 4000 and above can do 1.3mp pictures and come with timelapse software. Although I am not sure if it would work with one of the laptops specified. :confused:

Also how about a secodn hand camera off the bay, I'm sure there will be plenty of cameras that will take a 4GB card for less than £100.

Abyss · 15 May 2007 at 01:16

If you can use a laptop, then the Canon A80 has software included that lets you control the camera from the laptop, including time lapse settings. The images are stored directly onto the laptops hard drive.

dan_aka_jack · 15 May 2007 at 09:42

Abyss said:
If you can use a laptop, then the Canon A80 has software included that lets you control the camera from the laptop, including time lapse settings.

Thanks for letting me know. How versatile is the timelapse software? Do you just set a "frame rate"? Or can you set start and stop dates?

dan_aka_jack · 15 May 2007 at 10:00

Bolerus said:
I Dont think there are many "cheap" digitals that will take a 4 gig mem card for example

Please could you explain a little more about this issue? I've had a look at the specs for some £100 compact cameras. They all take SD cards but none mention anything about not being able to use 4GB cards.

growse · 15 May 2007 at 10:04

Have a look at these guys:

http://www.breezesys.com/products.htm

I took all the videos on http://www.growse.com/videos/ using their PSRemote software and my Canon A70. I set the resolution on something sensible (1024x768 I think) so that the transfer times wouldn't be to long from the camera to the laptop. You can also get it to dump the images to the laptop as soon as you've taken them, so you don't actually need a CF card. Setting it up was a doddle, you just say either how many frames in total you want, or how often over how long. Easy

So, if you've got access to mains power and a pc, and don't mind using a canon powershot (A60s and A70s should be quite cheap...), I thoroughly recommend it.

dan_aka_jack · 15 May 2007 at 11:58

I've been doing a bit of research and it looks like gPhoto running on Linux might just work for doing timelapse photography.

Jack