The other day the light really caught my eye… something that I’m sure most photographers have experienced a multitude of times. But what really caught my attention was the cloud movement around the light spot. It was stormy outside, and nearing sunset time, so I scrambled and grab my camera, Tripod, and Triggertrap mobile (with an old Iphone 4) then I just let it run with a five second delay between photographs.
The plan was to allow the timelapse to run until it was dark, and then in processing I would select the bit that I wanted. But in the scramble to capture the scene I forgot to clear the memory card so I ended up with 304 images for this timelapse instead of the 900+ I had planned on having. It also didn’t quite make it to sunset.
I have had the Triggertrap Mobile for well over a year now, and purchased it largely for Timelapse photography. It not something new to me, but I have always struggled to figure out what to do with a timelapse. Often times I feel like it is just a neat trick with little other applications. But with YouTube and other Video streaming websites available today Timelapse videos do at least have an outlet.
After making this timelapse it made me think about projects that I could do with timelapse photography, and what that would potentially look like. I have a few idea in mind but only time will tell if any of them come to fruition. I plan to move away from using a DSLR for timelapse photography and instead moving to something like a Raspberry Pi w/ Camera Module or webcam. DSLR are overkill for timelapse photography as that quality isn’t needed by the time you reach the final product and just makes it unwieldy. I’m really considering using CHIP to make a timelapse rig coupled with a webcam.
CHIP is basically a small and cheap computer that will be available for $9, and a cheap webcam can be picked up for around $5 making the entire set up disposable, or giving you the ability to place it in places where it may not be all that secure. It also has built in WiFi so the idea would be to run the timelapse rig headless, and have the computer take the pictures, render the video, and then upload it.