Video mode time-lapse where your GoPro camera puts together the finished time-lapse video for you. This is the most convenient way of doing it, no video editing or post-production work needed. And then you have the photo mode time-lapse, where your GoPro camera will give you a bunch of different photos which you need to put together yourself. If you are new to GoPro or video editing like me, you may find yourself getting stuck when trying to convert your time-lapse photo sequence into video using the like’s of Final Cut Pro or iMovie (if using a Mac of course).
With DanielR15 on this, I now use Davinci resolve for my Time Lapse pictures, mind you as my iMovie has audio clips and titles and a couple of transitions I like and know how to use I export it from DaVinci as a Youtube clip (.mov) and import it into iMovie to finsih off. Periodically check the GoPro using the iPhone app every hour or two. Make sure it’s still got power, and enough storage space, etc. When you’re done, stop the time lapse and connect the GoPro to a computer. I used GoPro Studio 2.0 to process/create video. You import the shots from the GoPro’s card and it will build a movie. Basic Time-lapse Color Correcting and Enhancements in GoPro Studio. Once the time-lapse images are converted to a video clip, it’ll be automatically added to the Import bin on the left hand side. Drag the video clip down to the timeline below.
How to make a Time Lapse GoPro Video in iMovie using Pictures
Here is a quick video I put together on how to make a Time Lapse Video using your GoPro in iMovie 09 using the ‘take pictures every X seconds’ mode.
It’s very easy to do. You can actually make a time lapse movie using video or pictures.
When making it with images, I put my camera in the ‘takes pictures every x seconds’ mode so that it takes pictures every 1, 2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 seconds. If you shoot something that only lasts a few minutes, use a shorter interval like 1 or 2 seconds. If you shoot something that lasts a few hours or an entire day, use a longer interval like 30 or 60 seconds.
You can also make a time lapse movie using video which is a lot easier to do..you simply speed up the video. I’ll make a video explaining this method in the near future.
It’s simply a case of 2 different methods giving you 2 different results. Without further delay, here is the video.
I’ve been having fun playing with the little GoPro camera. It has some quirks, but it’s great for what it’s designed to do. Of course, one of the things I’ve been using it for mostly is time-lapse. I’ve learned lots of things about this little camera, and about time-lapse in general. I can add these to my growing list of lessons learned about time-lapse.
Lesson 1 – Christmas Dinner Videos
As with leaf blowing/raking videos, it seems that everyone does Christmas dinner time lapse videos, too. There were tons of suggestions and recommendations on the page with my Christmas video, and they all had similar titles. Here’s a playlist with 10 samples…
So, the lesson here is that whatever I may come up with for a video project, someone has already done it and uploaded it to YouTube.
Lesson 2 – Panning
A little bit of movement adds a tremendous amount of visual interest to a static shot. Ken Burns discovered this and made such extensive use of it in his Civil War series that the effect now bears his name. Some of the best time-lapse videos incorporate a bit of panning into most of single-view shots.
The Arctic Light from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
Usually this is done with expensive dolly systems designed to move the camera very slowly along a designate path during the time lapse such as this one from Dynamic Perception…
Gopro Time Lapse With Imovie
Dynamic Perception Timelapse Dolly Stage Zero from MILapse on Vimeo.
When I found the little Camalapse timer, that allowed me to do some simple panning with either the GoPro or the iPhone.
While it works very well, there are a couple of drawbacks to the Camalapse. First, the speed cannot be adjusted. Secondly, it only moves counter-clockwise, so you get a right-to-left pan. Here is a video I did with the GoPro from our back deck.
The panning seems to be a bit too quick. I think this would work best where there is a lot of activity, such as a crowded street. It worked well for the dinner scene in my Christmas Dinner video, but kept rotating the table out of the frame. I was only able to use a short segment (which was probably a good thing.)
Short of investing in expensive dolly equipment, I needed to come up with another method. I’m revealing my ignorance here, but it turns out that you can apply the “Ken Burns Effect” in iMovie to video clips as well as video stills. That was the solution to the problem.
Gopro Time Lapse Imovie
Unlike the iPhone and iMotion app, the GoPro does not output video from the time-lapse. It takes a ton of photos at either 12, 7, or 5 megapixel size, which you then later combine into time-lapse in a video editing program.
Can You Make A Timelapse On Imovie
As I discovered with the dinner video, if you shoot at the highest resolution you eat up memory. However, I’ve found a reason why you might want to do that. If you can generate a time-lapse video clip at its original resolution, it gives you lots of room for digital panning using the Ken Burns effect.
For example, here is the GoPro CinePro editing software settings. Notice that the output is set for the 7 megapixel setting – 3000 X 2250.
The original video is as follows. It shows a static position time-lapse of clouds over our little wetlands area:
Each frame in 1080p HD video is 1920 × 1080 (2.1 megapixels). So, if you keep the video clip the same size as the source (3000 X 2250, in this case), you’ve got 1170 pixels worth of motion – that’s a lot of panning. You can open the original clip into iMovie. Once the clip is on your editing screen, click on the little gear icon and select Cropping and Rotation:
One the editing screen on the right, you can select the crop, the starting point, and the ending point of the video clip, the same as you would for a still image. The speed of the panning effect will depend on the length of the video clip.
You could do this with lower resolution video clips, but video quality would be affected. In this case, it worked quite well. Here’s the same backyard time-lapse, but this time with the digital pan effect added.
It’s subtle, but I like the effect. It just adds a bit more visual interest. As with any effect, though, it can be overdone. Now I easily can do other panning videos, both with the Camalapse and with the Ken Burns Effect.
So those are two more time-lapse lessons (Well, one really.) I’m sure I will learn more as I play with these cameras. Now all I need is lots of time to do time-lapse!