Will a 360° time-lapse pan over 30 minutes still look smooth?
Asked 7/26/2016
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2 answers
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I want to shoot travel time-lapses with a GoPro and a panning mount. Many mounts rotate 360° in 60 minutes, but when hiking I’d prefer a full 360° rotation in 30 minutes. Will that make the finished time-lapse look less smooth, or does smoothness mainly depend on the shooting interval and final frame rate?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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You could do this if you want. The first question is how long a video do you want to produce? To make it look smooth, best to have about 25 or 30 frames per second.
So if you want a 1 minute video, you would need 1800 photos. Which means taking 60 photos per minute for 30 minutes, or 1 photo per second. So you can set your GoPro to record this.
Also depends on what you are recording in the timelapse. ie what is actually changing or moving. Some of the most impressive landscape timelapses feature changes in the weather, or clouds moving across the sky. In many places the weather can change dramatically in 30 minutes. But in other places the weather is more static, so a longer timelapse would be more interesting.
Originally by user11516. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user11516
10y ago
0
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A 30-minute 360° pan can still look smooth. The key factor is usually not the total pan time by itself, but how many frames you capture and how fast you play them back.
For smooth playback, time-lapse video is typically assembled at about 25–30 fps. So, for example, a 1-minute finished clip at 30 fps needs about 1,800 frames. If you shoot for 30 minutes, that works out to roughly 1 frame per second.
Whether 30 minutes or 60 minutes looks better also depends on the scene. If the subject changes quickly—moving clouds, changing weather, shifting light—a 30-minute move may be plenty and still look interesting. If the scene is more static, a longer time-lapse may produce a more dramatic result.
So yes, a 30-minute full rotation is workable; just match your capture interval to your desired clip length and frame rate.
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