HOWTO: time lapse movies on a mac

bbftx commented today:

Steve,
I really like your time lapse videos. Someone posted a link to them on the Home Shop Machinist metalworking site. Could you post a brief description of how you set up your camera to do the time lapse recording and perhaps a quick note on how the editing was done? I assume you’re using some of that good Mac software. (Apple rocks!).

Thanks for sharing your videos.

A quick check of the timelapse movie of the lathe work I’d just posted shows that yes, wow, 450 people have checked that movie out so far. :) I’m glad I posted the URL back to my main site.

Timelapse on the mac is pretty easy. There’s two programs that I know of that will do this with relative ease. One is iStopMotion and the other is BTV Pro.

Boinx iStopMotion certainly has an enormous list of features, one of which is timelapse. I like this program a lot for different reasons, timelapse is not one of them. It does work, so if your interest is primarily in stop motion image capture for animation, this is the king. :)

Bensoftware’s BTV Pro is what I use. It’s very good at timelapse, and motion sensing video capture, amongst other things. I’d highly recommend it for timelapse like the videos I’ve shot. For some reason, I’ve had to end up capturing the movie as a series of images into a folder, then use the built-in “create movie from folder of images” function. whatever, it works quite well.

more posts on timelapse video are here.

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  • Jono Lapse
    Thanks for the great info on Time Lapse stuff, Steve... I am now going to go time lapse - record something of lesser value and put it on the Internet for many to watch in wonderment. I will become a new superhero, who's special ability involves doing things on time... or, even in lesser time than ever expected. I too will build marvelous furniture in under three short yet captivating minutes!!! Watch me erect a house in under five... It will be done, and done quickly. 8)
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