Time lapse cinematography has become very popular over the last few years. Time lapse sequences allow you to see things that aren’t normally noticed in real time. For instance, the time lapse shots down in downtown Roanoke on the City Market and bridge going by the Tubman Museum of Art, reveal clouds moving in two different patterns, actually opposite patterns.

This time lapse demo was done with a variety of cameras at resolutions of 4K and 1080. The final edit and master was done at 2K. The cameras used included a Panasonic GH2 hacked with Flowmotion V2 100 MBP/s firmware, a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, and a GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition.

The shots that were tracked were done with a Varavon 4′ slider outfitted with a Syrp Genie Motion Control Time Lapse Device. The unit is pretty cool actually. It will do pans or linear movements. The length of the linear movement is only limited by the length of the drive rope. More examples with longer runs are coming soon.

The lenses used were a Rokinon 16mm T2.2 Cine Lens with a Metabones Speedboster on the BMPCC and the Panasonic 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6.

All footage was shot in either CinemaDNG RAW, Panasonic RAW, or GoPro ProTune. Using the GH2 as a time-lapse capture device, I was able to shoot at almost a 5K resolution shooting stills. The stills were one light graded in Apple Aperture, exported as PSDs, and assembled as a 24fps sequence in QuickTime 7. The sequence was then exported to ProRes HQ and imported to DaVinci Resolve for further grading.

The footage from the BMPCC was shot in CinemaDNG RAW and one light graded in DaVinci Resolve, exported as ProRes HQ and edited in FCP X. The GoPro footage was treated similarly.