Time lapse and canon 5D II

<p>OK I'm a dedicated film shooter who has just bought my first digital camera, the Canon 5D II - please don't tell them over at the large format forum!<br>

I have bought it mainly for time lapse photography for HD television. I have the TC-80N3 and it is easy to shoot the time lapse shots. But the next stage has got me, but I'm sure is very basic to most of you. How do I convert these time lapse shots to video at 25 fps at a quality suitable for HD television? What program do I use, can it be done in the EOS utility program, is Final Cut Pro suitable, or any of the Adobe CS programs any good? In the end I am just after the best way?<br>

Also what file size should I be shooting for this purpose, Jpeg L, M, or S? I feel many of you will tell me I should be shooting RAW, but I don't know how to process this as yet - that's my next lesson. <br>

I will be appreciative of your help and suggestions, and No the 5D won't convince me to give up film - at least I hope not!</p>

<p>All of the image sizes in both JPG and RAW are larger than 1080 HD video resolution, so if you're only shooting for video, use the smallest size (there are small RAW sizes too).<br>

The main reason to shoot RAW is if you may need to tweak it after the shooting, things like white balance, exposure, etc. If you shoot RAW you will need to batch convert all the files to JPG for the video editing program, I would recommend Lightroom for this task.</p>

<p>Quicktime Pro is great for animating together large batches of jpegs, and is reasonably inexpensive. Here are a couple of posts detailing on how to go about producing a time lapse video using an SLR:</p>

<p>http://www.randomfocus.net/2009/06/time-lapse-part-1-generating-image.html<br>

http://www.randomfocus.net/2009/06/time-lapse-part-2-animating-images.html</p>

<p>VirtualDub is free, and can take a pile of still images:</p>

<ol>

<li>resize them to whatever format you want</li>

<li>correct jitter</li>

<li>adjust levels between images to eliminate flicker (an annoying problem in time lapse work)</li>

<li>Assemble your final video</li>

</ol>

<p>http://www.virtualdub.org</p>

<p>Guys, thanks for your responses. It's exactly what I need to know. Shooting image file size, plus how to resize. And thanks for the programs of how to do it. Joseph, I had downloaded Quicktime Pro before your post came through. Pro worked very well and was easy, but I do like the features of VirtualDub. One of the problems I have with time lapse work is whether to leave the camera on auto exposure or manual. I have read that it is better to leave it on manual, but you can bet your life that as soon as you walk away a cloud will appear from nowhere. Also what happens when it goes from day to night. If your camera is on manual, then I could not imagine that you could change aperture in small enough increments over a couple of hours as the light changes completely. So I will download Virtual Dub.<br>

If anyone can give me any hints on the practice of time lapse then that would be great as well? Thanks for your responses.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>You're right - shooting in manual exposure mode is advisable. It avoids that nasty flickering issue that you would otherwise get since the camera isn't remetering for every single frame.<br>

With regard to the transition from day to night, that is a tricky one. In those cases, it probably is best to leave the camera metering, however I'd advise that you pick a nice fast ISO and wide aperture from the start in those cases. Once the light levels drop, you'll not want 10 second exposures when you are triggering your camera every 5 seconds.<br>

I'd also suggest that if you are going to meter for each shot, try to pick spot metering and centre your frame on something that isn't prone to large variations in light intensity. So for example, don't point it near a television screen.</p>