Time Lapse Advice

[stevesheppardson]

I have little experience of digital cameras but have been asked to

suggest a photographic setup and would be grateful for any advice

people can give.

 

The idea is to provide a record of the course of development on a

building site over a period of 12-18 months with images captured at

about hourly intervals. The camera would not be easily accessible

over this period but would have a cable to which a laptop could be

connected to regularly download images. Is this feasible with a still

camera or do I need to think of some form of setup with a web-cam and

frame-grabbing software?

 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Steve Sheppardson

 

London

[darklights]

The time period alone screams webcam set-up.

[nigel whitaker]

You could do the task with a digital camera thethered to a laptop, I have recently bought a Canon Powershot Pro1, and the bundled software allows just this facility. In fact, if the JPEG resolution were reduced, a 1GB card could hold up to 8000 images, and the camera has an interval feature built in, but I feel economically, a high quality webcam would better suit your needs.

 

If sited to run unattended for such a long time period, security could be a factor, as someone may inadvertantly move it, or worse.

[stevesheppardson]

Stephen/Nigel,

 

Thanks very much for your comments. Looks as if a web-cam is going to be the way to go.

 

Once again - thanks for the advice.

 

Steve

[joe_photo]

I'd think a bit about what you want your finished project to look like. As the lighting changes during the day you'll have shadows moving through the frame. Did you plan to shoot 24 hours a day? I would almost think that one shot per day at the same time of day would make for a smoother effect and show the building going up quickly. If you could use two cameras and have one of them with more regular intervals it would better document the details of construction and have a flashy speedy clip to show quicker progress.