Filed under: Accessories, Software, iPhone
App makes time lapse photography easy for iPhone
iPhone TimeLapse Test from digitalurban on Vimeo.
Here's a fun application. TimeLapse [App Store link] uses your iPhone's camera to take photos at regular intervals. You can have one photo snapped as infrequently as every 24 hours, or as often as every 10 seconds, which is about as fast as it can snap and store a photo. After you've collected all of your photos (I told it to stop after 300), you can easily dump them into iMovie or QuickTime Pro and make a simple time lapse movie. Neat!
You can set a delay before it takes a shot, which means you can also use TimeLapse as a timer to allow the photographer to get in the frame. Additionally, it could work as a rudimentary surveillance camera. While it's running, a display lists when it started, the time of the last picture taken and the approximate time of when it will stop.
Here are a couple of things I learned while briefly playing with it this afternoon. First, mute your iPhone before beginning or you'll have to hear the camera's "capture" noise over and over again, which is kind of annoying. Also, enable Airplane Mode or an incoming call will interrupt your photoshoot.
For $0.99US, TimeLapse is fun.
[Via Digital Urban]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
sujovian said 12:34PM on 2-04-2009
how do you mount your iphone on a tripod?
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Freak Mojo said 12:41PM on 2-04-2009
For a dollar, I am definitely willing to try this out and have some fun with it :) Thanks for sharing.
Now I need to figure out the best way to get it standing and remember to face it the right way.
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grifmx said 12:45PM on 2-04-2009
now if the iphone only had an 8mp camera on it, this would rock!
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EMoShunz said 1:10PM on 2-04-2009
i was just coming to comment it'd be cool to tie this in somehow to that 4MP iphone upgrade software that snaps a bunch of photo's at once and stitches them together.
R.Aubin said 1:54PM on 2-04-2009
Anyone else think that leaving your phone on for hours at a time unattended might shorten it's lifespan? Otherwise I think the idea is cool.
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Mystic said 3:32PM on 2-04-2009
It probably could shorten it. I took a 30 min timelapse, set to 5 sec interval, while connected to the dock and the iphone got pretty warm.
SjG said 1:08PM on 2-04-2009
One thing to watch out for -- cameras like those in the iPhone (or non-SLR digital cameras) expose the CCD or CMOS sensor even when not taking a picture. This can matter to you if the sun passes through your field of view while taking a timelapse sequence.
Most digital sensors cannot withstand being pointed into the sun for extended periods of time. You can damage your sensor!
Take it from someone who seared red lines across the sensors of several Nikon Coolpix cameras (the first time was ignorance, subsequent times the result of long-term timelapse platforms getting moved or having shadow-casting barriers changed).
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gnurr.temp said 1:12PM on 2-04-2009
Neat idea but, for heaven's sake, It's a PHONE! How long and how frequently do you REALLY want to disable your phone to make a time lapse movie?
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exNewr said 1:17PM on 2-04-2009
iPhone to tripod? Great for panoramic shots as well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/opusmark/sets/72157611264211206/
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Josh said 1:41PM on 2-04-2009
Sorry for injecting a jailbreaking segment in here but according to Saurik (Jay Freeman, creator of Cycorder, a video recorder for jailbroken iPhones) the camera can take pictures a whole lot faster than 1 per every 10 seconds. Maybe I'm mistaken or confused as to the context of the article above but Im under the impression that Cycorder simply takes a bunch of pics every second along with audio and run just renders them as a video.
Please clarify if I'm mistaken.
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exNewt said 1:50PM on 2-04-2009
Cycorder and VideoRecorder3G record at much, much lower resolution than the camera's photos, hence the ability to shoot motion with sound.
Loris said 2:02PM on 2-04-2009
The "1 per every 10 seconds" is a limit set by the iPhone SDK when coding App the legal way. You're right about the fact that jailbroken App can do a lot faster, but AppStore apps can't :(
Marc said 2:29PM on 2-04-2009
Loris is right, it all comes down to the SDK and what apple will legally allow the iPhone to do. Jailbreak for the win here!
Joachim said 3:14PM on 2-04-2009
I'm surprised the app got accepted by Apple anyway since the only "legal" way to take pictures is to use the official image picker (as the facebook app does).
jmetts said 2:21PM on 2-04-2009
Giving it a shot right now while at work "working". Gonna timelapse my office. Boring and cool.
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brian said 2:41PM on 2-04-2009
This is neat, and as a practical note for those who don't know, iMovie can do time-lapse movies as well. (Not sure where it is in 8 or 9, but it was in 6.) Works with an attached camera or iSight. And since a laptop or camera on a tripod is stable and not taking phone calls, it's a little easier than standing perfectly still with your phone. :-)
http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/create_timelapse_videos_with_imovie_hd_6.html
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sodapop said 6:08PM on 2-04-2009
Cool app. Now if only I can find an app that will make the Apple AV Cable for the iPhone useful. Right now it only plays iTUnes on the tv. It doesnt even allow me to show my pictures :(
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exNewt said 9:08PM on 2-04-2009
There's at least 2 Apps for jailbroken iPhones that put a lot more out thru the AV cables...
deucethreat said 4:45PM on 2-04-2009
don't you hate it when color bars fly in front of your camera during a time lapse? That always happens! ;)
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JKT said 12:12AM on 2-05-2009
This idea seems cool but I'm pretty much tethered to my iPhone since I got it 6 months ago. I use it for so many things that leaving it to take a few hours of movie shots just ain't gonna happen. :-)
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