Time Lapse, Sunset over Acadia National Park

Sunset and Rainbow - AcadiaTime Lapse photography gives me another tool when trying to express how I feel about a scene. This video showcases sunset over Acadia National Park.

Sometimes a single image is enough for me.  I feel artistically satisfied.  But there are times when I need to do more with the subject.  Time lapse, video clips, iPhoneography are all choices.  On location, I'm often juggling two cameras, tripods, iPhone to create a complete picture of the scene.  In the past, I used a large format camera, and a single image was perfect, and developing the color film in the darkroom left me lots of creative license to interpret the transparency.

With digital photography, I have transitioned to a quicker pace, especially with the instant review on the LCD.  That feedback helps me decide camera settings and review composition too.  Once the time lapse sequence and interval is set up, I truly enjoy the location, as some sunsets, like this one, lasted 45 minutes. 

Here's a time lapse sequence, photographed at the Ocean Benches, a detour off the Sundew Trail at Acadia National Park, on the Schoodic Peninsula. I set up my camera facing the setting sun over Bar Harbor and Acadia.

Time Lapse Processes

1. Set up a sweet location for photography, I like to have lots of sky in my frame if it's a sunset.
2. Make sure your subject will be interesting at the bottom of the frame.
3. Check for a fully charged battery
4. Shut off the LCD preview
5. Focus while you can see the foreground subject, NOT too close.
6. At this point I set up my aperture for deep depth of field, about f16-22
7. Set camera to manual, and check your exposure.  On Aperture priority, the camera picks shutter
8. Shut off auto everything
9. Set up Intervalometer, it helps to have a minimum of 300 images for a good time lapse, in the case of this sunset time lapse, the interval was 5 seconds, for 600 photos.

Post-Production

1. Upload to Lightroom
2. Develop for the best solution to your color, light.
3. Edit and export images as jpegs – I photograph RAW files (Nikon NEF)
4. Import jpeg images in a timeline in iMovie
5. Set duration of each photo to .1 or .2 seconds
6. Add transitions, titles and audio
7. Export .mov and share