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Using the Interval Timer

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Started 3 years ago by alphanikonrex
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alphanikonrex

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Tomorrow I'll be participating in a geography trivia bee which (as usual) is also my responsibility to photograph for the yearbook. So I'm planning on setting my D300 up on a tripod somewhere and letting the interval timer do all the work.

To this day though I've had a pretty bad experience with the interval timer, never got it to work the way I've wanted it to. One time it'd took one shot and stopped, another time it took ten shots and stopped, and then there was the time when I thought it was on and it wasn't!

Anyway, I'm going to try and rig it up now, but if any of you guys who've used it before have any recommendations, please share :^) Thanks.

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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I find it works just fine, but the interface for setting up intervals is a pain.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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Yeah, it probably works great for me, I'm just doing something that causes it to mess up I think. If it doesn't AF will it stop taking pictures?

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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Also, any ideas for which exposure mode to use? Should I turn on bracketing?

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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Use manual mode. AF on what you want, then switch to manual focus, not doing either of those will cause problems. If you use any auto exposure mode your exposures will be all over the place, and the images wont look very uniform.

Setting the right number of photos to take, over a given amount of time is very important too.

Posted 3 years ago #
QuadraPixel

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It may have changed with firmware version A:1.10 B:1.10 (which is what I have). But let's see if I can walk you through it the easy way.

Bring up the ITS menu > select Now > set interval (delay between shots) H: M' S'' (Hours, Minutes, Seconds) > Select intvls X No. of shots IE "500x1=500" shots or "250x2=500" shots. > Start ON then press the OK button.

If you press the Dpad to the right, nothing will happen.

Always use the OK button when setting up your timer or you will get frustrated.

Also, set too many shots and stop it when your done. I also prefer using a small F number for the large DOF and Manual Focus to save power. Your will prob also want to turn Image Review OFF.

Posted 3 years ago #
QuadraPixel

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Speaking of interval timer shooting. Does anybody know of a good free program for making your shot's into a video for PC?

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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Thanks PB, I tried what you suggested and it's successfully gone to 150 shots, so it seems to be working fine. :^)

Now I just need to guess how many shots I'll need...maybe should I set it to 999 and then just shut it off when the thing ends?

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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QuadraPixel said:
Speaking of interval timer shooting. Does anybody know of a good free program for making your shot's into a video for PC?

Now don't go hijacking my thread ;^)

What do you have in mind—making a timelapse? I work on Mac, so it's hard for me to make a PC recommendation...

Posted 3 years ago #
QuadraPixel

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Just something that you load up your images, set a play back delay and it strings them into a video for you.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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QuadraPixel said:
It may have changed with firmware version A:1.10 B:1.10 (which is what I have). But let's see if I can walk you through it the easy way.

Bring up the ITS menu > select Now > set interval (delay between shots) H: M' S'' (Hours, Minutes, Seconds) > Select intvls X No. of shots IE "500x1=500" shots or "250x2=500" shots. > Start ON then press the OK button.

If you press the Dpad to the right, nothing will happen.

Always use the OK button when setting up your timer or you will get frustrated.

Also, set too many shots and stop it when your done. I also prefer using a small F number for the large DOF and Manual Focus to save power. Your will prob also want to turn Image Review OFF.

Thanks QuadraPixel, just went through those settings a few minutes a go and it seemed to work fine. My D300 came with 1.10 BTW :^)

Yeah, I got a little frustrated with the OK thing. And I don't like image review anyway, so it's off. But manual focus makes sense plus a small ƒ/#, except I'll be in low light...

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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QuadraPixel said:
Just something that you load up your images, set a play back delay and it strings them into a video for you.

Sorry, don't have anything come to mind (that's free and works on PC). I've used iStopMotion in the past for stuff like this but it costs money and is (I think) Mac only.

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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QuadraPixel said:
Speaking of interval timer shooting. Does anybody know of a good free program for making your shot's into a video for PC?

This one works great and also does image stacking for star trails images.
http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

Posted 3 years ago #
ChrisLange

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photoshop will do it if you have it. Import images as frames in the automate menu or some nonsense. You can also open an image sequence in quicktime.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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ChrisLange said:
You can also open an image sequence in quicktime.

Really? How?

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Here's a video I made using startrails from a skate sequence. It's at about actual speed (6 fps).
Skate Sequence AVI (17MB)

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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alphanikonrex:

I think that feature is only in QuickTime Pro. If you have QuickTime 7 then go into the "File" menu and choose "Open Image Sequence", it's just the easy. That feature is not in QuickTime X . (10.6 users take note of that).

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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PB PM said:
That feature is not in QuickTime X . (10.6 users take note of that).

Blast it all! I thought QuickTime X got all the features of QuickTime 7 Pro, like saving movies and such. Ah well.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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Darn it!

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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Sadly no, QuickTime X is far from being QuickTime Pro, it is missing a lot of features, which is why I still have QuickTime 7 Pro Installed.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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Really?

I just took a look at the menus and I'm just seeing a bunch of features coming to life in QuickTime X:

VS

VS

What am I missing out on?

Posted 3 years ago #
QuadraPixel

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Thanks for the program Jonny, seems to work if I don't try to use Divx to compress so I don't end up with 1gb files! lol

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Wait, are none of the codecs working for you, then? I think some will give you 10:1 or better compression (not sure about the quality, though).

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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Why do you want to do time lapse for a geography bee? I mean I know you're in it but let someone else take the pictures. And before you say, "no one else can take pictures like me" then you have failed to be a good photo editor if you don't trust your "staff" or at least teach them how to use the equipment. Besides having 100s of photos with the same view and perspective is boring unless it's something like a sunset or star trails.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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The thing is I don't know who else I can get to do it! This is just the bee for Ω8 (about 100 students) to choose the top four from about twenty (which we got during class). Getting someone else means pulling them out of class. That's a no-no.

Posted 3 years ago #

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Using the Interval Timer

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