Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. Time-lapse photography can be considered to be the opposite of high speed photography.

Processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye, such as the motion of the sun and stars in the sky, become very pronounced. Time-lapse is the extreme version of the cinematography technique of undercranking, and can be confused with stop motion animation.

That tutorial will help you in making an intervalometer for free if you have a:

- programable calculator (as the Texas Instruments)

- a Sony/Minolta/Canon camera with known remote pins layout as described previously on Making a Remote Release Chord

- a 2.5mm stereo male jack for Canon or a CD-audio cable with 3/4 pins config (the one that goes from your pc cd drive to your sound board) for Sony/Minolta/Nikon

- a 2.5mm stereo male jack for the calculator side

How to proceed?

The calculator will be progammed to send an impulse in know intervals that we can decide in advance.When "Send" methods is invoked in a program on the calculator, all the 3 pins (if you have a Sony) or the 3 part of the 2.5mm jack (if you have Canon) are activated and the camera gets the commands to both release the shutter and auto-focus at the same time but, if the camera is set to manual focus, it will take a photo.

The calculator will send Voltage to the camera, so TRY at YOUR OWN RISK. I'm not responsable for any damage you will make using the tutorial links i will provide.

Basically, we have to build a cable from the pins of our Camera config (see Making a Remote Release Chord) to a 2.5mm male jack which will go in the 2.5mm socket of your Calculator (TI and Sharp have it).

Here are the tutorial links:

- TI-83 and Canon EOS Rebel

- TI-83 TI-84 and Canon 350D

- TI-89 and Canon EOS Rebel

- TI-86 and Canon XTi

Every combination is possible! The main thing is to build the right cable for our Camera/Calculator and then adapt the intervalometer code on the calculator programming language it use.

Actually i will post soon how to make time lapse using a Sony A300 (so, every sony alpha series) and a Sharp EL-9650 or a TI-92, so stay tuned.

Let's shoots!

Before taking shot we have to put everything in Manual Mode:

- Aperture and Shutter Speed

- Iso

- Focus

- White Balance

So we can always change our parameters while taking shots.

Imagine that we are taking a day long time lapse. When the night comes, we will have to change the shutter speed/aperture/iso properly to let the transitions between day and night light be as smooth as possible.

What after taking shots?

After building the cable and programming the calculator we can connect the cable from the camera to the calculator and execute the program. The camera will take shots in intervals by our choise.

Then we can use quick time or movie maker to create the movie by inserting all the shots we made.

Hope you like it, if so, please Share!