Quick and Easy Electronic Time Lapse
by trebuchet03 in Circuits > Cameras
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Quick and Easy Electronic Time Lapse
This is a rather short hack for my point and shoot camera. I'm going to disassemble my camera, tap into the shutter/focusing switches and then wire them up to an adjustable timer circuit.
If you've seen my past instructables -- you know I'm a big fan of Time Lapse. However, using a miniDV digital video camera makes things quite expensive and the quality isn't quite as high as it would be with a digital camera. For those with nicer cameras with remote triggers - this really isn't too important for you. But for the rest of us with $75 floor model digital cameras, please - step into my office :)
I wanted to do some time lapse of Robot doing the robot -- the response I got was:
Unfortunate
If you've seen my past instructables -- you know I'm a big fan of Time Lapse. However, using a miniDV digital video camera makes things quite expensive and the quality isn't quite as high as it would be with a digital camera. For those with nicer cameras with remote triggers - this really isn't too important for you. But for the rest of us with $75 floor model digital cameras, please - step into my office :)
I wanted to do some time lapse of Robot doing the robot -- the response I got was:
I do not do "the robot" I am robot.
Unfortunate
Parts and Tools
Tools
Suitable Screw Driver(s) to partially disassemble your camera
Soldering Iron
Solder
You'll probably want a multimeter or continuity tester
Parts
Donor Camera
Timing Circuit*
Thin Wire (connectors optional)
12 Volt Power Supply
*For simplicity and to make reproduction easier for everyone else - I used a timer kit. While it's more expensive, it gets the job done and is a fairly decent package as far as adjust ability is concerned. If you want to build you're own - all you really need is an adjustable astable 555 circuit.
I bought my kit from an Orlando based surplus store - but the kit is widely available online. Searching Google for "MK111" yields a bunch of results for the very same kit I used.
Suitable Screw Driver(s) to partially disassemble your camera
Soldering Iron
Solder
You'll probably want a multimeter or continuity tester
Parts
Donor Camera
Timing Circuit*
Thin Wire (connectors optional)
12 Volt Power Supply
*For simplicity and to make reproduction easier for everyone else - I used a timer kit. While it's more expensive, it gets the job done and is a fairly decent package as far as adjust ability is concerned. If you want to build you're own - all you really need is an adjustable astable 555 circuit.
I bought my kit from an Orlando based surplus store - but the kit is widely available online. Searching Google for "MK111" yields a bunch of results for the very same kit I used.
Assemble Timer Kit
Gentlemen -- and women.... Start your soldering irons! My kit went together in about 10 minutes. Not hard at all. Simply solder it together, and test it out to make sure it works ;)
Disassemble Your Camera
This is a little more complicated. Some cameras are really easy - other are a little more difficult. I'm not going to get into the details of disassembly here (there will be a separate instructable for my specific camera) - but in general, be very careful and don't loose any parts. Especially if this is your only camera ;)
The goal is to find your shutter and focusing switch(es). Mine happened to be in a sub assembly of the camera surface mounted on a film pcb.
The goal is to find your shutter and focusing switch(es). Mine happened to be in a sub assembly of the camera surface mounted on a film pcb.
Wire Up Your Camera
VIA solder, conductive adhesive or in some other fashion - solder on some thin wire to both switches and to your ground. The idea is to close the circuit when the timer is triggered thus triggering the camera to focus and take a picture.
How to find the correct solder pad?
There's a few ways to do it... You can assume that it is simply grounding a positive terminal and use a bit of wire to poke around... Or you can use the continuity tester (perhaps on a multimeter). Obviously, you need your camera to function while you do this - so you might have your camera in some sort of Frankenstein condition (and on) for a short time.
How to find the correct solder pad?
There's a few ways to do it... You can assume that it is simply grounding a positive terminal and use a bit of wire to poke around... Or you can use the continuity tester (perhaps on a multimeter). Obviously, you need your camera to function while you do this - so you might have your camera in some sort of Frankenstein condition (and on) for a short time.
Reassemble Camera - Attach to Timer
Reassemble your camera - you may need to cut a small hole for your new wires. Then attach your wires to your timer circuit on the normally open ("NO") side of the relay and the common ground ("COM"). The polarity does not matter too much as we're only completing a circuit with no components in between.
I ran into trouble here. Apparently, I was shorting the trigger switch to another grounded component. Not good. It basically locked up the camera as it didn't know what to do with the bad data. Just be cautious on your wire placement and add some insulation if necessary -- a little bit of hot glue works wonders ;)
I ran into trouble here. Apparently, I was shorting the trigger switch to another grounded component. Not good. It basically locked up the camera as it didn't know what to do with the bad data. Just be cautious on your wire placement and add some insulation if necessary -- a little bit of hot glue works wonders ;)
Take Pictures!
Now with your camera fully assembled and your timer circuit wired up and connected -- you should be able to take some sweet time lapse photos ready to be put into an awesome time lapse video :)
How do you make time lapse video? If you search Google for free Time Lapse software -- it's a nightmare. If you happen to have found something that will string together images into video - for free; please share :) Otherwise, here's my inefficient method of making video out of these images for free (paid for with time).
First, we need a few things.
1. Movie Salsa -- this is software explicitly for stringing images together, and is shareware (free to try type of deal). You can Download it here
2. Other Movie Software - I'm using Windows Movie Maker 2 (aka mm2) because it's bundled with you windows folk
If you're using a mac... I think imovie2 has a time lapse function, but I'm 100% sure quicktime Pro does (for those of you that paid the $30 for it).
Why?
Well, first I tried taking mm2 and setting the default image time to .125 seconds and importing all my pictures. That worked fine for a small batch of images. mm2 has a rather interesting
flaw known as the "complexity barrier" - movie files that have too many clips, transitions, effects etc. etc. just won't render. 800+ images is beyond the complexity barrier :p The solution
is to break up the render process into smaller chunks - then combine them into a final video. This takes quite some time.
Solution
Movie Salsa will render images into video much faster (and more easily) than mm2 can. Not to mention, movie salsa will grab a whole directory and go to town rather than importing into some newfangled library. The drawback is -- the free version of movie salsa will only do 50 images locked at 10 frames per second (each images gets .1 seconds). This still works depending on your photo delay. I do support the small time programmers, and honestly - I'm thinking abut buying movie salsa for my personal use :)
On to directions
1. Taking 50 sequential chunks of images - and put them into labeled folders (1,2,3... etc.)
2. Render each folder into separate video files using movie salsa -- be sure to play with the video size and don't forget to make a unique name for each video
3. Import all of your new video into mm2
4. Add each video to the mm2 time line
5. Save your movie file (follow on screen prompts)
6. Upload to the inter web and share with the world :)
Considerations
Remember that when you're dealing with 800+ images -- it's a bit of work to separate into 50 image chunks. But believe me, it's not as bad as doing the whole task with mm2 alone. If you want to save time, go ahead and buy move salsa, Quicktime pro, or whatever third party software you'd like :) This is simply the poor man's (cough: college student) method to get around with free to try software.
How do you make time lapse video? If you search Google for free Time Lapse software -- it's a nightmare. If you happen to have found something that will string together images into video - for free; please share :) Otherwise, here's my inefficient method of making video out of these images for free (paid for with time).
First, we need a few things.
1. Movie Salsa -- this is software explicitly for stringing images together, and is shareware (free to try type of deal). You can Download it here
2. Other Movie Software - I'm using Windows Movie Maker 2 (aka mm2) because it's bundled with you windows folk
If you're using a mac... I think imovie2 has a time lapse function, but I'm 100% sure quicktime Pro does (for those of you that paid the $30 for it).
Why?
Well, first I tried taking mm2 and setting the default image time to .125 seconds and importing all my pictures. That worked fine for a small batch of images. mm2 has a rather interesting
flaw known as the "complexity barrier" - movie files that have too many clips, transitions, effects etc. etc. just won't render. 800+ images is beyond the complexity barrier :p The solution
is to break up the render process into smaller chunks - then combine them into a final video. This takes quite some time.
Solution
Movie Salsa will render images into video much faster (and more easily) than mm2 can. Not to mention, movie salsa will grab a whole directory and go to town rather than importing into some newfangled library. The drawback is -- the free version of movie salsa will only do 50 images locked at 10 frames per second (each images gets .1 seconds). This still works depending on your photo delay. I do support the small time programmers, and honestly - I'm thinking abut buying movie salsa for my personal use :)
On to directions
1. Taking 50 sequential chunks of images - and put them into labeled folders (1,2,3... etc.)
2. Render each folder into separate video files using movie salsa -- be sure to play with the video size and don't forget to make a unique name for each video
3. Import all of your new video into mm2
4. Add each video to the mm2 time line
5. Save your movie file (follow on screen prompts)
6. Upload to the inter web and share with the world :)
Considerations
Remember that when you're dealing with 800+ images -- it's a bit of work to separate into 50 image chunks. But believe me, it's not as bad as doing the whole task with mm2 alone. If you want to save time, go ahead and buy move salsa, Quicktime pro, or whatever third party software you'd like :) This is simply the poor man's (cough: college student) method to get around with free to try software.