Timelapse
A technique that captures a series of photos at set intervals and plays them back as a video, compressing hours or days of change into seconds.
Timelapse photography reveals changes invisible to normal observation: clouds racing across skies, flowers blooming, cities transitioning from day to night, or construction projects progressing over months. The technique requires consistent framing (tripod essential), consistent exposure (manual mode or exposure smoothing), and careful interval selection — 1-5 seconds for fast clouds, 30-60 seconds for sunsets, minutes or hours for construction. Modern cameras and smartphones include built-in timelapse modes that handle capture and assembly automatically. Post-processing often involves deflicker algorithms to smooth exposure variations, color grading for consistency, and stabilization for any tripod drift. The resulting videos are typically 24-30fps, so 1 hour shot at 5-second intervals produces 720 frames or 24-30 seconds of footage.
Related Terms
Long Exposure
A photography technique using slow shutter speeds to capture motion blur, light trails, or smoothed water and clouds over an extended time period.
Bracketing
Capturing multiple shots of the same scene at different exposure levels to ensure optimal exposure or enable HDR processing.
Shutter Speed
The duration for which the camera sensor is exposed to light, measured in fractions of a second or full seconds.