iMotion App for Timelapse Movies
Ever see a clip of clouds moving across the sky — you know, sped up a bit? Those clips look incredibly gorgeous! Well, that’s an example of timelapse photography. It’s a pretty simple concept really. You set a camera on a tripod, have it take a photos at some set time interval, and encode the photos into a movie. That’s pretty much it. You might get into more details if the light will be changing over the entire event, or if your camera doesn’t take exactly the same exposure — but, mobile apps can greatly simply the process. You can get some incredible results yourself!
Although the iPhone has a builtin time-lapse mode for it’s camera, it’s missing two important features. First, the camera’s interval is set to one photo per second — no exceptions. This interval is great for most things, like clouds rolling across the sky; but you’ll need to change that if you wanted to capture a slower event such as a flower blooming. Secondly, the movie can only be played back at 30 fps; you may desire to have the final movie play slower or faster.
iMotion is an incredibly easy app to use, and it’s free. It overcomes the two limitations of the iPhone’s builtin timelapse mode listed above. You may set to the camera’s photo capturing interval from 0.1 sec to 1 photo per day. You may also control the play back speed of the final movie from 1 to 30 fps.
Here’s a sample movie produced with the iMotion app.
I was caught off guard when I stepped onto a balcony in Skagway Alaska and saw this Princess cruse line vessel pulling into port. I quickly grabbed my iPhone, started up the iMotion app, and braced it against the balcony rail. My phone remained handheld for the duration of this video. There is a little up-down tilt visible in the results. Still, a nice clip. The interval was set to one photo per second with playback at 30 fps.