Time lapse camera experiements

While I was in NY a couple of weeks ago I picked up a time lapse camera, the Brinno TLC100. I bought the camera to record an upcoming house project and my requirements were that it was weather proof and cheap. Weather proof because it will spend a good few months outdoors and cheap because I think my limited creativity, not the camera, will be the limiting factor in the movie I create. I also don't trust it not to go walkabout if I leave it in the garden and I would be more likely to replace a cheap camera.

The Brinno also appeared because it takes AA batteries and records onto a USB memory stick, both of which should be quite easy to swap over each week as the project goes on.

The camera was much larger than I expected, noticeably bigger than the palm of my hand with my fingers outstretched, but as I don't need a small camera that shouldn't matter.

One of my concerns was that the software which comes with the camera only runs on a PC and I have a Mac. I was at my parents over the weekend and was able to 'set up' the USB memory stick using their Windows based PC. The setup seems to be a one off event so I should now be good to go. (I plan to purchase at least one more memory stick so I have a back up as well.)

I made a couple of time lapse videos over the weekend just to play with the camera. The camera has a light meter and you can set it not to take pictures during the dark / night and as the manual isn't particularly clear, I wanted to make sure I had this set up correctly.

The first time lapse I tried to create didn't record.

The second was of Becks and I having breakfast. As an experiment with the camera it worked really well, but it isn't particularly flattering so I won't be sharing that one.

The third movie was taken out of the widow to test the night sensor function. I proved I'd set the light meter up correctly as it didn't record during the night, but as a movie it wasn't so great. The picture frequency wasn't high enough and the camera caught its own reflection in the window.

The fourth and final experiment of the weekend was taken out in the garden. I perched the camera on a wooden stake in the garden and the wind blew it off, twice. However, when it did take pictures the capture rate of a photo every 5mins worked better.

Here's a compilation of the videos I took this weekend. Definitely no masterpiece, but I'm pleased with the camera and what I've learnt about the settings during the past weekend.


First Timelapse Camera Experiment from Richard Elliot on Vimeo.