@tida very impressive, Komplimente!

"3 Your work flow is for Sony Vegas on a PC. Is there any work flow for Final Cut Pro that you can recommend? It looks like you're doing something much more complicated than just throwing the video on a timeline and speeding it up"

@mangomonster you don't need vegas to make this nice timelapses. Most was based on freeware. That are AviSynth scripts which run in combination with Virtualdub, AvsMod, MeGui etc....

Impotant is that it should be blended near 360 degree (this time not 180) rule. Then moving subjects will just flow away naturally...

You could also start with 24p at 1/25s and speed it up by blending as you want like 2 times, 4 times as @balazer decribed, 8 times, 16 times etc...

======== Script for just doubling the rate would look like this:

DirectShowSource("C:\dir1\dir2\file.mts")

c1=selectevery(last, 2, 0)

c2=selectevery(last, 2, 1)

Overlay(c1, c2, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

AssumeFPS(24)

======== Script for 8 times speed up:

DirectShowSource("C:\dir1\dir2\file.mts")

c1=selectevery(last, 8, 0)

c2=selectevery(last, 8, 1)

c3=selectevery(last, 8, 2)

c4=selectevery(last, 8, 3)

c5=selectevery(last, 8, 4)

c6=selectevery(last, 8, 5)

c7=selectevery(last, 8, 6)

c8=selectevery(last, 8, 7)

blend1 = Overlay(c1, c2, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

blend2 = Overlay(c3, c4, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

blend3 = Overlay(c5, c6, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

blend4 = Overlay(c7, c8, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

blend5 = Overlay(blend1, blend2, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

blend6 = Overlay(blend3, blend4, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

Overlay(blend5, blend6, mode="blend", opacity=0.5)

AssumeFPS(24)

===================

etc....

@mangomonster,

No, you cannot have separate GOP length settings for 24H and 24L. If you need the absolute longest recording times, you'll need GOP13 and 1/2 s shutter. If you can make do with somewhat shorter recording times, I'd suggest loading a GOP1 patch setting like Aquamotion v1 and shooting in VMM300% mode. That would leave you with a standard 24p mode when not doing time lapses. Another option would be to use Cake. With the shutter at 1/2 s, you'll have recording times about 4 times as long as with a normal shutter speed.

I don't know anything about Final Cut Pro. Most video editing software has some ability to speed up footage, but it might be limited to 4x or something like that, and it might not give you control over how frames are blended. If you shoot in VMM300% mode, you'll be starting with a 300% speed-up, which you can speed up further in your video editing software.

@duartix I used only one camera. You record at normal conditions (1/25s, 1/50s, 1/60s or 1/100s, 1/125s for slowmo at high ISO) before or after the timelapse record (1/2s at low ISO) takes place.

For a slowmo part you could transfer the 50i/60i file to 50p/60p by AviSynth deinterlace plugin Yadif and go back to 24p for the final fusion.

Important is just not to move the camera and take care about same aperture and focusing conditions. You will need of course an ND Fader and adjust it as well to get the right exposure either for the shadows or clouds.

As soon I'll get time enougth I will post some Avisynth scripts. At the moment I think the macro function in AvsPmod would help for a very quick and simple workflow as you can generate and save different scripts at the same time. Final generation of mp4-files could carried out in MeGui where generation can take place for more then one file automatically. Otherwise, lossless AVI-files by Virtualdub or again AvsPmod for max quality.

Would be great if somebody has other ideas for a very effective workflow....

I did create a macro for AvsPmod for a simple timelapse conversion procedure. The attatched timelapse.py file has to be installed into the 'macros' folder (or sub folders) of AvsPmod. If you start AvsPmod new then you can click in the macros menue (or sub menue) just on 'TimeLapse'. Choose in the file open dialog box the mts file from which you would like to obtain a timelapse. Enter in the second dialog box like it is shown in below image the three requested parameters. By means of subsequent third FileSave dialog box you can save the avs-file of the AviSynth-script... done.

Now you can transfer this script by MeGUI, Virtualdub etc. to the new mp4/avi etc. file. That's the simples workflow I have found to create the required script and archive what you have done. Maybe it could be a good alternative to the workflow of @GH13Timelapser.

Instead of Overlay method described by @balazer I used a TemporalSoftener method. That should give similar results, might be little bit slower but gives you the flexibility to speed up by 2x,3x,4x,5x etc. times. The Overlay method is good to speed up in the order of 2x,4x,8x times but it's hard to have this implemented all together in one routine.

I think the TemporalSoftener method has the potential to be used for a gradual speed up/slow down timelapse routine in the future.

Please give me some feedback about adjustments or other useful ideas....

Thanks guys... a bit overwhelming. I think I have Spanmybitchup v1 installed. It's 100mbit I think. So is that a GOP1 setting? I think I might just record using that at 300% speed. I also lowered the bit rate for 24L to around 40mbit to give me some peace of mind incase I get write errors.

There's just so much to know. I need to dedicate a day to just messing with this all. On the other spectrum is just using an intervalometer and shooting in RAW... which is tempting, but I also know very little about how to do it well.

@mangomonster, Spanmybitchup is 66 Mbps intra. It probably won't be great quality. I suggest using Aquamotion v1 with VMM 300% mode, or Aquamotion v1 with the GOP length changed to 13 and a 1/2 s shutter, or using duartix's TimeBuster settings.

I suggest Aquamotion v1 because I know it works to change the GOP length to 13 and shoot 24p with a 1/2 s shutter. I haven't tested that with Aquamotion v2. Also, I believe v1 is more reliable than v2. The quality is about the same.