GH3 for timelapse work

neokoo

Hi, does anyone here have info on following yet:

is the full 60-1/4000 shutter speed range available in electronic shutter mode or is the slowest speed limited to 1 second like on G5? ( Answered: it is limited to 1 second. )
what are the options in built-in intervalometer? Can the interval be lower than one second? Is there a setting for unlimited number of images or is 9999 maximum it will allow?
what is the fastest burst mode that allows automatic exposure between frames?
what is the save delay in burst mode and can it save previous shot while taking next one? In practice, can the equivalent of 360 degrees shutter angle be achieved at any shutter speed?

maxr

There's a TLTools 4.0.53 BETA-5 version (May 2014)
http://www.tltools.it/wp/en/download/

Also featuring clouds, also from Tortugal, also with music but with my general bad taste :P

LOOP

• Line of Fire by Junip
• grilling of fish (mi lunch)
• line from girl in Jim Jarmush’s Mystery Train
• 72 year old stone master Mr. Marqués steady and preciselly at work =)
+
• Akira Kurosawa’s Nora Inu (1949) final confrontation sequence scream

TL workflow

Before the idea of making a TL even crossing my mind, look, be participant
of the wonders of this life, no bullshit, that’s most important… at least 4 me.

GH3 camera in M mode + pany 14-140 @ 14mm / tripod
5’’ interval \ shuter 1/2000 \ ISO 200 \ f6.3 – first hand of smoke paint

LR + LRtimelapse back und forward \ 3 strategic keyframes spies
exported as 658 Full HD 16 bit Tifs – disengagng WC props and lunch

AE for sazoning / mixed my own LUT (NK-7) with a sepia one / desaturated /
twin masks to ease focus :P \ mixed of @TrackZillas great grain recipe with
my own spitting \ queu comp, save project \ about an hour of AeRender – time for second hand of painting

Having too much fun linerly mixing stuff inside good old Quicktime buddy
I had to make room for H the Seagull, so just threw on him an arri and a speedgraVe LUTs
Everything needs to end, so I say it’s good enough :-) – cleaning the mess, but my hands still white of paint

Now’s completelly dark, I’m happy with the result… and grateful,
it’s not everyday I manage to balance such “different jobs”
time for piggy shower and dinner, yihhhhhhaaaaaAAAA!!!

gashô

lvidigal

GH3 - 12-35mm

jamesnorden

I've used the GH3 for quite a few timelapses - the most recent one is here which involves timelapses and hyperlapses:

I've found the GH3 to be great camera for timelapses - having an in-built intervalometer makes life a lot easier and being able to play back what you have shot gives a quick snapshot of what it might look like. Real HDR timelapse in-built would be nice though.

maxr

BTW if anyone from Panasonic is reading this, I have some firmware/software suggestions for Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 just regarding timelapse:

Aknowledge and FIX the ducking dark areas tone shifting, that's about the most unreliable, shameful and non-pro bug/issue I've seen in a piece of equipment at this price tag!!!
You could make up to us (your customers) making a real nice Intervalometer, with HDR capabilities, bulb ramping and more detailed time control, but first fix the hole on the roof ;-)
This one is a bit different; would be very nice if you implemented a sound recorder on GH3 camera, yes the one you endorse as being portable µFT top of the pops for video (image&sound), so just sound recorder shouldn't be so hard, with different formats and compression settings. Also I personally would love a feature that allowed me to record audio non-stop and simultaneously while timelapse was taking place so later I may be able to edit the sound and use it as background/effex in the final mix. Extra cool and most necessary/coherent would be some sort of timecode or reference so that to find which sound synced with each still would be no sweat

ok, that's it... for now

maxr

he-hey @neokoo I've been using mpegstreamclip for years, why didn't I use it here???... mmm, ah yeah, 'cause I wanted to go with ut codecs and Mpsc gave me a can't set the compression buffer error message. Transcoding to VirtualDub still the achyles heal in my workflow for this kind of TL. I haven't figure out yet if it's working (though everything indicates so) at 8bit or 10bit. In the beginning I wanted to use ut 10bit 422, I'm pretty sure I can further reduce luma banding in the sky :D, now I'm seeing better fit a proRES 444 or any other good 444 instead. Anyway, I installed quicktime for windows, download some interesting opensource conversion projects... let's see, lets eat first, je je. Now that plans have changed may give mr blue dots another go. Chiiirs neokoo

neokoo

@maxr

I am not sure about this, but MPEG Streamclip is worth trying: http://www.squared5.com/

maxr

It is not very interesting view, but as I am still training and making lots of last minute changes it is more handy to just point the camera out of the window

SOUNDTRACK Cocktail mix of Beastie Boys' Just a Test + Juan Profundo's A pom pom + el inimitable maestro François Vallaeys' Agranda La Puerta Padre + Boards of Canada's Into The Rainbow Vein + Ada Milea's nari irish and still some Ryuishi Sakamoto's background hisssssssssss :D

The bigger IQ loss I noticed was on roundtrip conversion from MOV to AVI; which I end up doing with iFFmpeg (had some issues with Quicktime); and of course from final master output to x264, anyway I used this A2 handbrake preset,
Is there natively for mac a better way of transcoding MOV to AVI and viceversa without IQ loos?
I found TEncoder but win version only and can only run it 32 bit mode...

gashô

MikeLinn

maxr

hey there pips!
first I'll leave here my last two posts, I think may be of timelapsers' interest
Desert deflicker for rawtherapee and TLtools both free plugin and program

this TL world is very dense, I have so many questions... but I'll go easy:
given same size of frame, is there any difference when keyframing a motion/animating a (tif) image sequence or a (uncompressed) video file in after effects (or other composing apps)?

gashô

vicharris

Ahhhhh, thanks guys. Good info!

matthere

@vicharris an interesting post if you want to explore creating a tilt adapter quite easily for m43 using a body cap and rear lens cap from some legacy lenses can be found here..
http://drinkcat.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/tilt-adapter-for-micro-four-third-part1.html

griplimited

@vicharris, it put's your focal point at one area while the rest is essentially blurred/out of focus. You just need to be far enough back where it makes it looks good with everything scaled down. Commercially, I've seen this used on an AllState commercial and also in the movie Social Network where the twins lose their rowing competition. There's a post here with some examples from GH2 owners here.

vicharris

So does using a TILT adapter make it look like it's fake? Not questioning anyone, I'd just like to know. It looks like something from a Tim Burton movie and I like it!

matthere

:)

Vitaliy_Kiselev

The website TimeLaps.org got informed by Panasonic that they are will fix the intervalometer issue with the next firmware!

Hmm. Good news.

larsarus

That particular timelapse was made with the ARAX TILT adapter if you read the description, so any in-camera effect was probably not used.

matthere

@vicharris the GH3 has a miniature setting, which mimics the use of a tilt shift lens (blur is applied to the top and bottom of the footage) and frames are dropped to create the timelapse effect, the miniature mode also boosts saturation a little, all of this can be done quite easily in post, but in cam can look effective, best used when looking down at wide landscapes.
PS. There are no dumb questions :)

vicharris

I'm going to ask a dumb question. Why the hell does that TL video of the carnival look like a miniature set? It's just amazing looking.

jfilmmaker

Hey guys, I'm having trouble getting my Macbook Pro, OS10.8.2, to read the Panasonic GH3 specific .RW2 raw files so that I can make a timelapse video. SilkyPix that game with GH3 can read the .RW2 files, but no other Mac application that I have can also read them, and no application I have can read and assemble them in bulk ala movie. Anyone have advice on this???

Thanks!

neokoo

@Tron

As far as I understand, 180 degree shutter angle rule is mostly about creating motion blur at 24/25 fps that helps to get (specific kind of) perception of movement for subjects that viewers are used to seeing in realtime. Human subjects especially tend to move at a set range of speeds, and motion blur they create at 1/48 or 1/50 shutter speed is close to what many perceive as "natural". This can be tested with moving people, faces changing expressions etc. So for example, at 50 fps I'd still use 1/50 shutter speed to keep that same motion blur, even if it is equivalent to 360 degree shutter angle.

Since timelapse is not perceived as realtime, and different interval and shutter speed combinations create different kind of perception of movement depending on the subject, getting aesthetically pleasing movement and motion blur is more complicated. I'd say equivalent of 360 degree shutter is a better try in many cases. There are exceptions of course.

Funny thing about capturing slices of time is that the further you go from trying to capture realtime in human perspective, the more of a mindscrew it becomes...

dacloo

beautiful timelapse video!

Vitaliy_Kiselev

jfilmmaker

@tron Oh, okay, thanks!

Tron

@jfilmmaker Depends on the shot interval you select and the playback speed. I would recommend 2 second intervals to preserve the 180 degree shutter rule. 16:9 GH3 RAWs take up around 14MB each, so 64GB = 65536MB or 4681 frames. That is over 3 minutes of footage at 24fps playback. In my opinion you would be best served to invest in the battery grip, the camera will literally run all day long on two batteries and the electronic shutter uses hardly any power.

jfilmmaker

What's the maximum footage time capturable with 1 second electronic shutter, 64GB memory card? What are reasonable battery solutions? (An car battery seems a bit heavy handed, but hey, maybe that's the way to go!) Thx!

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