importing a time lapse shot with a dslr

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Level 1

8 points

importing a time lapse shot with a dslr

I have editing a lot of video in FCP7 from footage shot with my canon t2i, all in either 720p or 1080p, and I've just started getting into time-lapses, as I would like to add them into my videos. I experimented with a few and they worked out great, except for the fact that the ratio of the still shots was 5184x3456 (translates to 1620x1080), which obviously doesn't mesh with the 16:12 (1920x1080 or 1280x720) that I shoot my videos in. I assume these will not import well into FCP7. I've looked into it, and I don't think there is a way for me to adjust my aspect ratio for the stills I shoot with my camera. How should I use this in FCP? Should I make it into a QT movie, import it in 5184x3456 and then crop it accordingly?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2), none

Posted on Jun 19, 2011 12:00 PM

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Answer 1

Siperkins7 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 19, 2011 12:07 PM in response to Siperkins7

Of course I meant 16:9, not 16:12, in the question above.

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Answer 2

javabob

Level 3

670 points

Jun 19, 2011 12:28 PM in response to Siperkins7

yes you will have a bit of cropping going on to get it to 16x9. Those stills are a bit large for FC too, so I would import them to quicktime and export a 1080 movie.

The exception would be if you wanted to do any pan or zooms. Then reduce the size of the images by say half, then import (first set "still duration" to one frame in prefs) the stills, nest the seq and pan away.

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Answer 3

Mr Pi

Level 2

279 points

Jun 19, 2011 12:32 PM in response to Siperkins7

Hi,

Yeah just rescale and crop. I wouldn't use 5184x3456 but probably halve that or you'll run into severe memory and performance problems. Use Compressor to conform it to something that you can work with in 16:9

Pi

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Answer 4

Jun 19, 2011 1:49 PM in response to Siperkins7

Hi there,

although you can do these in Quicktime, my preference for (jpeg) stills timelapse is to use motion as follows

1. setup a motion project in HD (1920x1080)

2. import your stills as an image sequence, do any reframes or pans zooms there

3. export your timelapse as a QT movie in the same codec as your sequence (prores or prores LT if youre coming from an HDSLR in the right workflow)

theres a few bits and bobs to do along the way but thats about it, you get all the advantages of motions keyframing for any moves, zoom etc and if you save the motion project (without collecting media) its really easy to go back and tweak later in post, plus you end up with a nice easy 1920x1080 prores QT that doesnt stress anything,

Have fun though, timelapses can be really effective images

Andy

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