Throughout your journey as a filmmaker, you might end up with still camera bodies that don’t get much use anymore. But instead of selling or disposing of them, consider repurposing these cameras as dedicated timelapse cameras. In episode six of his Cinematic Masterclass, filmmaker Philip Bloom makes the case for using older DSLR and early mirrorless cameras for shooting timelapse. Partly it’s because timelapse requires a lot of time, and sometimes you don’t want to tie up your primary A camera for hours when you could be gathering video. But mostly it’s because you don’t actually need a powerful stills camera to capture a timelapse. Image source: Philip Bloom / MZed What resolution do you need in a timelapse camera? For a 4K image, you only need a camera with 8.8 megapixels. But as Philip points out, that’s taking into account a 3:2 aspect ratio. If you’re planning to crop to a 16:9 video frame, you need a 12-13 megapixel stills camera. If you’re only planning to work in an HD timeline, you actually only need a remarkable 2.07 megapixels out of your camera. That means pretty much any digital camera will do. Even a point-and-shoot that’s been sitting in an old cardboard box. Image source: Philip Bloom / MZed Image source: Philip Bloom / MZed Of course, the benefit to shooting timelapse with a stills camera is you take away high resolution images that can be cropped and reframed for HD or 4K video. With some higher megapixel cameras,...
Published By: CineD - Thursday, 21 April, 2022