You’ve seen time-lapse video effects: A smooth sunset peacefully glides into the ocean, jittering traffic patterns swerve at night, and construction projects are instantly assembled. These effects are loaded with emotion, and can take their makers from amateurs to auteurs. We’ll show you how to shoot individual still photos and compile them into an HD video. You’ll need a tripod, still camera—a DSLR is ideal but not required—and QuickTime Pro. The results are much more cinematic than just turning up the playback speed for a video clip. (See our example video at 
www.maclife.com/time_lapse.)

What you need: DSLR or other digital camera, Tripod, QuickTime Pro, $29.99, www.apple.com

1. Pick a Subject

A gorgeous sunset or sunrise is a great subject for this project.

You can shoot a time-lapse video of anything, but the process works best with slow-moving subjects. First consider scenes that have a linear pattern. An opening flower clearly has a beginning and ending. A baking cake—or one being cut and served—progresses in an order too. Other effective time-lapse scenes show movement, but no significant progression. Random groups of people walk by on a busy street. Ducks splash around in a pond. The scenes that follow a natural progression are usually more serene, while the nonlinear movement in the second set of examples usually creates chaotic clips. Pick a subject that will look good in your current video project, or just go experiment.

2. Position the Camera

Steady now.

Place the tripod where it can stand for as long as you need. If the camera gets bumped, your work could be ruined. We like aiming from corners and walls, but if you can protect the tripod legs from being bumped by people walking by, you can shoot from anywhere. Frame the scene, and lock the camera on the tripod.

3. Set Manual Controls

Make sure to manually set the exposure and focus for your first shot.

If you’re shooting over hours—and in some cases, minutes—auto settings will change exposure levels based on moving light. This compensation can neutralize the adjustment, while the finished movie will usually look best with these soft changes. Set the camera’s exposure with fully manual controls. Also set the manual focus in the first shot and leave it alone for the rest. (If your point-and-shoot camera doesn’t offer manual settings, you can still create good videos, but you’ll have less influence over the outcome.)

These manual settings also embellish the time-lapse style far beyond the look of a speeded-up video. Keep the flash off, and set a small aperture and longer exposure. Moving subjects will come out blurred, while backgrounds will stay sharp. Car lights will stretch through the frame as they pass. A longer exposure amplifies the effect. Try experimenting with that setting so that faster subjects blur, while slow subjects stay sharp.

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4. Shoot the Movie

Do the math to find out how long to wait between exposures—we shot the stars every 72 seconds.

Pick an interval between each frame that suits the subject. To condense about 10 minutes of photos into a several-second video, we often shoot one frame every 20 seconds. But you can estimate the interval by dividing the number of needed frames by the length of the event. For a 15-frames-per-second video, we might want a 10-second shot watching stars track across the sky (15 frames x 10 seconds = 150 frames). Since the real-time event takes about three hours, that’s 10,800 seconds (3 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds). That leaves 72 seconds between each shot (10,800 seconds/150 frames). You will no doubt need to experiment to find the best interval for your intended results.

It’s up to you to manually shoot each frame, although some cameras include a time-lapse timer to keep snapping after a set interval. Some cameras are also compatible with time-lapse shutter remotes that do the same thing. If you have neither, we still recommend using a “dumb” shutter remote that just snaps the picture so you can avoid touching the camera. But if it’s tightly anchored to the tripod and you touch it gently, you can still work without those extras. Eventually, you can gradually adjust zoom and framing as you shoot, but practice the basics by leaving the camera pointed in the same place.

5. Import the Photos

Using Image Capture will dump the individual images in a folder on your Mac, instead of adding them to the iPhoto library.

Connect the camera or memory card to your Mac, and open Image Capture (in your Applications folder). From the Download To pop-up menu, choose Other, and create a new folder for the photos. Download all of the images. Navigate to that folder and, if needed, erase any test photos taken before the time-lapse sequence. (Or instead, choose Download Some in Image Capture, and pick only the needed photos.)

6. Assemble the Video

Choose the first photo in your sequence here.

There are several ways that you can turn these images into a movie, but the easiest is with QuickTime Pro ($29.99, www.apple.com). This technique will also create a video file ready for any application.

Open QuickTime Player, and choose File > Open Image Sequence. Pick the first photo, then choose the frame rate. We think 15 frames per second works well. The new window will probably spill far outside your display. Pick View > Fit To Screen to tame the clip. If you play the movie now, you’ll get a rough idea of how it will look. Because the video is likely at an exceptionally high resolution, it’ll probably play at a choppy frame rate. Choose File > Save As to export the shot. Click the radio button to Save As A Self-Contained Movie. Depending on the speed of your system, this might take several minutes.

7. Edit

iMovie can import your clip as full HD, ready for editing.

Open iMovie, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro, or your favorite video editor to import the video. In iMovie, pick File > Import Movies. Select the clip, and be sure to import as 1920x1080 resolution. If you want, save disk space by clicking the radio button to Move Files Instead Of Making A Duplicate. Choose Import. Edit the clip, using the crop tool to adjust the framing if desired. Because of the big source file, the video will still play at a choppy rate until you finish and share the final project.