Timelapse Apps and Methods

[rphawks]

So... I have some old equipment with cameras that I could leave in a hotel room or something to record a timelapse. A few questions though. 

Old gear:

iPod Touch 4G (720p)

Canon Point and shoot (720p)

 

I also have an iPhone 5, but it's my phone, so of course I have to carry it around.

 

Questions: If I leave the Canon camera recording, will it stop when it runs out of battery or will it lose the footage? Same question with iPod. 

 

Canon uses a 4GB SDHC card. How much footage can that store?

 

iPod Touch is 8GB but has the system on it of course, how much can that store?

 

Since this section of the forum isn't super active, gonna leave this overnight so if I don't respond immediately, that's why.

[Hiitchy]

If you're going to be recording a timelapse, you'd need to know what quality you're recording at. a 4GB SDHC card with your canon point and shoot camera may record 1 hour, it may record 3 hours. It depends on the model of camera you have, there's no definite answer. In regards to recording, the device will stop when it runs out of battery, but in most cases the footage will be saved, but cut off at the end where it completed. Remember, when a device is recording, data is constantly being written to the SD Card. There is a chance the data may be corrupted so if you are going to do timelapses, you're best off finding an alternate way of recording such an event.

 

With your iPod touch, you'd need to know how much you already have stored in order to find out how much you can record. Check with your storage on the device by opening settings, and navigating to storage and see how much space you have left. It would be done based on your free space.

[AkiraDaarkst]

For your Canon point and shoot, the camera will record the timelapse as long as it has battery power.  Once the battery has drained it will stop, and there may be a possibility the last frame may not be properly saved.  But every frame before should be stored on the memory card.  As for how long it can record, it depends on your timelapse interval.  Are you capturing a frame every 10 seconds or every 10 minutes, since photo camera batteries are rated for X number of shots, you can make a good guess on how long the battery will last because the camera could put itself in sleep/standby mode when it's idle.  So if you have more than sufficient storage, the camera battery may run out before storage space runs out.

 

As for your iPod touch, depends on how old it is (for battery life) and the amount of free storage you have.  But you may get a few hours worth of battery life, and it all depends on your timelapse interval.

[.spider.]

Maybe you want to check out if there's CHDK available for your Canon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIGIC#CHDK

 

Also plugging in a jack into the camera's video out will most likely turn off the screen and save a lot of power.

[cc143]

You could also look for a dummy battery to plug onto a wall socket or battery bank (Some hotels have that thing where the key needs to be in a slot for electricity to run...) if you want it to run longer. 

[AkiraDaarkst]

15 minutes ago, cc143 said:

You could also look for a dummy battery to plug onto a wall socket or battery bank (Some hotels have that thing where the key needs to be in a slot for electricity to run...) if you want it to run longer. 

The OP said Canon point and shoot, not sure if dummy batteries with power adapters are easily available.  They're easier to find for DSLRs than PnS.  For the iPod touch or any similar device, they are charged by USB so a USB power adapter to a wall outlet or power bank will provide power... issue is storage.

[cc143]

2 minutes ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

The OP said Canon point and shoot, not sure if dummy batteries with power adapters are easily available.  They're easier to find for DSLRs than PnS.  For the iPod touch or any similar device, they are charged by USB so a USB power adapter to a wall outlet or power bank will provide power... issue is storage.

I obviously meant the pns, You could probably get some chinese dummy battery off off ebay. Also, I remember once in a while some pns cameras had a dc in, maybe that could work, although I don't know specifically for the OP's camera. 

[rphawks]

9 hours ago, Hiitchy said:

If you're going to be recording a timelapse, you'd need to know what quality you're recording at. a 4GB SDHC card with your canon point and shoot camera may record 1 hour, it may record 3 hours. It depends on the model of camera you have, there's no definite answer. In regards to recording, the device will stop when it runs out of battery, but in most cases the footage will be saved, but cut off at the end where it completed. Remember, when a device is recording, data is constantly being written to the SD Card. There is a chance the data may be corrupted so if you are going to do timelapses, you're best off finding an alternate way of recording such an event.

 

With your iPod touch, you'd need to know how much you already have stored in order to find out how much you can record. Check with your storage on the device by opening settings, and navigating to storage and see how much space you have left. It would be done based on your free space.

Both are recording at 720p. The Canon PnS is a PowerShot SD1200 IS (didn't have it with me yesterday). If this is the case, should I get an intervalometer? iPod sitting at 5.5GB available.

9 hours ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

For your Canon point and shoot, the camera will record the timelapse as long as it has battery power.  Once the battery has drained it will stop, and there may be a possibility the last frame may not be properly saved.  But every frame before should be stored on the memory card.  As for how long it can record, it depends on your timelapse interval.  Are you capturing a frame every 10 seconds or every 10 minutes, since photo camera batteries are rated for X number of shots, you can make a good guess on how long the battery will last because the camera could put itself in sleep/standby mode when it's idle.  So if you have more than sufficient storage, the camera battery may run out before storage space runs out.

 

As for your iPod touch, depends on how old it is (for battery life) and the amount of free storage you have.  But you may get a few hours worth of battery life, and it all depends on your timelapse interval.

Again, would it be worth investing in an intervalometer if the last frame has a chance of not saving properly? Was planning on recording straight video. 

5 hours ago, cc143 said:

I obviously meant the pns, You could probably get some chinese dummy battery off off ebay. Also, I remember once in a while some pns cameras had a dc in, maybe that could work, although I don't know specifically for the OP's camera. 

PnS uses a Canon NB-6L battery, I didn't find anything off of a simple search, but I didn't look very far. No DC in. Only an A/V Out.

[AkiraDaarkst]

8 minutes ago, rphawks said:

Again, would it be worth investing in an intervalometer if the last frame has a chance of not saving properly? Was planning on recording straight video. 

I only say that there may be a risk, the camera could use whatever last bit of battery power it has left to save the last frame but I won't guarantee 100% success.

 

Does the camera have a built in timelapse feature that will capture frames every X interval but will automatically combine them into a video or a feature that will record video at a very slow frame rate such as 1fps?  Without such a feature you cannot record straight to video anything that looks like a timelapse, and you will have to combine the frames in post to create the timelapse video.

 

As for the intervalometer, does it support the camera or does the camera have a port to connect one?  There's a firmware hack for Canon PnS cameras, check out this website (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK) if your camera model is supported.  If it is, you won't need an intervalometer.

[rphawks]

6 minutes ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

I only say that there may be a risk, the camera could use whatever last bit of battery power it has left to save the last frame but I won't guarantee 100% success.  Does the camera have a built in timelapse feature that will capture frames every X interval but will automatically combine them into a video or a feature that will record video at a very slow frame rate such as 1fps?  Without such a feature you cannot record straight to video anything that looks like a timelapse.

 

As for the intervalometer, does it support the camera or does the camera have a port to connect one?  There's a firmware hack for Canon PnS cameras, check out this website (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK) if your camera model is supported.  If it is, you won't need an intervalometer.

I can't find a built in timelapse feature and I don't see it on the CHDK supported list.

[rphawks]

@AkiraDaarkstP.S. I did find a custom timer function, but it will only do a max of 10 shots, max 30 seconds apart.

[AkiraDaarkst]

5 minutes ago, rphawks said:

I can't find a built in timelapse feature and I don't see it on the CHDK supported list.

 

1 minute ago, rphawks said:

@AkiraDaarkstP.S. I did find a custom timer function, but it will only do a max of 10 shots, max 30 seconds apart.

It's unfortunate and I hate to say it but it does appear you may need to get a different camera if you plan to do timelapses, or find an app for your iPod touch.  However as I stated earlier, while the iPod touch can be powered by a USB power source the issue is storage space because Apple doesn't let you add micro SD cards to the device (though there are third party external storage solutions for IOS devices, I'm not sure if the device can actively write data to the storage or you will have to manually transfer files).

[rphawks]

Just now, AkiraDaarkst said:

 

It's unfortunate and I hate to say it but it does appear you may need to get a different camera if you plan to do timelapses, or find an app for your iPod touch.  However as I stated earlier, while the iPod touch can be powered by a USB power source the issue is storage space because Apple doesn't let you add micro SD cards to the device (though there are third party external storage solutions for IOS devices, I'm not sure if the device can actively write data to the storage or you will have to manually transfer files).

It's not really a big deal, as this is just some old gear. I haven't been able to find a timelapse app for the iPod yet. 

[.spider.]

37 minutes ago, rphawks said:

I can't find a built in timelapse feature and I don't see it on the CHDK supported list.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/SD1200IS 

 

Max SD card size 4 GB not so great. 

[rphawks]

1 minute ago, .spider. said:

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/SD1200IS

Nevermind then. 

[rphawks]

@.spider. @AkiraDaarkst I actually can't install CHDK right now, I forgot I lent my SD card reader to someone...