The Time Lapse feature is one of my
favorite GoPro features. Today I'll explain the most important settings and
show you how to get the best results. I will show you all the settings on the back
display of the Hero 11 Black. However, all changes can also be made in the smartphone app.
If you are using the Hero 11 Mini, you can only change a few important settings on the camera.
All other settings are only available in the app. You switch to the Time Lapse mode by swiping to
the right. At the bottom in the middle there is the button for the actual settings menu.
Here you can see the current settings. At the moment this would be Timewarp, a
resolution of 4k, the automatic setting for the speed and Wide as Field of view
or the digital lens, as GoPro calls it. With a tap on this button the main menu
opens.
Here you can choose between 6 different modes. There are the three standard
modes TimeWarp, Time Lapse and NightLapse and the three new special modes Star Trails, Light
Painting and Vehicle Lights. In TimeWarp mode, the camera takes images at certain
intervals, which it then merges into a video. The special thing about the TimeWarp
mode is that this mode is intended for situations in which the camera moves, for example when
you're riding a bike or when you walk towards a building and want to create a more typical
hyperlapse. To make the result look good, the video is optimally stabilized by the camera.
This way you can make spectacular short clips. In TimeLapse mode you should mount the camera on
a tripod. There is no stabilization by the camera. This mode is intended for example for landscape
shots with passing clouds.
TimeLapses can be used very well to visualize the course of time.
The Night Lapse mode is basically very similar to the Time Lapse mode. This mode is however, as
the name suggests, intended for shots at night or in low light conditions. This mode is set up
in such a way that the best possible results are achieved in these situations. The automatic
mode of the camera will opt for longer exposure times. So you need a very stable tripod.
This is also true for Star Trails, Light Painting and Vehicle Lights. Basically, these are
special forms of the Night Lapse Mode, whereby the main focus here is on creating light trails.
If you are by the way interested in the tripods or mounts I use for my time lapses, take a
look at the links in the video description.
We will now first have a look at the Time Lapse
Mode, then the Night Lapse Mode with its three special modes Star Trails, Light Painting and
Vehicle Lights and finally the TimeWarp Mode. To open the settings menu for the respective
mode, tap on the pen at the right. So let's begin with the Time Lapse Mode:
Here you can see the possible settings in this Mode:
The most important setting concerns the format. We should take a look at this
setting first, because the other settings partly depend on the respective format. Under Format you
can choose between Time Lapse Video and Time Lapse Photo. If you choose Time Lapse Video the GoPro
will automatically create a video. The result of your recording is not a large number of photos,
but a video file. The advantage is obvious: no further editing step is necessary for your Time
Lapse recording. The Time Lapse Video Mode has another advantage compared to the Time Lapse Photo
Mode: it uses much less storage space on your memory card. So if you're on a long vacation and
you're running out of memory, you should choose the Time Lapse Video Mode.
Unlike with the Time Lapse Video Mode, the camera in the Time Lapse Photo Mode takes a number
of photos.
The result of your recording is not a video file but a large number of photos. With
these photos you can easily create a Time Lapse video with any editing program. But why should you
choose this mode if it means more space on your memory card and more work? The individual photos
contain much more information than the individual frames of the video file.
So you have much more
possibilities for editing the images. You can edit the images with any photo editing software
and achieve spectacular results in this way. It might also be that you don't want to create a
video at all, but just want to take a photo, but are afraid to miss the right moment. With the
Time Lapse Photo Mode you can simply take a number of pictures and then choose the best one.
On the
Hero 11 Mini, the Time Lapse Photo mode is not available. There is only Time Lapse Video. That's
why you won't find any settings for the format. Let's take a look at the individual
settings in Time Lapse Video Mode: Under Resolution you choose the resolution of
the video file. In the 16:9 format, 5.3K, 4K and 1080 are available. If you select a 4:3 format in
the middle here, then you have 5.3K, 4K and 2.7k available. A typical video file has a 16:9 format.
The 4:3 format has an extended field of view at the top and bottom. However, you will find black
bars on the left and right.
In order to create a 16:9 recording you have to crop your clip in post
but you have more room at the top and bottom. For the best possible results I
usually choose 5.3K in the 16:9 format. Under Lens you can select the Field of View.
You have the choice between Wide and Linear. Wide is the typical Field of View of the
GoPro. If you don't like the distortion of the GoPro's Fish-Eye lens, you can choose
Linear. This removes most of the distortion, but the image is cropped. Since I like the
wide angle of the GoPro, I usually choose Wide. Under Interval you can set in which time
interval the GoPro will capture images for your Time Lapse video.
Generally applies:
The more movement in the scene the shorter the interval should be and the less movement
the longer the interval should be. So a short interval is recommended for example
for capturing a street or a crowdy place, a longer interval for slowly moving clouds. The
longer the interval, the longer the recording of your video will take. That means for a
video file with 30 frames per second you need of course for each second in the video 30
images. If you set the interval to 10 seconds, you will need 5 minutes for every second of your
Time Lapse video. At an interval of 5 seconds, only two and a half minutes and so on.
Of
course, the result will then look different. In general I would recommend
the following intervals: 1 second if there is a lot of
movement, for example with vehicles 2 seconds for crowds or very fast moving clouds 5 – 10 seconds for normal cloud movements,
or also for example for sunrises or sunsets More than 10 seconds to capture the movements
of shadows or even for the night sky with stars. Try to get a feel for what you like yourself.
If you have no idea at the beginning and just want to do a TimeLapse with clouds,
then you can start with 5 or 10 seconds. With Scheduled Capture you can schedule a
recording. For example, if you want to take a time lapse of the sunrise without getting up
in the morning, you can place your GoPro in a suitable spot and set the time when the camera
should start recording, for example at 6am. Now the camera will start recording at this time and
will continue recording until you turn it off manually. If you want the camera to stop recording
automatically after a certain time, you can set the duration of the capture under Duration.
For
a sunrise, for example, an hour should be enough. Under Timer you can set the camera to start
recording three or ten seconds after the shutter button is pressed. This way you can
avoid that the first image of your time lapse recording is blurred. This is especially
interesting for night lapse recordings. Under Zoom you can digitally zoom into
the image. However, this will reduce the image quality. You can also achieve the same
result in post by cropping. For this reason, you should only use this feature if
you don't want to edit your video. Before we come to the Protune settings, let's take a quick look at what changes
when we set the format to Time Lapse Photo. In the Time Lapse Photo mode we have similar
settings as in the Time Lapse Video mode. There is the possibility to set the lens,
the interval, scheduled capture, duration, the timer and the zoom. Under Output you can
additionally activate the RAW mode. In this case, RAW files in the GPR format are saved in addition
to the JPEG photo files. A RAW file contains more information than a JPEG file.
You have therefore
even more flexibility when editing. However, the RAW files require additional storage
space and can only be opened and edited with the appropriate software such as Adobe
Lightroom. In addition you need at least an interval of 5 seconds and only Wide as Field
of view is supported. Since I usually use Lightroom to edit my photos, I use the
RAW mode in the Time Lapse Photo mode. Now let's have a look at the Protune
settings. The Protune settings are almost identical for the Time Lapse
Video and the Time Lapse Photo Mode: Only the first setting for the BitRate is
only available in Time Lapse Video mode. If you set the BitRate to High it means, in
simple terms, that more data is transmitted and stored.
This can result in better image
quality, but the resulting video file will be larger and require more storage space. If you
want to achieve the best possible result, you should set the bit rate to High. In many cases,
however, you will hardly notice a difference. And if you really want a better image quality you
should use the Time Lapse Photo mode anyway. The other protune settings are, as I said, identical for Time Lapse
Video and Time Lapse Photo. Under Exposure Value Compensation you can set
whether the camera's automatic should expose the image a little brighter or darker. A negative
value leads to a darker image and a positive value to a brighter image. It can often be useful to
set a slightly negative value. This prevents very bright areas in the image from burning
out. Burnt out areas no longer contain details, so you can't save them in post. However, dark
areas can be brightened up relatively easily. Therefore I usually use a value of -0.5.
Under White Balance, you determine how cool or warm your image should look.
But White
should always look white and not yellow or blue. Basically, the GoPro automatic works very well.
It will rarely let you down. For very long shots, however, it can happen that the automatic changes
the white balance during the recording for no apparent reason. In the worst case this could ruin
your shot. If you want to avoid this in any case, you should set the white balance manually,
for example to 5500 Kelvin on a sunny day. The ISO value determines how sensitively the
camera reacts to the incident light.
A high value leads to a brighter image but unfortunately
also to annoying image noise. Since your camera in Time Lapse mode should usually be on a tripod,
you can also set this value to an optimum of 100 ISO. You can therefore set ISO Min and ISO
Max to 100 for daytime shots. Basically you should not exceed a value of 400. From 800
the image noise can be seen very clearly. Sharpness is an important setting. A sharpness
of High leads at first glance to a very sharp and detailed image, but this is also due to
the fact that the camera artificially adds digital sharpness. This doesn't always look
professional and cinematic. Especially if your TimeLapse shot should be part of a longer video
I would reduce the sharpness. A setting of LOW leads to a result that is very soft.
You have
to add sharpness in post. If you don't want to edit your recording, I would recommend medium.
Under Color you can choose between Natural, Vibrant and Flat. While Natural leads to more
natural colours that correspond to reality, Vibrant stands for the typical GoPro look
with very saturated colours. A flat color profile gives you more flexibility in post.
This is especially interesting when you are using the TimeLapse video mode.
With Time Lapse
Photo I usually use the RAW mode. In this case the images contain more information anyway and
a flat color profile is not really necessary. Now let's take a look at the Night Lapse Mode.
As already mentioned, this mode is optimized for night shots or low-light conditions. The
automatic of the camera, as already mentioned, will prefer long exposure times in order
to achieve optimal results in low-light conditions. You basically have the same
settings here as in Time Lapse mode. Under Format also in Night Lapse Mode you can choose
between Photo and Video. You have the already explained settings for Resolution, Lens,
Interval, Scheduled Capture, Duration, Timer and Zoom. Under Interval in the Night Lapse Mode
there is additionally an automatic setting that sets the interval automatically. Compared to the
TimeLapse mode you can then set the exposure time manually under Shutter.
In this way you have full
control over the exposure and can, for example, determine how much motion blur the lights of
passing cars will produce. The darker it is, the longer the exposure time of course should be.
The exposure time must also be set in accordance with the interval. An exposure time of ten seconds
requires an interval of at least 15 seconds etc. Since it can be difficult to find the right
shutter speed and settings to capture light trails from passing cars, for example, or to
capture star trails or even to draw with light, GoPro has created separate modes for exactly these
applications. All three modes work basically the same. You can set the length of the light
trail in the upper left corner. That is, the light trail created by the stars, vehicle
lights, or your drawing with light. Long, Max and Short are available. If it is very
dark, you should also increase the duration of the shutter speed. Everything else is done by
your GoPro. It's important that you use a very stable tripod and activate the timer. Try out
the three modes – you can achieve cool results.
Now let's have a look at the Time Warp Mode.
Basically this is a sort of Time Lapse Video Mode. The decisive difference is that the resulting
video is additionally stabilized by the camera. The Time Warp Mode, as already mentioned, is
therefore primarily intended for situations in which you move with the camera. Basically, there
are only two additional settings to explain: speed and speed ramp.
For all other settings
the same applies as in Time Lapse Mode. So what does Speed stand for? As the name
suggests, it's all about how fast your video is speeded up. Just like in Time Lapse Mode, images
are taken at certain intervals. The faster the speed, the fewer images are taken in a certain
period of time. The result then looks faster. A setting of 2 will make a video of 30 seconds out
of a recording that takes 1 minute. So the video is two times shorter than the recording time. A
setting of 30 will turn a 1 minute recording into a 2 second video. This accelerates the video by a
factor of 30. In addition, the higher the value, the better the stabilization of the video will
be.
Personally, I got the best results with a value of 10 or 15. There is also an automatic
speed setting, which automatically sets the speed depending on the type of movement.
I have to say that it works quite well. And there is another interesting feature in the
Time Warp Mode. During the recording you can switch to a normal recording speed by pressing
the button in the middle. This means you can switch between time-Warp and normal video
mode during the recording. This way you can switch to the video mode for interesting
moments without interrupting the shot. And with Speed Ramp there is another
setting for exactly this feature. Here you can set that pressing the button will
not start a normal video recording but a slow motion recording of 50%, that
is a recording with half speed. This will emphasize the transition from the Time
Warp recording and the corresponding effect. So let's recap the most important
informations of this relatively long tutorial: The normal Time Lapse mode is
for daytime Time Lapse shots, the Night Lapse mode is optimized for low light
situations.
The Time Warp Mode, on the other hand, is intended for recordings in which you move with
the camera, that means for a so-called hyperlapse. In Time Lapse and Night Lapse Mode, you can set
the format to Video or Photo. With the Video format you get a video as a result of your
recording. With the Photo format you get a number of photos.
You have to merge them with
a video editing program if you want to create a TimeLapse recording. In addition, the Photo
format requires much more memory space. But you have more flexibility when editing your images in
post. The interval is especially important. The less motion there is in your recording, the longer
the interval should be. The longer the interval, the longer your recording will last.
In Time Warp mode you cannot set the interval but the speed. The higher the speed
the shorter your video will be and the faster the movement in the video will be. A high
speed also leads to a better stabilization. With this I would like to say goodbye for
today. If the video was useful for you, give me a Like as feedback. There will be more
tutorials on the Hero 11, so see you next time!.
