So pretty much everyone can make a time lapse these days from their phone or action camera. But what about the amazing time-lapses of the milky way with satellite’s shooting by we see in documentaries? Here’s how to create a night lapse.
Now there is a bit of kit and a few different apps that go into making this, however this guide is a very quick, easy and non-complicated resource to help you figure it out.
Step 1 – Get a decent Camera with a low aperture wide angle lens
Any DSLR or mirrorless that allows interchangeable lenses will do. I shoot on a Sony A7iv with a high pixel rate to allow extra light in but any half decent camera from the last 10 years will do the job
You need a low aperture preferably wide-angle lens with manual focus. The aperture needs to be F2.8 or lower and the focal length should be no more than 18mm to allow an increased field of view of the sky. A manual focus makes life a lot easier as you can set it to infinity and never have to worry about it again.
I use a Samyang F2.8 14mm, it was very cheap and does the job well.
Step 2 – Learn how to take a long exposure photo
This is actually quite easy:
- Set your camera up on a tripod (I even did one on a shoe one time).
- Put it to manual mode
- Set Shutter speed to 15”
- Set aperture as wide open as possible (F2.8 or lower)
- Set iso to 2000
These are my standard ‘go to’ setting to trial a shot. After this you can play around to get what you want. You want to find the right balance between the three to have a dark image while still exposing for the stars and not creating too much grain.
Tips:
- Don’t go over 30” with shutter – This will start to create star trails
- Depending how your camera handles iso, don’t go over 5000. This will create grain in the image.
Step 3 – Find some dark clear sky and the Milky Way
The moon plays a big part in this. The more moon the worse your shot will be as the moon’s light scares away the stars. Check timeanddate.com for the moon state and check the weather for clouds. Nothing ruins an Astro shot like sky full of clouds.
Now how do you know where the Milky way is going to be? Photopills is a great free app that has an augmented reality function built in to show where the milky way will be at certain times. I highly recommend this.
Step 4 – Set your camera on sequential mode
Now some cameras have this, some don’t. My old Olympus EM model had a timelapse mode built in, whereas my Sony just has a sequential mode you can find in the menu. Another way is you can tape down the shutter button if you want to get super old-school.
Set the timer and amount of shots you want to take. Again, photopills has a great calculator to work out shooting intervals and amount of frames for how long you want your finished video to be.
To give you an idea, the video at the bottom goes for 25 seconds and is made up of 1200 images.
Step 5 – Compile your pictures to look the same in Lightroom
If you’re an aspiring photographer and don’t have lightroom, you should. It costs $15 bucks a month and you get photoshop with it.
Import all your photo’s to lightroom. (This may take a while.)
Most of the visual stuff is done in lightroom to bring out the colours and stars. Pick an image at the start and play around with this. Pull up the whites, lower the darks and shadows, increase exposure on the foreground to create an environment. This is the fun stuff.
When you’re done editing simply CTRL+C to copy setting, highlight all images in the series and CTRL+V to paste. It’ll take a bit of time to copy them all over. Check the later images in the series to make sure you’re happy with how they look and amend if needed.
Export them all into a folder
Step 6 – Render a video in Photoshop
Again, photoshop comes with lightroom. If you have one you should have the other. This is really the only thing I use photoshop for.
- Go to ‘FILE > OPEN’ find the image folder
- Select the first image in the sequence
- Check the box at the bottom that say ‘image sequence’
- Hit ‘OPEN’
- Choose frame rate. This is how many frames per second. Below 24 looks jagged. Over 24 speeds it up.
- This will then export into a ‘layer’ with a timeline at the bottom where you can play it forward. If you don’t see the timeline, go to ‘WINDOW’ in the top taskbar and make sure ‘TIMELINE’ is selected.
- Now it’s time to export. Go to ‘FILE > EXPORT > RENDER VIDEO’ to choose where you want it to go and hit render.
YOu NOW KNOW HOW TO MAKE A NIGHT LAPSE
That’s it, go check out your video. If it’s not displaying well, you can speed it up or slow it down by changing the frame rate but other than that you’re finished.
Quick Recap:
- Get a decent camera and lens
- Learn the basics of a long exposure photo
- Find some dark clear sky with the Milky Way
- Set your Camera on Sequential Mode
- Edit your images to look the same
- Render your video
You now know how to make a night lapse! Feel free to checkout my Astro Portfolio or just enjoy you super cool vid and have fun!!!
