Time-Lapse & Time-Exposure Abilities

[Joe Taylor]

Does the Red 1 have the abilities to do Time-Lapse with Time-Exposures yet? I know that it will have these abilities some day but if these options are up and running, I'd appreciate hearing your experiences.

When the day finally comes when I buy my own RED system, RED's time-lapse features will likely be my camera's #1 job.

Thanks

[Jim Hoffman]

I need some learnin'. Red is an awesome camera...check. But I am curious to those out there doing time lapse what a RED camera would do that a digital SLR won't in the world of long exposure time lapse????

Thanks

[Jim Arthurs]

I need some learnin'. Red is an awesome camera...check. But I am curious to those out there doing time lapse what a RED camera would do that a digital SLR won't in the world of long exposure time lapse????

Thanks

Couple things off the top of my head...

1.) Shoot timelapse... Stop camera, shoot 24fps with the same setup, same lens for perfect match. I've done lots of this with 16mm and 35mm.

2.) Shoot very short interval timelapse for long periods of time... say 1 or 2 frames/sec for an extended period. DSLR's can't keep up with the datarate in raw mode, RED can. Most of my best selling cloud timelapse was clocked at 2 frames/sec.

3.) Shoot lots and lots of timelapse without worrying about the mechanical shutter failing.

Other than that, DSLR's are great and a good choice for stop action and time-lapse. We still don't know what long exposure RED will be capable of... 1/2 second... 1 second... even longer? Don't know.

[SalaTar]

Jim what have you done with your Harris box now that RED is out?

[Thom Steinhoff]

AFAIK, everytime this has been brought up it has been said that the slowest Red will do is 1fps. Some begged for a while, but as far as I can remember, it didn't get any better than that.

So, yes, a DSLR is your best bet.

Of course, things are subject to change....

[Tom Lowe]

For daytime stuff RED would be great. For night, probably DLSR.

Then again, these timelapse threads pop up about once a week now, and we never seem to get any real answers from the RED team. So who knows.

[JohnF]

As mentioned on previous threads on this topic:

DSLR's mechanical shutter generally have a MTBF (mean time before failure) of around 100,000 shots.

This unfortunately means that lifetime of a DSLR used for timelapse is quite short. ie shooting at 1fps would give a camera lifetime of around 28hours!

The other problem around the mechanical shutter of DSLR's when used for T-lapse work is that they are prone to "shedding" material, due to mechanical wear, which can end up as black specs on your frames.

RED's advantage is that it does not have a mechanical shutter so is not limited by the internal wear and tear that T-lapse can produce. Which is why we were, and still are, "begging" for a decent set of T-lapse controls (which has been promised) and for longer exposure times. (which I hope is still being looked into)

That said one advantage of DSLR's is that the low cost cameras represent good value for money when putting cameras in "risky" positions.

JohnF

[I Bloom]

Couple of things:

Stuart has definitely stated that timelapse will be supported as well as MOCO. At least through the USB port. It is unclear whether the camera will have internal timelapse controls or what the longest exposure time will be.

I think they just have bigger fish to fry at this time. Once they get a fully feature enabled camera shipping, I'm sure there will be much talk of more features.

IBloom

[Joe Taylor]

Excellent info. Thanks. I have good faith that the RED team will come through. The potential is there, so, eventually, they'll make it happen.

I've shot quite a bit of time-lapse with my DSLR. It works pretty well, but the cards fill up fast and after a while, you can tell that these are the wrong tools for the job.

[Jim Hoffman]

Thanks for the info - aside from the mechanical issue I was having a tough time seeing what was what - Canon shutters are rated about 300,000 now in the high end and have improved the shedding aspects - but you would be hard on the camera no doubt. Can't wait to see what RED does.

[jbeale]

Note, there is some evidence that the manufacturer's alleged shutter life is not a good match to the field data. http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/

[Cloudchaser]

I personally love doing time-lapse and plan to use my RED for when I can.

In terms of the shutter life of a DSLR..

It takes quite a lot of real-world time to shoot 28 hours of time-lapse. By the time you wear out the shutter on a camera like the D200, there will be a D300 or D400 or D5000, that you might be interested in upgrading to anyway, especially as the lens mount and lenses will work. A more expensive camera, like a D3 or D2x.. well it's worth paying a couple hundred dollars and replacing the shutter. No big deal in the scheme of production.

David

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah, used DLSR bodies are super cheap. Even new ones are cheap on ebay. It's the lenses you can hold onto. :) Right now I would not spend the money on a full-frame sensor DLSR for timelapse purposes. The crop-style 1.6 sensors are good enough for 2K final output.

To match RED 4K in a 4K master, though, I will invest in a full-frame body.

Can anyone tell me what it costs to replace a shutter in a high-end DLSR?

[Stokestack]

Can anyone tell me what it costs to replace a shutter in a high-end DLSR?

Last I heard, the Canon 20D shutter assembly was well under $100. If you can do it yourself, that's not bad.

Aside from the exposure-length limitation on the Red, the other issue is the continued use of aggressive compression even though it isn't needed at such low frame rates. I don't recall any response to questions about variable compression rates to maximize quality, depending on your frame rate and storage medium.

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah, that would probably have to be a "down the road" firmware enhancement.

That shutter replacement is cheap. I guess I will have a little less stress now when my Canon is click-clacking away for hours and hours. :)

[JohnF]

It takes quite a lot of real-world time to shoot 28 hours of time-lapse.


Cloudchaser,
I think you've missed the point. Using a DSLR at 1fps would give the camera a working life of 28hours not 28 hours of footage.

I've said this before on previous T-lapse threads but I've shot many a timelapse where 10% of the working life of a DSLR would have been used up on one shot. This is a cost to oneself as a professional as each shot takes the shutter closer to failure. The repair/replacement costs eats into any profit one might make on the shot(s).

Yes, the high end DSLR shutters have been improved to 300,000shots MTBF but this is mean average which generally means that the most common failure will be below that number, the model average.

Now don't get me wrong I think DSLR's are a decent way of obtaining high quality T-lapses but due to the issues around their shutters they are not as low-cost as they might first appear nor the most reliable.

JohnF

[Andrew Walker]

I hope the Red camera will have some kind of feature released that will allow long exposure times. To have total control over the shutter just like in a DSLR would be the best situation. Personally I like using a DSLR to do timelapse. Its much easier to haul around and doesn't bring too much attention to it. I really want to try out the Red in a timelapse situation but as I've said before, there are just some places that I wouldn't want to take it and that would be the job for the DSLR.

[ColinSmith]

I think for shooting rates over 4 or 5 seconds per frame, you may as well use a dslr, as it should manage RAW images. Sure the shutter will wear out, but that is just another fixed cost to factor in for the shot, the same as using a Red One would also have a fixed cost.

The big plus for the Red is being able to shoot faster frame rates and keeping an easy RAW workflow. For me the 1s maximum exposure time is no big deal, as I can deal with that in post without any problem with my normal workflow.

But what that workflow also adds the possibility of ramping frame rates as a "free" option, no need to worry about shooting at the wrong rate, you can "select" it afterwards.

There are so many ways to use the Red for unusual effects in timelapse..... :-)

[Joe Taylor]

If it is going to have time-lapse features, then time-exposures are a must. That's when the real magic happens. With what they have achieved all ready, I wouldn't think the ability do do long exposures is too much. If it can be done with a $200 Canon Rebel, I'd think RED could do it only so much better.

[ColinSmith]

I just have the feeling that if it was easy they would have it on the list already, so I start wondering about the hardware flow / requirements, and if there is maybe a minimum frame rate for reading off the sensor - maybe 1fps already means reading at 12 fps and buffering those 12 frames to be able to blend them and output them, and maybe that is the hardware limit?

But like I say (too often ;-) ) shoot 1fps or faster with a 360 degree shutter and just blend frames in post to get the exposure time you want.
Controllable exposure time, visually identical to the same shot done in camera, minimal setup time.
Downsides - bit harder to shoot long exposure night shots, more render time.

[Stokestack]

shoot 1fps or faster with a 360 degree shutter and just blend frames in post to get the exposure time you want.
Controllable exposure time, visually identical to the same shot done in camera, minimal setup time.

Not quite. For one thing, if you still need more light, you have to add frames together in post. For another, there will be a break between frames while the sensor is flushed/read out/whatever; a Red team member confirmed this in a post a while back.

[ColinSmith]

Working the frames in post you can expose for the frame rate you shoot at and "blend" frames, or expose for the final, processed frame rate and "add" frames, or some combination in between those, so I would expect that low light exposures may be hard to judge when shooting for post, but on the upside you can rework your expected frame combinations to compensate and achieve the right levels.

There will be a finite time for the sensor to read, but it has to be less than 1/100s for the 100fps to work, so visually that will work for most things, with the possible exception of fast moving lights in the dark.

I would see those as work rounds though, for when you really need to shoot with the Red because you are going to ramp up/down to 24fps or some similar reason. If you want a straight timelapse of 10s exposures, then for sure a dslr makes more sense.