Time Lapse Cinematography EXPOSURE ???

[rdegracia]

I have never done it... what tools do you need to use... is it different for Digi or film? and the most tricky one: how do you expose? lets´s say it implies a very dramatic change on the lighting. from hard sunlight to night.
Don't presume any knowledge, please.

THANKS IN ADVANCE

 

[Alessandro Machi]

Day to night time-exposure is very difficult to do. I'd get a Super-8 film camera that does time-exposure and begin to experiment. The Vision 200t negative stock will give you your best latitude but you will then need to transfer it to video.

 

[Ale Reynoso]

You would normally use an intervalometer.
Search the web, but I heard that using an intervalometer gives you a shutter speed of 1/8, because the camera advances a single frame at a speed of 4 f.p.s. (ARRI) So you have to work out your exposure with ND´s, shutter angles and iris settings. From day to night you should increase your iris aperture as the day goes by.

 

[Guest]

Actually with an intervalometer you can set the amount of frames. Its all math so what you need to do is determine how long you want you're scene in the film and then how long the actual event is and find a reference guide that tells you how long to expose each frame. Than if you have a light meter you can determine your exposure. The reference guide can be found online or in the ASC Manual.

 

[Alessandro Machi]

Digital still technology will eventually probably make huge inroads into this type of filmmaking. However, for the quickest, most inexpensive way to learn, a super-8 camera that does time exposure is the best way to learn because you can still view the image through the viewfinder at all times.

More sophisticated, higher resolution formats in both film and digital seem to have some gotcha's thrown into the mix. On some 16mm and 35mm cameras that do time-exposure, when the shutter is left open, the viewfinder is closed, so you can't see or study the image at all times the way one can in Super-8\ (although one has to be careful not to bump the camera if they are constantly looking through the viewfinder). So as a learning medium the Super-8 camera that does time-exposure can put well ahead of the curve.

The digital still cameras may have an issue where as each picture is taken the image may freeze momentarily, but I presume there are workarounds for that, probably a bigger limitation might be contrast control, film may still have an advantage over digital, however the larger film cameras that do time-exposure and time-lapse are rather clunky and heavy.

 

[Alessandro Machi]

Just to update this topic.

Digital Still cameras are providing excellent ways to learn by doing, however, there still are gotcha's depending on which digital still camera one gets.

At the end of the day, the lower cost digital still cameras still don't provide all of the tools needed to do effective time-exposure sequences. However, there definitely are more expensive digital still cameras that are being controlled by computers to do single frame animation and time-exposure as well.

ironically, to actually learn the very basics of time-exposure, Super-8 cameras that offer time-exposure or time-lapse are still an excellent way to learn.