Shooting time-lapse photography is something I often use my second camera for while shooting landscape photography at sunrise and sunset. This time-lapse shows cloud coming over Kinder Scout in the Peak District before dispersing with the Edale Valley in the foreground. To watch the time-lapse take a look at the video below.
Peak District time-lapse
On this particular morning I had decided to shoot sunrise at Winnats Pass because the last time I was in this exact area I had shot on the Great Ridge. As the sun rose I could see that there was a cloud inversion happening in the distance but there was no way I could get over to a better location without missing sunrise.
I decided to stay at Winnats Pass and shot the sunrise, but as soon as the sun was too high for good light I raced over to Mam Tor and walked quickly along the Great Ridge. I quickly found a great elevated spot on Back Tor where I could clearly see the Edale Valley and Kinder Scout behind.
My preferred kit for time-lapse
My main camera is a Sony A7RIII, but for shooting time-lapse the 42MP sensor is overkill. Not only is most of that resolution lost, even when outputting at 4K, it requires extremely high capacity and expensive memory cards to store that many shots. When a 30 second time-lapse at 24fps takes 720 still images, you can quickly see how much storage you’d need.
I mainly use my Fujifilm X-T20 because at 24MP it has a much more manageable resolution for this type of photography. This camera also has an intervalometer built-in so it’s incredibly easy to set up to shoot a time-lapse. The biggest limitation is battery life, but to be fair you can shoot enough stills for 30 seconds of footage on a fully charged battery, even though this is above the maximum rated shots for a single charge!
My preferred lens for shooting time-lapse photography on this camera is the manual Samyang 12mm f/2 because once the aperture is set, it’s locked in position and won’t cause the flicker you get when using an AF lens. It’s also a great lens for astro photography, and indeed astro time-lapse so a winner all round. I also use NiSi Filters to help to control exposure.
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