Has anyone successfully created a time lapse of a city skyline with the drone in a fixed position (not moving)?

superfunkmojo · May 8, 2021

I've tried a few times - fly the drone to a spot, and for about 20 minutes, have it take photos every 2 seconds of the city skyline. When I align images in photoshop, I don't get good results, because the drone is (of course) not 100% still in the air - it moves slightly in the air since it isn't on an actual tripod. If anyone has successfully tried this, do you have a video to share showing your results? This is a great example, at th3 5 second mark I'm not sure how he made it so smooth - anyone have ideas?

Phantomrain.org · May 8, 2021

I would recommend you bring those picture into Adobe Light Room , make your adjustments sync them to all the Photos and than export them into Adobe Premiere as 1 video , than change the speed to fit your video.

I will look for the video that shows this best.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic in the Rain and Land on the Water.

Here you go : I found i can fix the Horizon in pictures easier in Lightroom with the Snyc than I could in PS.

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Starts at 5:47

ckoerner · May 8, 2021

If you’re looking for using open source (free) software this tutorial show you how to stabilize the video with Blender.

Ty Pilot · May 8, 2021

superfunkmojo said:
This is a great example, at th3 5 second mark , I'm not sure how he made it so smooth - anyone have ideas?

If you're talking about that 15 second shot starting at 30:00 seconds in, it looks like he has cropped into the frame quite a bit. The shaking that typically happens in a time lapse (shot by a stationary drone) is intensified at the the outer edges of the frame and especially when the horizon is present, so cropping in to the center of the frame will reduce a lot of shake. Also he may have used stabilization and perhaps even got a little help from very light winds while filming.

There is a second stationary shot beginning at 1:09 and in this one it is not cropped in and you can see the difference as there is noticeable movement but it is still a fairly stable clip.

DanD2 · May 10, 2021

Why don't you just take a video and then speed it up?

Above360 · May 15, 2021

DanD2 said:
Why don't you just take a video and then speed it up?

Because for a good quality hyperlapse or timelapse you need to be using a shutter speed longer than what's available in video modes. 1/4 sec exposure or longer.