Introduction: How to Shoot and Edit Day to Night Timelapse

By

By Cal Thomson

Step 1: Get a Camera

You'll need

  • DSLR camera (I used the Canon 6D)
  • Tripod
  • Intervalometer

Set your camera to M - Manual mode or Av - Aperture priority and begin shooting.

Step 2: Import Into Lightroom

Import your images into Lightroom

Simultaneously open 3rd party plugin called LR Timelapse

In LR Timelapse you begin a 3 step process

  1. Initialise
  2. Keyframe Wizard
  3. Save

Step 3: Back to Lightroom

In Adobe Lightroom you'll notice a set of keyframes at specific moments in which you changed your exposure.

Edit the 2 star image to match the 3 star image

Start by selecting your 2 star, hold SHIFT and click the 3 star

Then go to 'Settings' > 'Match Total Exposures'

Lightroom will compensate for the changes in exposure to make it appear seamless in a video

Continue this process until you've edited all your keyframes images.

Right click, metadata, save metadata to files.

Step 4: Blend Your Exposures in LR Timelapse

Back to LR Timelapse follow the 3 step process

  1. Reload
  2. Autotransition
  3. save

Autotransition will automatically blend all the settings you've changed in Lightroom between your keyframes.

Finally hit save.

Step 5: Render Using Adobe Lightroom

Jump back to Adobe Lightroom

Select all, (CMD+A)

Right click, metadata, read metadata from files

All of your shots will now be updated. Instead of editing 800 photos you can edit only a handful and LR timelapse will blend the settings between each shot.

Finally you'll need to render off the sequence.

File, export, jpeg sequence or go to LR Timelapse

File, render video.