A sprout growing quickly from the soil. Clouds racing across the sky. A building constructed from scratch in a matter of minutes. Jigsaw puzzles coming together in moments. These are some of the things you can do with timelapse photography. All you need is a camera and an intervalometer. Luckily for us, the MEMENTO can be both!
The camera part is straightforward, but what about this so-called "intervalometer"? That's a fancy term for a gizmo that can press the shutter for you (hardware or software) at a pre-set interval until you tell it to stop. It never gets tired, so you can set it to shoot once per second or per hour or even just once per day, to capture a long event.
Then, you'll play back those individual still frames rapidly as a movie or GIF. Time flies when you're having fun!
CircuitPython
Be sure you've installed CircuitPython on your MEMENTO before proceeding.
LAPS
No, we won't be hitting the track -- we just abbreviated "timelapse" to "LAPS" in the menu system.
To switch to timelapse mode, you'll use the right or left button to get to the mode menu, then press up or down to switch to the LAPS selection.
Intervals
You'll see a new menu set show up for adjusting the timelapse settings. Press the right button until the timelapse interval item is highlighted. You can then press up or down to increase or decrease the preset intervals, from 5 seconds up to an hour between shots.
Power
Press the Select button to choose the High, Medium, or Low power timelapse modes. These are helpful if you are running off of the MEMENTO battery --
- high power mode shows a live preview
- medium power mode only updates the display once per shot based on the selected time interval
- low power mode dims the display as well as limiting updates to once per shot
Focus
You may wish to long-press the shutter button to focus on your subject when shooting a timelapse. All of the other automatic camera settings, such as exposure/gain, will lock onto their first frame settings, to prevent flickering in the final timelapse movie you'll create from your frames.
Start/Stop
Once you've got your settings dialed in, point the MEMENTO at your subject (a tripod case or other mounting is helpful to prevent accidental bumps) and then press the MEMENTO OK button.
The on-screen display will show a countdown timer and then snap a photo. This repeats until you press OK again to stop it (or until you run out of SD card space or battery!) So you can capture the clouds moving across the sky all day long, or an hour long house-of-cards building session, it's up to you!
After shooting your frames, bring the files into your computer and convert them into an animation using your favorite editing software, such as Photoshop, or a GIF creation web page. This page shows you how to do this step-by-step using ezgif.com/maker
Page last edited March 18, 2024
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