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Sidebar:
I use Adobe Premiere Pro for my editing jobs, but I have also used Avid DV Express, Final Cut Pro, and others in
non linear editing world. These are all great programs and are very powerful products that can create some very professional looking videos. You don’t have to have these products to create your own videos but if you are serious about digital video editing it might be a good idea to take a look at these options.
I digitize my raw video of
scene I am doing time lapse on into my computer (big hard drive, video eats up GB’s of space) and then import
clip into my time line. From th3e timeline you can then select
clip with a right click. From there you will be given a menu with options depending on
software you use. Select
option that says “duration”, “speed” or something similar. Change
speed of
clip so that time will speed up considerably. If you have an hour of video in
clip and want to shorten it to 2 -5 minutes then you need to increase
speed of
clip to 3 or 4 thousand percent of normal. This will require your software to render
clip at
higher speed and may take some time top process depending on
speed of your computer.
Once you have rendered
video clip at
new speed you will want to play it to see if
movie flows evenly or if you will want to readjust
speed setting to make it better. Sometimes you may want to shorten your raw video and adjust
speed down somewhat in order to get a smooth flow of action. Once you have rendered
clip at
new speed you can now cut and splice it as you see fit with
speeded up action intact. There are some things you will record that might only need a slight speed change, take for instance some digital video of your kids playing sports. Double or triple
speed of
clip and show it to them and you might have them rolling on
floor.
You can also use these techniques to capture
growth of a flower or plant over
course of days or weeks. Simply set you camera in exactly
same place at
same time each day and record an interval that works each day fro however long you want to document. May be you get
seedling just breaking soil and follow it all
way through turning into a full grown plant.
Another interesting idea is to capture
path of
moon across
night sky. Set up your camera on a tripod in a spot that can see
path of
moon for several hours. Set
camera to interval record and put
moon on one side of
frame so that it will pass across
frame as
night passes. This one may require some testing in order to get
exposure and framing right as well as
right interval to record at. Most likely you would want to set
interval as long as you can and
record time as short as you can but do a test run first to see what works.
I can’t stress enough that using your digital video camera can be great fun and you can achieve some cool results. Play around and test. You just might find yourself creating some very creative digital video to share with
rest of
world.

Kevin Rockwell worked as a network TV cameraman for 20 years shooting news and sports. Now a devoted fan of digital photography and video he works to gather information, tips and news for digital camera users. Oh and he loves to shoot pictures of cool and interesting things all the time. http://www.great-digital-cameras.com/gdcj.html