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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