The above video accurately demonstrates two things. Firstly it demonstrates the need for a nice tripod which will stay grounded and give the camera a solid and unmoving platform for it to rest on. The second thing this video demonstrates is the importance of leaving your camera be as it is taking the photos. This is evident in some of my earlier timelapse videos where I accidentally knock the tripod detracting from the final result.

The actual act of timelapsing is quite simple and straight forward and can (if you want to know how long the final result will be and how long the camera will be taking photos for) involve some maths. Lets start with the process and I will talk about the maths afterwards.

Before setting out to shoot a timelapse make sure your battery/s are fully charged and all your gear is packed. Set up the tripod and the camera in the desired location. Frame up the shot and make sure the tripod is stable and won't shake as the timelapse is being shot. Take a few test photos to see if the shot is what you want it to be and to check if the exposure is correct. Set the camera to fully manual mode and make sure auto white balance is not on and iso is not set to auto. This avoids any lighting changes as the light of the environment changes. (The first timelapse I ever did I didn't do this and as the sun set the camera kept on compensating yielding a horrible result.) Also make sure the camera is in manual focus mode so it doesn't try to refocus every photo. Set up the method of capturing the timelapse whether it be a computer, magic lantern or an intervalometer and set it to take the desired amount of photos with the desired time between photos. When everything is setup, get the timelapse going and sit back as the camera works its wonders. Once the timelapse is shot, pack up and go home or alternativley, take another!

Now for the maths. If you want to work out how long the final timelapse will be you will first need to work out how long you want your timelapse to last. For instance if you are shooting a sunset or sunrise you may only want to be shooting for 30 minutes to an hour whereas if you are doing some astrophotography you may want to shoot for 2+ hours. Once I work out how long I want to shoot for I set my exposure and how long I want between shots (make sure the time in between shots is always more than the exposure time). I then change the number of shots to suit the length I want to shoot for. Once I know how many shots I will take I can work out the time of the final result at 24fps (frames per second)

For Example:

I want to shoot a sunset and I want the timelapse to span 45 minutes. I set the time between shots to be 15 seconds. First I convert 45 minutes into seconds as it is easier to work out the number of shots:

45 minutes x 60 = 2700 seconds

Then to work out the number of shots I divide 2700 by 15

2700/15 = 180 shots

Therefore i need 180 shots to get 45 minutes of timelapse with 15 seconds between shots.