RAW or JPEG for timelapse photography?

[theuserjohnny]

For those who do TL do you guys prefer to shoot in RAW or JPEG?

I want to keep the RAW files so that I can correct exposures and such but I'm limited to the number of shots I get. I'm considering of just bumping down to S-RAW2.

Currently I'm not doing anything huge. I'm just doing a TL of Disneyland and I have a pass to the park and I go often so I don't mind having just roughly 600 shots (8GB card, going to get a 16GB soon).

But I just wanted to get some opinions on others who do TL.

Should I keep the quality control of having RAW files or should I aim for capacity in JPEG?

[wonderspark]

I think it depends on how much time and storage you have to work with. If I was doing only 600 images in tricky lighting, I'd shoot RAW, but if you don't have the space or time to process, the decision will be made for you.

My last time lapse was a little over 112,000 images, and I shot them JPG to keep it simple. If you expose them right, you won't have to worry about correction, and it saves time with batch processing. When I do day-to-night or vice versa (sunrise, sunset) transitions, RAW is a lot more useful, but I think Disneyland images will be easy to expose correctly. Here's another older one (only about 70,000 images) that were also shot JPG, just to show it can be done and look good. In both examples, I ended up throwing away many thousands of frames to cut out the "boring" parts where they were just digging holes and letting concrete dry, haha.

128GB Class 10 SDXC cards are pretty cheap these days, and I use a pair of them to keep the camera going for long periods of time without having to move it.

[Caliber26]

Originally Posted by theuserjohnny

For those who do TL do you guys prefer to shoot in RAW or JPEG?

I want to keep the RAW files so that I can correct exposures and such but I'm limited to the number of shots I get. I'm considering of just bumping down to S-RAW2.

Currently I'm not doing anything huge. I'm just doing a TL of Disneyland and I have a pass to the park and I go often so I don't mind having just roughly 600 shots (8GB card, going to get a 16GB soon).

But I just wanted to get some opinions on others who do TL.

Should I keep the quality control of having RAW files or should I aim for capacity in JPEG?

Just out of curiosity, what are you shooting a TL of at DLR? I work at WDW so I'm wondering if a new big attraction is being developed?

BTW, I never knew TL were shot with stills. I always assumed it was continuous video played at a very high speed.

[wonderspark]

Video with speed adjustment is another way of doing it, but it's a lot more efficient to shoot stills as needed instead of throwing away so many frames of video by speeding it up. Not only that, but if you shoot stills, you benefit from the vastly greater resolution of the still images over mere 1920x1080.

I used to work at Disneyland, way back. It's a whole new park, now! Anyway, I was under the impression he was just shooting for fun, not necessarily construction of a new attraction.

[theuserjohnny]

Originally Posted by Caliber26

Just out of curiosity, what are you shooting a TL of at DLR? I work at WDW so I'm wondering if a new big attraction is being developed?

BTW, I never knew TL were shot with stills. I always assumed it was continuous video played at a very high speed.

I'm just shooting for fun! Nothing serious just gives me something to work on while at the park because there are some days where the parks are just packed and I end up riding like 1 ride and then leaving because I'm annoyed. At least with this I can do something at the park.

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Originally Posted by wonderspark

I think it depends on how much time and storage you have to work with. If I was doing only 600 images in tricky lighting, I'd shoot RAW, but if you don't have the space or time to process, the decision will be made for you.

My last time lapse was a little over 112,000 images, and I shot them JPG to keep it simple. If you expose them right, you won't have to worry about correction, and it saves time with batch processing. When I do day-to-night or vice versa (sunrise, sunset) transitions, RAW is a lot more useful, but I think Disneyland images will be easy to expose correctly. Here's another older one (only about 70,000 images) that were also shot JPG, just to show it can be done and look good. In both examples, I ended up throwing away many thousands of frames to cut out the "boring" parts where they were just digging holes and letting concrete dry, haha.

128GB Class 10 SDXC cards are pretty cheap these days, and I use a pair of them to keep the camera going for long periods of time without having to move it.

They make 128GB CF cards? I'm shooting with a Mark II I think I'm going to upgrade to a Mark III so that I can do CF and SD and that should increase my capacity big time.

Right now I did a test on Thunder Mt since the ride is closing for the year sometime in early January and wanted to at least get some sort of timelapse footage for it.

My plan is to intercut timelapse with actual footage (hopefully I can get a Mark III or just barrow someone's camera for slowmotion w/ 60fps right now I just have the GoPro for slowmotion). I think that it can be something special if I just take my time... I'm aiming for a end of 2013 release maybe sooner.

[Prodo123]

Originally Posted by wonderspark

Video with speed adjustment is another way of doing it, but it's a lot more efficient to shoot stills as needed instead of throwing away so many frames of video by speeding it up. Not only that, but if you shoot stills, you benefit from the vastly greater resolution of the still images over mere 1920x1080.

I used to work at Disneyland, way back. It's a whole new park, now! Anyway, I was under the impression he was just shooting for fun, not necessarily construction of a new attraction.

I would not recommend this, as storage becomes an issue with longer shoots.

I shoot RAW with time lapse as long as the storage allows for it. In post, it has the color depth which comes in handy when making stacked images. If it's an extended period lasting 3000+ shots then of course I use JPEG, but at full resolution so I have the ability to crop the time lapse video to whatever size I want.

[wonderspark]

Originally Posted by Prodo123

I would not recommend this, as storage becomes an issue with longer shoots.

I shoot RAW with time lapse as long as the storage allows for it. In post, it has the color depth which comes in handy when making stacked images. If it's an extended period lasting 3000+ shots then of course I use JPEG, but at full resolution so I have the ability to crop the time lapse video to whatever size I want.

Exactly.