How to make 4K time-lapse videos from start to finish: The gear you need, shooting settings and editing

posted Tuesday, November 28, 2017 at 2:00 PM EDT

Time-lapse videos are a great way to tell a story, says photographer Adam Karnacz. In his new video, Karnacz shares how he makes his 4K time-lapse videos.

Many cameras these days include a built-in time-lapse mode. However, Karnacz prefers to capture still images and manually turn his stills into a video sequence. While in-camera results can look very good, editing and processing the stills yourself gives you more control over the look of the final video and gives you larger files to work with.

What kind of gear do you need? In addition to the obvious camera and lens, you also need a tripod and some type of intervalometer, either a built-in one or a remote shutter release. Karnacz himself uses a Canon 5D Mark IV most of the time. When it comes to setting up your camera, you want to shoot in manual mode and then decide on an interval. Karnacz says you may want to use different intervals for different situations, but he sticks with three-second intervals and usually creates eight second clips, which is around 10 minutes of shooting. In the video below, Karnacz also shows off his editing workflow for creating time-lapse videos.