apline labs Photography Articles

Your Time-Lapse Video is Boring. Here's Why.

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Time-lapse photography is one of the coolest things you can do with a DSLR or compact camera. It's also becoming easier every day, with all the sophisticated gear available to do it. Of course, that means that everyone is out there doing it, and it doesn't take a lot of searching to find some really captivating videos. Watching one or two good ones is all it takes to inspire you to get out there and try it for yourself.

The thing is, you may have noticed a few rather dull ones while you were searching. You can only watch crowds shuffle by or the lighting change on a city skyline so many times before it's just no fun anymore. There's one thing you'll notice in those videos that really grab your attention: the point of view changes. Moving the camera makes all the difference in the dynamic quality of a time-lapse presentation.

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One of the easiest and least complicated ways to add that motion is by rotating your camera between shots. To really get the full effect, though, the rotation needs to be smooth and incremental. In other words, you need to turn the camera evenly on its axis and the degree of rotation between exposures needs to be even. Otherwise, your video will be jerky and/or bouncy. That's a lot of work in between shots, right? Nope.

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There's an easy and affordable way to add rotation without ever touching the camera between shots. The folks ant Alpine Labs developed Radian 2 because of their frustrations with other devices designed to do this. It's a powerful but simple device that lets you rotate the camera and control its shutter and other exposure controls wirelessly, from your smartphone or tablet. More importantly, though, it does so without the issues that some similar devices cause.

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For instance, to avoid blur from camera movement, Radian 2 pauses automatically between movements. It won't leave you stranded in the middle of a sequence, because the USB-rechargeable battery provides power for 100 hours or more. You can preview your video from your remote device and you have full control over shutter speed, ISO and aperture. You can program it for up to 20,000 positions within 360 degrees. That's up to 0.017 degrees per photo. By the way, you can use it for smooth movement in your full-motion videos, too, with up to 4.3 degrees of rotation per second!

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Radian 2 comes with everything you need except the camera, including a bubble level, rubber feet for off-tripod operation and all the cables for connecting and charging, all in its own mesh bag. Go visit the Alpine Labs website and find out for yourself why this is the camera control device you should be using to add interest to your time-lapse and full-motion videos.



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