Intervalometer in MOVIE mode / Frame Rate Override

Another test which I plan to carry out this week is Magic Lantern's intervalometer in MOVIE mode. As previously discussed and demonstrated, Magic Lantern has a built-in intervalometer which can be used to automatically press the shutter at set intervals. The resulting still images are then convered into an image sequence using some software such as Quicktime Player 7.

The frame rate override function within Magic Lantern has also been investigated as well which is where the frame rate, in MOVIE mode is lowered to say 2fps, which allows timelapse sequence to be created directly as a movie (this also helps to avoid some of the artefacts caused when using a series of still images too).

What interests me now is using the intervalometer directly within MOVIE mode, which instead of taking a single image every few seconds (for example), will take a 1s movie clip at a user defineable interval. These short 1s movie clips can then be joined together to create a timelapse sequence.

Watch this space for the results......

EDIT: a couple of tests have recently been carried out and the results are as follows:

1. When using the intervalometer in MOVIE mode, the results are decent, however, as the camera is taking a 1s movie clip at regular intervals, the outcome can be quite "jerky". A test was carried out where a 1s clip was taken every 60s for around 2 hours and the results were good, however, when speeding the clip up by 2000%, a much smoother clip was produced.

2. When using the FRAME RATE OVERRIDE function, set to 0.5fps, the results were very good indeed as this basically produced a sequence with the same effect as using a series of still images with a shutter frequency of once every 2 seconds. I did however find that increasing the playback speed by 500% yielded an even better and smoother result. Therefore, if this is the case, it would probably be better to use around a frame rate of 2fps rather than the 0.5fps I tested.

A video of the video discussed in (2), can be found here:

https://vimeo.com/47586109

The main issue with both of these functions is that the Canon 550D can overheat fairly quickly (after around 15 minutes!) but turning off the LCD display on the camera can apparently help increase overheating times quite substantially - again, watch this space!