How To Use Time-lapse Video On IPhone | Macworld

Want to know how to shoot brilliant time-lapse video on an iPhone? You’ve come to the right place. In this article we show you the basics of time-lapse photography, demonstrate how it all works and offer a few tips to help improve your videos.

For more general advice on iPhone photography, read our iPhone camera tips.

What is time-lapse photography?

Time-lapse is a video recording mode that captures video at a very low frame rate: around one to two frames per second, although this depends on the length of the recording.

When played back, time-lapse video is almost the opposite of slow motion. Slo-mo shoots more frames per second than normal shooting, so that when it’s played back at a normal framerate it spreads out over a longer period and everything happens more slowly; when time-lapse is played at 30fps you rattle through minutes, or even hours, in just 30 seconds or so.

It’s a great technique for shooting largely static environments that change slowly – the sun moving across the sky, flowers opening and closing – or for creating artistic, music-video style recordings in crowded areas.

How to turn on time-lapse mode

Open the Camera app as normal – either tap its icon or swipe in from the righthand edge of the lock screen. By default you will be dropped into photo mode (you can see this labelled in yellow, just above the shutter button) but if you swipe across the mode carousel you can change to video, Portrait Mode and so on. Time-lapse is on the far left of the carousel, so keep swiping from left to right until you get to it.

Once you’re in time-lapse mode you’ll notice that the red record button is encircled by a timer. Tap that to begin recording and you will see the timer counter move around the record button. Tap the recording button again to stop recording.

Why is the video so short?

You will find that most time-lapse video recordings play back in 20 to 40 seconds, regardless of how long you recorded for.

This is actually a useful feature, as it means that you won’t fill up your iPhone storage during the recording. But it is also why the video you recorded for ages isn’t much longer than one you recorded in just a few minutes.

According to Apple’s website, the number of frames captured per second is relative to the time you are recording for. The longer you record for, the fewer frames will be captured each second – and the more dramatic the ‘speeding up’ effect when it’s played back at 30fps.

If you record for less than 10 minutes the phone will capture 2 frames per second. (So when you play it back at 30fps, it’s been speeded up 15 times.) If you get past the 10 minute mark, your iPhone will retrospectively discard half of the frames captured thus far, and from then on record only 1fps. (So the speeding up effect will now be 30 times.)

The framerate drops again at 40 minutes, one hour and 20 minutes, and so on. This post explains the process in impressive detail.

While the video will be vastly smaller in size than a normal-speed video of the same scene would have been, don’t expect a really small file size. Our smallest clip is only a second long and takes up 4.2MB. Our biggest is 75MB and lasts 31 seconds.

Apple says you can record for as long as 30 hours. We didn’t try that, but we are pretty confident that the resulting video would not be significantly longer than a video took 20 minutes to shoot.

Tips for shooting time-lapse videos on an iPhone

Here are a few simple tips that will help you capture good-quality, effective-looking time-lapse videos.

1. Keep the iPhone still

When you’re recording, keep the iPhone really still for the best results. We recommend that you rest the phone somewhere or use a tripod, rather than hold it in your hand.

This is partly to avoid wobble, which will spoil the recording, but also because if you are attempting to hold the phone still for a good few minutes you hand is going to end up hurting!

2. Capture contrast

The best recordings capture the contrast between moving and still objects. Keep the phone still and record traffic speeding past, or place the phone on a table and record people busily going about their business.

The key is to record in a location where you can contrast still objects with moving objects. In this example we recorded people moving around in the Accademia in Florence (that’s Michelangelo’s David in the background).