From the course: Creating Time-Lapse Video

Choosing the right aperture for time-lapse photography

From the course: Creating Time-Lapse Video

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Choosing the right aperture for time-lapse photography

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- When it comes time to shoot your time-lapse, you're going to need to get the settings right in your camera. And I just want to revisit the exposure triangle for a moment to hammer home the important points. Let's start with aperture. Remember, the aperture is the size of the opening in your lens. And generally speaking, you're going to adjust this based upon the environment. In this case, we have a nice wide open area, mountain ranges, fields. I'm going to go down to a very small aperture, maybe F16, so there's a greater depth of field. If I was shooting nighttime time-lapse with streaking cars, I might want some bokeh and to see the blooming lights in the streaks. The shot I'm showing you here was a much more wide open aperture because I wanted the streaking lights of the Vegas streets, or as you see here in Tel Aviv. Playing with these let me really get the blooming of the light. Now, aperture is a stylistic decision, but you will also use it as a control method to control how much light hits the sensor. And if you can't get it with aperture, remember, you can always add a neutral density filter.

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