Time Lapse Calculator
Planning a time-lapse video? Enter your shooting duration, capture interval, and playback frame rate to see how many frames you will capture, how long the final video will be, and how much storage you need. Takes the guesswork out of time-lapse math.
The basic time-lapse formula:
Total Frames = Shooting Duration / Interval
Video Duration = Total Frames / Playback FPS
Recommended intervals for common subjects:
- Fast-moving clouds: 1-3 seconds
- Slow clouds / sunsets: 5-10 seconds
- City traffic: 2-5 seconds
- Stars / Milky Way: 15-30 seconds
- Plants growing: 5-15 minutes
- Construction projects: 5-30 minutes
- Flower blooming: 1-5 minutes
Tips for great time-lapses:
- Shoot more frames than you think you need. You can always speed up in editing, but you cannot add missing frames.
- Use manual exposure, focus, and white balance so settings do not shift between frames.
- A sturdy tripod is essential. Any movement between frames causes jitter.
- Bring extra batteries. A 2-hour time-lapse at 5-second intervals is 1,440 photos, which can drain a battery.