Construction Time Lapse...

... can be spectacular, allowing you to capture many weeks, months or even years into a couple of minutes of video, used to record the site progress or for marketing purposes. But to get it right, there are a number of key issues that need to be considered in planning your shoot. Don’t be afraid, it’s all common sense, but we just want to help maximize your chances of construction time lapse success!

Furthermore, the added benefit of being able to remotely monitor a job site is very useful to check the construction status.

To assist in planning your shoot, we have compiled the following information to help guide you through your setup and the gear that you might need.

This article is centered around GoPro cameras but the issues are translatable across other cameras like DSLR's and our soon to be released camera called UpShot.

Here are some things to know before you start:

• If you just want to know what equipment you need to get going, skip down to “What gear do I need?”. But please run through the Time Lapse Calculator first.
• You can read our blog here with some recent construction time lapse shoots, the gear we used and the settings. 
• Check out our Time Lapse Infographic for a good visual overview.
• And make sure to take a look at our handy guide on how to get started with time lapse.

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CamDo Solutions

CamDo equipment has been used to capture cost effective and professional looking construction time lapse footage using GoPro cameras over periods of weeks, months and years. Some of the benefits of our system are:

• Capture high quality images using the GoPro camera.
• Capture ultra wide angle images
• Multiple power options including high capacity batteries, solar panel, or AC power.
• Adjustable and programmable schedules for capturing different sequences at different times of the day.
• Can be used to increase shutter exposure for capturing images at night (HERO4 and above).
• We’ve also got you covered in post-production to with our free time lapse software called CamDoMachine.
• We recently just announced the first part of our time lapse software integration with Procore.

Composition

Composition is key to making your construction time lapse video impressive and compulsory viewing. You can get all the technical stuff right but if your camera is pointing into the sun or poorly framed, the results will speak for themselves!

Make sure to scope out your location and take some test shots to see how it will frame up at the end. If using the GoPro camera, the camera’s WiFi can be used with the GoPro App to preview the angle and field of view for each image on your smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Whilst you are at it, check what the average size of the photos are to help in checking your memory storage requirements, which we discuss more in the full guide.

Want the full guide to ensure that you get the most out of your time lapse? Tell us a bit more about yourself below to get access to the full guide.