Timelapse dolly

posted Sep 18th 2009 1:00pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: digital cameras hacks

[Andrew Curtis] does fantastic timelapse photography. He found that he wanted to be able to move the camera while taking the shots to give motion to the final product. While this isn’t exactly a new idea, not too many people mess with it. The dolly to do it with can be quite expensive as it has to support the camera and move it in an automated and controlled fashion. [Andrew] has been working on building his own dolly and has documented the process.

[via Flickr]

Comments [7]

tagged: dolly, mount, photography

7 Responses to Timelapse dolly

Doug says:

September 18, 2009 at 2:52 pm

IMO; A poor method of documenting a project. No doubt quick and easy, but scatter between 3 pages you can’t just scroll to?

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napalm says:

September 18, 2009 at 3:01 pm

Aside from the random documentation, this is a pretty cool hack.

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Eli says:

September 18, 2009 at 3:29 pm

Cool, but those pclix devices are ridiculously, stupidly, insultingly expensive. They’re made of about $10 worth of parts, and sold for $200.

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alex says:

September 18, 2009 at 4:21 pm

its more than just moving a dolly out… its simultaneously zooming in. neat effect

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Wwhat says:

September 18, 2009 at 7:44 pm

I think it was hitchcock who used the moveout/zoomin (and visa versa) thing first in a movie, in ‘vertigo’, although obviously not with timelapse.
Random trivia

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Andrew Curtis says:

September 18, 2009 at 8:22 pm

Hi Guys, this is my project. I wasn’t intending to document it in the traditional sense, just show some other guys on the forum what I was up to and let everyone discuss.

The video featured here is a test shot I did with a PVC dolly I made, and another contraption which zooms the lens (check my vimeo page), to test the vertigo effect in timelapse form and see if it would warrant a better quality system. This led to the aluminum dolly linked which I just finished two days ago. I’m a machinist by trade.

The dolly doesn’t run just yet, because I’m struggling as a beginner to learn the electronics required. Hopefully I’ll get it figured out in the next few weeks and be able to go out and shoot with it!

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Wwhat says:

September 19, 2009 at 6:05 pm

It’s not bad at all, keep them coming, I wonder what else you come up with to enhance your time lapse fascination.

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