Hi All. Please see link below for my first attempt at Timelapse.

http://www.vimeo.com/18042055

As you will see, i'm having a problem with the frame jumping around and I don't know what is causing it. I was shooting with a Canon EOS 7D.
Settings: Auto WB and Shutter speed - Manual Focus and Aperture - Lens Stabalizer ON

Any ideas?

If you are locked on a tripod, IS can do strange things.

Switch the IS off for sure.

OK great- thx, I will try again with IS turned off.

Do you know of any software that could post process and fix this problem?

Adobe After Effects will fix motion problems, also things like Mocha.

Your lucky that it wasn't the auto focus. I did a 3 hour lapse with auto focus on (accident) and that is basically impossible to fix. This should be easy work in AEs using motion tracker/stabilize motion. I'm sure most software has equivalent tools.

yeah you may not be able to fix this as it isn't the fact that the camera is bumped or it is shaking - I believe IS changes the perspective slightly - so that even if you stabilize the footage it will still look wrong - also using Auto WB isn't really a great idea either - I try to stay away from auto anything when shooting time lapse. It looks like this calls for a reshoot - I've done it (probably most everyone here has done it) the important thing is to learn from the mistakes and don't repeat them, there are plenty of things that can go wrong on each shoot.

cheers,
timt

The subject is far enough that the perspective change should not be to bad. I would use stabilize motion if you have AE and in the stabilize motion options click perspective. This will give you four anchor points. Anchor them into the corners of the building. Then click "position", "rotation" and "scale". This should do the trick.

After watching it again it looks like the first clip might be suffering from both auto focus and IS. That one might be a lot harder to fix.

I'm on CS5 and I don't see those options - AE's stabilize motion doesn't work in perspective - are you thinking mocha, which is different from AE's tracker and may work like that, I've never used it to stabilize just tracking

timt

Here it in on my CS5. Very useful tool. Nearly fixed a Auto focus mistake on a 2 hour timelapse.

that's a tracker not a stabilizer - how do you use it to stabilize? I've used that before to corner pin elements (back in the days before mocha) - you should look into mocha it comes with AE and does some amazing stabilizing.

timt

I have stabilize motion selected on the top of the tool it has Track Motion and Stabilize Motion. Tracking and stabilizing seem to give the same result.

Where is the Mocha option? I have heard several people mention it, I thought they were talking about an independent software. I am interested in trying it. Thanks

mocha is a third party app that comes with After Effects - you can find information about how to use it at imagineersystems.com - it is a planar tracker that works differently than the AE tracker, I haven't used it to stabilize anything but the tracking is amazing - best I've ever seen.

timt

I use virtual dub Deshaker to get rid of the jolts and shakes. its extremely good and its free

so.. if I ever need to shoot an earthquake simulation I should turn the IS on??

but seriously, this looks like it would be some cool TL shots. Please post the final if you are able to fix it.l