What is time lapse photography?It's a technique where each frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster, and thus lapsing. (Not to be confused with stop motion.)

How the below time lapse video was done:

Shot with a Canon 7D (any digital camera will work though), 15-85 lens (IS off and on manual focus), on a tripod (required), with an interval timer remote (I used one by Pixel). I set the camera to shoot Jpg files on the smallest resolution, at 3200 ISO.

I shot on Program mode so that the camera would take into account the changing light. The software I used to put it all together was Adobe Lightroom 3 (can download a free 30 day
trail). For editing, I sharpened, color corrected, and removed noise on each image. I took 744 images 7 seconds apart over 2.5 hrs. The final results were merged at 15 FPS (frames per second) down to 50 seconds of video.

Want to learn more about time lapse photography? Check out these great links:
- A complete video tutorial
- How to combine stills using Quick Time Pro
- Read about Intervalometers or interval timers
- DIY intervalometer, and DIY Time Lapse

- Patrick Douglas, video © Douglas Photography