Manhattan, New York Time-lapse Photography

Photography Tips  •  Time-lapse Photography

With the help of a Canon 5D MKII, two Canon 7D‘s, a 16-35mm 2.8L lens, and the 24mm TS lens – Rochester, New York based photographer, Josh Owens edited together a four minute time lapse of New York City. Owens was able to secure prime vantage points at 12 hotels and various other Manhattan locations to create the film.

He used the Dynamic Perception dolly rig, opting to upgrade from the standard MX2 intervalometer to The Little Bramper to control exposures. Owens speaks highly of The Little Bramper’s ability to make smooth exposure transitions when shooting during both day and night.

“This is a device that slowly ramps the shutter speed up or down over time while the camera is in bulb mode.” Owens used the 6-foot rail that comes with the dolly in addition to a 9-foot rail, which Owens says “was originally 12-feet but, I had to trim it in order to fit it into cabs/elevators etc.”

Manhattan Time-lapse

Only a short segment of the footage was captured on the 7D, with over 95% of the time lapse film done on the Canon 5D MKII. Owens says he was able to achieve the motion blur during daylight hours, “using Neutral Density filters which limit the amount of light that hits the sensor allowing you to use longer shutter speeds.” All of the editing was done in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Affter Effects, taking over two hours to render the footage at 1080.

For Further Training on Time-lapse Photography:

Check out this new COMPLETE guide (146 pages) to shooting, processing and rendering time-lapses using a dslr camera. It can be found here: Time-lapse Photography Guide