Mini Review of Lapse It

[+Nexus18 MVC]

You can get Lapse it - Time Lapse Pro from here or you can try the free version out here.

What is a time-lapse?

Taken from Wikipedia as it will explain it far better than what I can :p:

Time-lapse photography is a technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. For example, an image of a scene may be captured once every second, then played back at 30 frames per second. The result is an apparent 30-times speed increase. Time-lapse photography can be considered the opposite of high speed photography or slow motion.

Processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye, e.g. the motion of the sun and stars in the sky, become very pronounced. Time-lapse is the extreme version of the cinematography technique of undercranking, and can be confused with stop motion animation.

Firstly, lets take a look at the UI of the app:

On the far left you have the main start screen where you can access the "capture time lapse" camera screen, which is the two screens on the left and the second screenshot is the settings sub-menu, where you can change the capture settings i.e. you can choose what res. to record at; 240P, 360P, 480P, 720P, 1080P and full sensor ("specially for those who want to capture in their devices but render in their computers, you can still render it using lapse it, but it will be scaled to 720P"). We also have the render settings, which consist of what type of encoder to use, either; MP4, MOV, FLV. The quality of the render and the FPS (Frames Per Second), the higher this is, the shorter the video is. When you click "more" whilst in the "capture time lapse" view, you get a sub-menu introducing more options as shown in the above screenshot on the far right.

In the "gallery" sub section, this is where you can view your own time lapse videos as well as viewing other lapse it - time lapse projects using the app (should check some of them out, they are superb!):

Finally lets take a look at the editing UI area:

Here you can preview your video as you edit it, as you can see, we are able to trim the video (remove frames at the start and end), add effects (Black & White, Vivid colours, Invert colours, vintage and an old film effect), add a music track and lastly the important bit, render settings (these are also available in the settings sub menu as shown above).

I have done a fair amount of videos lately, but they haven't come out the best due to shakiness/jerkiness, you need to have some form of a tripod/desk holder or something to hold the phone steady, otherwise the video will be nowhere as good in the end i.e. my first video:

:o :p

Now for the steady videos :p Although the sunset was nowhere as good as the above :(

This is a quick one taken on my one S at 720P (can do 1080P as well but with 45 minutes of footage it would consume way too much space! :p), 12 frame interval and encoded at 35FPS/MP4/very high quality:

As I pointed out above, you can apply effects, such as black and white, sepia etc. here is one using the "vivid" option:

My videos aren't the best or the longest to show this sort of app of, they are there to just give you an idea of what to expect.

Youtube can stabilize the above video so it looks less shaky/more smooth, but I just wanted to show you the untouched version. Once again, I am sure that you could edit the video on the PC using some software so that it would look even better!

PS. the reason the video quality in terms of "clearness" isn't the best is due to the window being dirty :p :o

To sum up, the outcome isn't anywhere near the quality of time lapses done with proper camera equipment and manually edited on the computer using some software, but for a smart phone and a ?1.24 app, which does everything for you, it does a damn good job of creating a time lapse video. The app is easy to use, quick and not bloated with settings, features, which make it complicated for the average users. There is also a short video on the play store web page explaining the app and giving a quick walk through the app UI/settings and what to do.

Thanks for reading and I hope this review has been helpful and as always any questions, ask away :)

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

It seems okay but there is an obvious fading effect with those videos.

Thanks for the review, I'd say it's definitely worth paying ?1.24 as a bit of fun.