Timelapse Calculator

Enter your desired clip length, frame rate, and shooting interval to find out exactly how long you need to shoot, how many frames you will capture, and how much storage space to prepare.

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Total Shooting Time
Total Frames
Final Clip
Storage (RAW)
Storage (JPEG)
Session Breakdown
1
Set your intervalometer to fire every
2
Your camera will take photos over
3
At , that produces a video clip
4
Prepare at least of card space (RAW) or (JPEG)
5
Speed-up factor: faster than real time

Recommended Intervals by Subject

Click any row to apply its recommended interval to the calculator above.

Subject Interval Notes

Understanding Timelapse Photography

The idea behind timelapse is simple. Instead of recording continuous video, your camera fires off individual photos at a set interval, and you stitch those frames together into a video later.

The result is a sped-up view of the world that you just can't get any other way. Clouds racing across the sky. Flowers blooming in seconds. A whole city pulsing with light as day turns to night. Some of the most compelling timelapses come from landscape scenes where the light, weather, or seasons shift over time.

How Intervals Affect the Result

Your shooting interval is the single biggest creative choice you will make. It controls how much real time passes between each frame, and that changes everything about the final video.

A short interval (1-3 seconds) captures rapid changes smoothly. Think traffic, crowds, busy street corners. A longer interval (30-120 seconds) suits slow processes like star movement or plant growth, where changes happen over hours.

Get it wrong and you will know immediately. Too short for a slow subject? Your timelapse looks like a still image with barely any motion. Too long for a fast subject? Jerky, disconnected frames.

The sweet spot always comes down to one question: how quickly is your subject actually changing?

Tips for Smooth Timelapses

Use manual exposure. This is the number one mistake beginners make. If you leave your camera on auto, the exposure shifts slightly between frames and you end up with annoying flicker in the final video. Lock your aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance before you start.

The one exception? Sunrise and sunset timelapses, where you may need to gradually adjust exposure as the light changes. Photographers call this ramping.

Shoot in RAW. You will thank yourself later. RAW files give you so much more room to correct white balance, tweak exposure, and colour-grade your entire sequence consistently. Yes, it eats storage. That is what the storage estimates above are for.

Turn off autofocus. Focus once, nail it, then switch to manual. If autofocus hunts between frames, you will get unusable footage with the focus drifting all over the place.

Use a sturdy tripod. Any movement between frames shows up as shake in the final video. Weigh your tripod down if it is windy and do not touch the camera during the shoot. If you want actual camera motion in your timelapse, invest in a motorised slider or pan head built for this kind of work.

Essential Gear

You need three things: a camera with manual controls, a sturdy tripod, and an intervalometer. Most modern cameras have one built in. If yours does not, an external one is cheap and plugs right into your camera's remote release port.

For star timelapses, add a fast wide-angle lens and find somewhere with minimal light pollution.

And bring more storage than you think you need. Timelapse sequences run to hundreds or thousands of frames, and at 25MB+ per RAW file, that adds up fast. Carry a spare card. Make sure your battery is full, or better yet, use an external power source for longer sessions.

Want to master landscape timelapses? Our Landscape guide covers timelapse planning, composition for moving elements, and post-processing techniques for creating cinematic results.

Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on your desired clip length and frame rate. For a 10-second clip at 24 fps, you need 240 frames. For a 30-second clip at 30 fps, that is 900 frames. Use this calculator to find the exact number. As a general rule, aim for at least 250 frames to create a timelapse that feels long enough to be satisfying when viewed.
For sunsets and sunrises, an interval of 3 to 5 seconds works well. The sky changes fast enough that shorter intervals capture smooth colour transitions, but not so fast that you end up with an excessive number of frames. For the golden hour period specifically, 3 seconds is ideal. If you only want to capture the sun dipping below the horizon, 2 seconds gives a smoother result.
Yes. Most modern smartphones have a built-in timelapse mode that handles the interval and stitching automatically. The results are decent for social media, but you lose control over interval timing, exposure settings, and output resolution. For serious timelapse work, a dedicated camera with manual controls and RAW shooting will produce far better results with more flexibility in post-processing.
Flicker is caused by slight exposure variations between frames. The best prevention is to shoot in full manual mode with a fixed aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance. Avoid using apertures smaller than f/8, because the mechanical aperture blades can introduce tiny variations. If you still get flicker, software like LRTimelapse or Adobe Lightroom can smooth out the exposure differences in post-processing.
A common guideline is to set your shutter speed to roughly half your interval. So if your interval is 4 seconds, aim for a 2-second exposure. This creates natural motion blur in each frame, which makes the final video look smooth and cinematic. If every frame is razor-sharp (from a very fast shutter speed), the timelapse can look stuttery. An ND filter is often needed to achieve these slower shutter speeds in daylight.

Related Tools

ND Filter Calculator

Calculate your new shutter speed with any ND filter. Essential for long exposure photography.

Image File Size Estimator

Estimate file sizes for JPEG, RAW, TIFF, and PNG at any resolution.

Golden Hour Calculator

Find golden hour, blue hour, sunrise, and sunset times for any location and date.

Shutter Speed Calculator

Find the minimum shutter speed for sharp handheld photos based on focal length, sensor size, and stabilization.

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