I’ve done quite a bit to improve my Raspberry Pi-based timelapser.  I have a pretty good system together now, thanks in part to recent firmware updates to the Pi which allow me to directly control the shutter speed and ISO of the camera sensor instead of relying on auto-exposure settings.  The auto-exposure is pretty unreliable from one shot to the next: the camera makes a different decision each time it snaps a picture, which leads to quite a lot of flicker.  Previously, I was dealing with this flicker by manipulating the images in post-production, but I’ve now written some code to get the camera to try to maintain a constant image brightness across a long shoot.

The code now consists of a ‘timelapser’ class, which keeps track of its current shutterspeed and ISO (SS/ISO henceforth), and the brightness of the last few images taken.  It then adjusts SS/ISO to try to get the image brightness to 100.  By keeping track of the last few images, it is a bit less susceptible to being upset by one strange image (like, say, if I put my hand over the lens for one shot, producing a black image), or more standard movement within the frame.  On the other hand, it takes a while longer to settle down to the ‘right’ SS/ISO.  So it’s currently set up with an initialization step, where it finds a good SS/ISO pretty quickly, and then transitions to actually taking pictures.  The result is very little flicker as the timelapse goes on, and a pretty constant level of image brightness when light levels gradually change: like when we watch dawn or dusk.  (If you’re interested in playing around with the code, I’ve set up a github repository here.)

As an example, this is a video that we shot over about three days on my friends Ketan and Ananya’s balcony.  They have a great view over Toronto, from the CN Tower to Honest Ed’s.

Continue reading →