The time-lapse you can already do

In case you haven't been camera gadget shopping lately it's going to cost you over $100 to get the official Canon intervalometer. Ouch! Now sure, with that you get a gadget that will count pictures and has an LED light. But, yeesh, that's a lot of simoleans...

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I wanted to play with some star trails and see what kind of shenanigans I could accomplish overnight with a (hopefully) clear sky. Star trails are easy to accomplish without a camera remote. Just set your exposure and hit the 2-sec (or 10-sec) self-timer so you don't have any shake from pressing the shutter button and you're off to the races. Grab a warm beverage and hang out for 20min!

But I wanted to do something else. I wanted to take hundreds of photos over several hours...automatically...without spending a bunch of money on an intervalometer and without being up all night. After all, I had a busy day of holiday feasting to do! So what I did was make sure I had my exposure and comp just how I wanted it and then changed my drive settings to multiple frames. After all, whether I was shooting a slam dunk sequence at 1/1000sec or stars at 30sec, as long as I hold down the shutter it's going to keep taking pictures. Lastly, I plugged in my $5 off-brand remote shutter and locked it down. With two full batteries, this should keep the camera shooting continuously until I come back out to turn it off, despite the cold weather. 


That's a quick, easy and cheap way to make your own time lapses and NOT spend a crap-ton of money on the intervalometer. Eventually there will be something you need that intervalometer for something but until then you can save some beer money by using your off-brand remote.