⏱️ Time-Lapse Calculator
Enter your shooting time, interval and playback frame rate to get the final clip length, number of photos and storage needed.
Final clip length
24s
Photos needed
721
Card space
17.6 GB
Photos = shooting time ÷ interval; clip length = photos ÷ playback fps. A shorter interval gives smoother, longer footage but needs more shots and card space. For a 24-30 fps clip you need a lot of frames, an hour at 5-second intervals makes only about 24 seconds of video. 🔒 In your browser.
How the time-lapse calculator works
A time-lapse plays many still photos back as video. The number of photos is the shooting time divided by the interval between shots; the clip length is that photo count divided by the playback frame rate. The tool also estimates the memory-card space from your photo file size. The core relationship is that shooting duration and playback duration are linked only through the interval and frame rate: the effective speed-up factor equals the interval multiplied by the frame rate (a 5-second interval played at 30 fps compresses time 150×). Raising the frame rate makes motion smoother but shortens the clip for the same number of frames, so you compensate by shooting longer or with a shorter interval.
A shorter interval makes smoother, longer footage but needs many more frames and much more card space. As a rule, capturing enough for even a short clip takes a long shoot, an hour at a 5-second interval yields only about 24 seconds of 30 fps video.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate a time-lapse?
Photos = shooting time ÷ interval; final clip length = photos ÷ playback frame rate. Shooting for 1 hour at a 5-second interval gives about 720 photos, which at 30 fps is roughly a 24-second clip.
What interval should I use for a time-lapse?
It depends on the motion: 1-3 seconds for fast clouds or traffic, 5-15 seconds for slow clouds or crowds, and 20-30+ seconds for stars or sunsets. Shorter intervals give smoother but shorter results per hour of shooting.
How many photos do I need for a time-lapse?
At least the playback frame rate × the desired clip length, for a 10-second clip at 30 fps you need 300 photos. The tool works out the count from your interval and shooting time.
How much storage does a time-lapse need?
Photos × file size. Shooting RAW (20-40 MB each) for thousands of frames adds up fast, a long time-lapse can easily fill many gigabytes. The tool estimates the card space from your photo size.
How long should I shoot a time-lapse?
Work backwards: for an N-second clip at F fps you need N×F photos, so shooting time = N×F×interval. A 20-second, 30 fps clip at a 4-second interval needs 600 photos and 40 minutes of shooting.
What is the speed-up factor of a time-lapse?
It is the interval times the playback frame rate. Shooting one frame every 10 seconds and playing back at 24 fps compresses real time by 240×, so 4 hours of real time becomes about 60 seconds of video.
Why must the shutter speed be shorter than the interval?
Each frame's exposure has to finish (plus a little buffer for the camera to write the file) before the next interval fires. If your night interval is 6 seconds but the exposure is 8 seconds, the intervalometer misses shots, keep the shutter comfortably shorter than the interval, or lengthen the interval.