Shrink Your Timeline: A Simple Guide to Creating Time Lapse Videos

Time Lapse Software: Create Time Lapse Video

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

You may have seen some time lapse videos already. A sunset motion, flower blooming, traffic and city lights and more time lapse videos. Time lapse is an amazing technique often used to make everything in the video seems moving much faster than in real life, like speed up a video clip and give the illusion of compressed time.

If you have a GoPro Hero 5 Black action camera, check our article abouthow to shoot a time-lapse video with GoPro.

Some phones also allow you to shoot time-lapse video , but we recommend you to use a good camera and video editing software to make better time lapse videos. If you are looking for a time lapse software to make a time lapse video, we recommend Filmora video editor , which is easy to use on both Windows PC and Mac. How to create a time-lapse video with Filmora? Download the software and follow the step-by-step tutorial below.

In this article, we will introduce two methods of creating time lapse video in Filmora:

• Method 1: Creating time lapse video from photos
• Method 2: Fast Forward to Make a Time lapse Video

With built-in slow/fast motion effects, you can use Filmora to make time lapse effects in drag-and-drop. If you want to add filters to your video, Filmora offers more than 150 free filters to use. Check the new features of Filmora to empower your imagination. Download it to have a try!

Download Mac Version ](https://tools.techidaily.com/wondershare/filmora/download/ )

Before we get started, we have summarized some tips for shooting time-lapse videos, hope that will help to shoot a good video footage. If you have some other tips and tricks about shooting time lapse videos, please share it on the comment below.

Tip 1: Keep the Camera/phone stable with camera stabilizer or tripod.

Tip 2: Make sure there is enough space for shooting time-lapse video. Large capacity memory cards are always welcomed.

Tip 3: Charge the battery fully before shooting and prepare a standby battery if you have.

If you wanna make a time lapse video with photos, you need set up your camera to take photos at a proper interval, such as take photo at every five second or use the built-in time lapse shooting settings in your camera. It is recommended to record or take photos for at least 20 minutes because the time lapse video will speed up. OK, now let’s start making the time lapse video:

Tips for Recording Time Lapse Video on iPhone

Method 1: Creating time lapse video from photos

1 Import the original photos to Filmora

After installing and launch Filmora video editor, import the shot time lapse photos to it. Click New Project and then click the Import button to add your photos to the media library. You can also directly drag and drop your video to the program. Then all the imported files will appear as thumbnails in the left of the window.

You can also import the photos from the video shooting device. Just plug in the video camera, click Import from Phone or Camera option in Import menu, and then transfer the target media files to Filmora.

After that, you need to select and drag and drop all the photos to the first video track.

2 Preview the photos

After all your photos are placed in timeline, you can zoom in the timeline or preview it in the Preview window to check if it needs any order adjustment or deletion.

3 Adjust Photo Duration to Create Time lapse Video

Select one of the photos in the timeline and right click on it to select Speed and Duration to open the Custom Speed panel. Go to Duration section, and change the duration of the photo to 00:00:00:01 or other duration based on your needs, and then click OK.

You can also add a background music to make time lapse more professional. You can choose a music sound from the built-in music library or import your own audio file.

4 Export your new video

Place the timeline playhead at the beginner, and play it in Preview window to check the time lapse effects. If everything works fine, click the Export tab and choose the target format and click SETTINGS to output the time lapse video. Here you can change the video format and video and audio parameters such as Bit Rate, Encoder, Resolution and so on.

If you want to save and play your video on iPhone, iPod, iPad and other devices, just switch to the Device tab and choose from the device list. What’s more, you can upload the newly made video file to all popular video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo directly from the interface of Filmora. Or turn to DVD tab to burn your video to DVD for playing on TV.

Method 2: Speed Up to Make a Time lapse Video

In case that you want to make a time lapse video with video footage, below are the step-by-step tutorial:

1 Import Video Footage

Just like importing photos to Filmora, follow the steps to import the video clips to media library.

2 Cut out part of the video for time lapse editing (optional)

Next, drag your video onto the video column in the timeline. Select the loaded video and click the “Play” button. While playing the video, drag the slider bar at the start time and hit the “Split” icon to cut out the part you want to do time lapse editing.

3 Speed up to create time lapse video

Right click on the video clip in the timeline to select Speed and Duration. Then a window will pop up for you to adjust the settings of video. Find the Speed option and drag the slider bar to the right to increase the speed. If you set the playback speed to play at 200% the original speed, then the 30-second clip be only 15 seconds (twice the speed). After that click OK. Click the Play button to preview the result. Filmora now support up to 100x fast mo and 0.01x slow mo.

4 Export your new time lapse video

If you are satisfied with the newly made time lapse video, just click Export to output the video footage.

Conclusion

That’s how to make a cool time lapse video with the time lapse video software Filmora, no matter whether you want to make a time lapse video from photos, or speed up the video to make a time lapse video, you can achieve that with a few clicks.

Download Mac Version ](https://tools.techidaily.com/wondershare/filmora/download/ )

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison

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