Camalapse Mount Improves Your Panoramas and 360-Degree Videos

The Camalapse, shown with a Glif tripod mount, lets you take 360-degree time-lapse photo and video. Photo: Peter McCollough/Wired

Among the many functions that various apps have added to our smartphones’ cameras are the ability to take time-lapse and 360-degree video. But if you want to combine those tasks, you need a little hardware help. A new camera accessory called the Camalapse solves that problem in an elegant though slightly limited way.

The Camalapse is a slowly rotating camera-agnostic base that lets you take steady 360-degree time-lapse videos. It’s basically a lightweight plastic egg timer that you can attach a smartphone or camera to using a tripod mount. It also has a mount on the bottom for setting it on an actual tripod for extra stability.

It rotates at a single speed — 6 degrees per minute, or one full circle in an hour. But you can set it to cover shorter arcs by simply turning it the desired distance, just like on a timer.

Of course, Camalapse is simply a rotating base. To use it, you’ll need apps for taking time-lapse or panoramic shots. I used iMotionHD for my time-lapse video. The app lets you set the time interval between shots, adjust the frames per second in the resulting video, and save as a video or as a series of photos. Twist the Camalapse to the desired time period, hit play on the app, and let technology do its work.

To create a panoramic still image, I used Microsoft’s Photosynth app, which stitches together remarkable pano shots on its own. But with the Camalapse, you can get a much more seamless and detailed image. The shot below took 45 minutes, something just not possible without a mechanical aid.

A panoramic photo shot using the Camalapse and the Photosynth app. Image: Christina Bonnington/Wired

Camalapse is dead-easy to use, though I wish that it had variable speed options — the single take-it-or-leave-it setting limits things. But if you’re not interested in hacking together your own hardware solution for long-period time-lapse and panoramic videos, the $25 device is a fairly economical accessory.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/camalapse-mount-360-video/

EMS TECHNOLOGIES EMC ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS ELECTRONIC ARTS