Time-Lapse Calculator
Frames, clip length and speed-up from shooting time, interval and frame rate, or the interval a clip needs, with storage and a shutter-versus-interval check.
How many frames a shoot gives, how long the clip runs and how much faster than real time, the interval for the clip you want, the card space needed, and whether the exposure leaves time between frames.
Example: Two hours at 5 s intervals is 1,440 frames: a 60 s clip at 24 fps, 120× real time, and 36 GB at 25 MB a photo; 20 minutes into a 10 s clip at 30 fps is one frame every 4 s.
Frames in,
seconds out.
How interval, shooting time and frame rate set the clip, how to work back from the clip you want, and what the storage and shutter checks catch.
Forward
Shooting for a duration at an interval gives duration ÷ interval frames (whole frames only); played back at a frame rate they last frames ÷ fps seconds. The speed-up is real time over clip time — how fast clouds or crowds will appear to move.
Backward
Start from the clip you want: clip length × frame rate is the frames needed, and the interval is the shooting time over that. Short intervals suit fast subjects (traffic, people), long ones slow ones (clouds, plants, stars).
Storage and shutter
Card space is frames × the size of one photo (decimal MB and GB). An exposure as long as the interval leaves the camera no time to write the frame — at night, keep the shutter a second or more shorter than the interval.
What the number does not settle
Battery life, card write speed and the camera’s own interval limits are not modelled. Inputs stay in your browser; the same anonymous usage counts as the rest of the site apply.