I now know the limits of the Lumix FZ80’s battery capacity.
Over the course of two time-lapse tests this past couple of weeks I was able to get nice, zoomed-in time-lapse cloudscapes. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the battery only lasts around three hours because you can’t tell the camera to turn off the rear display. And since you can’t bypass the battery and run off of “wall power,” you’re stuck with the limitations of the battery.
This afternoon I set up a shoot intended to run five hours and only got about three. Since the battery ran out completely, I wasn’t able to “finish” the time lapse mode shoot with the usual “make a video” step… which means I ended up with 750 individual images that were to be used in the making of a video file by the camera itself.
I did that anyway once the battery had some juice again, yes, but that file is not what I uploaded to YouTube. Instead, I told HitFilm Express to load up those 750 big juicy still frames instead. That gave me the best possible quality source material to get a 4K video result. Also, I learned how to do a title card and dissolve transitions, because why not?
I probably won’t use the Lumix to do many more of these, which is a shame because I love having the ability to zoom in to the distance, thus removing all of the signs of being in an apartment complex (neighbors’ decks & windows, our deck’s railing, etc). I still want to see if I can get slightly better results, though, so if (when?) I try again anyway, I’ll use 5 second intervals instead of the 15 second intervals used to capture the above video. Hopefully that’ll give smoother-looking cloud action with details you can track better, instead of just an impression of “clouds go brrrr” like I ended up with today. Also, as much as I love having the treeline to provide a frame of reference, “trees go brrr” is definitely an unwanted result.
Lessons learned, further experimentation and practice warranted.
Next time… damn, I keep promising more ducks, don’t I? Huh. Where’s the GoPro…?
