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How to Record Great Hyperlapse Videos on Your iPhone

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Instagram recently launched a new camera app called Hyperlapse that adds a dose of steroids to your videos and allows you to record nifty video to create an effect that would otherwise only be possible with professional equipment.

Hyperlapse is a free download that’s available in the iTunes App Store, and if you’re wondering what it does, it’s all in the name. If you’re not familiar with what a hyperlapse is, it’s essentially a moving time-lapse video. If you seen time-lapse videos before, you’ll notice that the camera is usually stationary and doesn’t move. However, with a hyperlapse, the camera’s position constantly moves, adding a new perspective and dimension to time-lapse videos.

While creating professional-looking hyperlapse videos takes a lot of time and patience and usually requires professional photography or video gear, Instagram’s new Hyperlapse app claims to do it easily with just your iPhone or iPad in hand.

The app uses your iPhone’s gyroscope during filming and then levels out the footage, similar to stabilization techniques used in many cameras and video-editing software. From there, the app then speeds up the video to create the time-lapse portion (or you can leave as real-time). And then, it combines the two to create a hyperlapse.

If you’re interested in creating some really epic hyperlapse videos with Hyperlapse app, here are some tips and tricks that you can try out for yourself to take your Hyperlapse recording to the next level.

Have Good Lighting

This a very basic principle in all forms of photography and videography and even amateur photo nerds know it, but it’s important to reiterate. Make sure you have good lighting when recording your Hyperlapse video.

What does this mean, exactly? All you really have to do is make sure that you have a light source pointing at your subject and try not to have any light sources behind it. This will create a silhouette and you won’t be able to see your subject because the light is overpowering it.

Luckily, it’s not too difficult to obtain good lighting, since all you have to do is go outside and use the sun. But if you’re determined to stay inside, it helps to open windows to let light in, or turn on lights to keep the room well lit.

Hold Your iPhone Steady

Okay, so Hyperlapse already includes a built-in image stabilizer to get rid of any unsteadiness in the video, but the more stable the video already is, the better the app can stabilize it further and make it as smooth as possible.

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The image stabilization technology in the app isn’t 100% perfect, so depending on unsteady your video is, the app might not be able to completely stabilize it and make it look smooth. This is why it’s important not to get cocky with the features and try to stabilize manually the best you can.

Know What Time-Lapse Speed to Use

You can choose different playback speeds in order to have a slow time-lapse or a quick one. You can choose speeds of up to “12x,” which will result in a quick time-lapse video that makes time fly by extremely quickly in the video. However, you can keep the video at “1x” and still have the image stabilization intact, meaning that you’ll have a normal video, but it will be steady and void of any camera shake.

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You can also choose 2x and 4x, all the way up to 12x, so depending on how the long the video is, it’s important to make sure that you select the right speed depending on the video that you recorded. If only recorded a 15-second video, you don’t want to choose 12x, because the video will end up only being a second or two long.

However, if you’re video is several minutes long, you don’t want it to be at 1x or 2x, because then the video will be too long and viewers will start to get bored, so be sure to choose your video’s time-lapse speed wisely.

Be Creative

The most important tip to remember when recording cool videos with the Hyperlapse app is to just be creative. Think of fun things to record and play it back as a time-lapse.

Obviously, the more things that are moving in the frame, the more interesting your video will be. Go to a busy place and record all the people walking around, or set up your iPhone like a dashcam in your car and record your commute to work and play it back in a time-lapse.

Things like that can add some serious spice to your Hyperlapse videos, and the more movement that there is to record, the better your videos will be.

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