Eeek! a half hour of time lapse!? That's a challenging number of frames whether you're doing it with stills or with video. Challenging both to assemble, and (I should think) to watch.

be more specific about the challenges (in layman's terms if possible). My naive assumption is that if I just turn on the videocam for 30 minutes at 24fps I will have assembled a like number of frames (43,200) in the camera's memory. Will it be different if I instead assemble them in the camera at 6spf, over a period of days?

Also, in regards to the camera taking 3-5 rapid exposures at the time-lapse.... is this necessary? Can that be overridden to take only ONE?

Finally, I appreciate your suggestion for using a still camera, but there may be logisitical obstacles. Is it possible to program a still digital camera to take an exposure every 6 seconds for up to 15 hours at a time, untended?

Thanks again to you both. MV, yes this is experimental. I plan to create a visual document in time-lapse, and allow the visual experience be a direct, unedited result of that idea. The visual element will be accompanied by a densely-layered soundtrack of music, voices and ambient noise. It may indeed prove unwatchable. I have no idea, but I'm DYING to find out! Finding out what it will look like is the point for me, really. My first approximations indicate I will need a time lapse segment of 6 seconds. One exposure every 6 seconds until I have enough frames for approximately 30 minutes of end product.

Videobear,
I've been intrigued by the fact that videocams on time-lapse fire off a burst of 3-5 rapid frames instead of a single frame. Why do you suppose this is evidently a standard? Is it to smooth out the look when a time-lapse sequence is later viewed? I can easily imagine that.

In terms of my project, I don't necessarily see this as an insurmountable problem. It's the nature of the beast, so my job will be to work with that nature, and adapt my methods to it. I just have to figure out how, and do some trial runs on a smaller scale, of course.

One thought just occurred to me: are there any extant post-production programs that will allow me to easily cut, say, every 3rd frame, or every 5th frame? In my project this wouldn't alter the content, it would just to remove redundancy and shorten the final length. Hmm.

This forum has already taught me some valuable things, and will no doubt continue to do so.
..r.

2) I have a laptop with a dead battery so it needs to run off ac power. Buying a new battery wouldn't help much, because I will be driving for 12 hours a day, so the battery would die anyways. I might be willing to buy an AC adapter for my car, but I'm not completely sure how that works.