Brinno Time Lapse - Rule 1... The Only Rule

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There are no rules to creating a time lapse, your movie can be whatever you envision. However, I am making a rule for any long term time lapse. You must have a sturdy mount! There that's it, the one rule. I do a considerable amount of construction time lapse movies and spend some time watching those of others. The most annoying thing, in my opinion is swaying and movement caused by an inadequate mount. Even worse could be an abrupt jarring which shifts the camera position.

A sturdy mount is easy to accomplish if you are doing a short time lapse. A windowsill works, until the dog's tail smacks the camera, a supervised tripod is fine for a sunset. A sturdy mount becomes more of a challenge when you have a project which will last weeks or months, especially if you need to change batteries and handle the camera.

I have custom fabricated mounts for long term projects. I use sturdy clamps, zip ties, bolts and don't mess around with something which might fail. I also look at the mounting surface stability, avoiding a tree which may sway in the wind, anything within easy reach and I always consider the worst case scenario.

Brinno-Time-Lapse-Mount

I am the most comfortable when the camera is bolted or screwed to a fixed object, a large tree, a construction beam, etc. This is especially true if I will need to change batteries or want to download from the card occasionally to show progress videos.

The Brinno housings work very well with a fixed mount, the tripod mount is a part of the back door, the housing front and camera can be be swung open without changing the mount position.  This allows the camera to be removed and replaced without changing the lens position. I will caution, this can be a challenging maneuver especially if the camera is 100' feet in the air.

There are some very good clamp options in the photography market which work well for the Brinno cameras and housings. I would use these when engineering something is not an option or when I needed a quick mount for a one day to few week project. So far, I have tested and recommend the following...

Manfrotto Super Clamp - The stud (threaded brass piece) screws into the Brinno camera or housing. This clamp works very well on a round surface.

Delkin Fat Geko - I like the adjustable stem of this mount. It is quite secure on a flat surface and holds well.

In summary, do what you can to firmly mount your camera your viewers will thank you.