The first step is to decide on the intervals we are going to be using. This bit does involve a little basic mathematics, but don’t worry too much about that!

The aim in this example is to make a 30 second clip which covers three hours of the hands of the clock moving round.

First we need to figure out how many photos we need to take. If we want a 30 second video at 25 frames per second, then we need 30 x 25 frames; or 750 frames.

Now we know we need 750 frames and we have 3 hours in which to take them, so we need to divide 3 hours (or 10,800 seconds) by 750 to give us 14.4 seconds. Easy!

Set the camera securely on the tripod.

Set the camera securely on the tripod and make sure the legs, head and any other moving parts are totally secure. Any movement will really show up in the timelapse so it is crucial that everything is secure.

Set your camera to manual exposure andmanual focus. If you’re not sure how to do this, check out our basic tutorials.

The exposure should be set so that a fairly slow shutter speed (1s+) can be used – this way the motion won’t feel too jumpy. To get a slower shutter speed, you’ll probably need to use a fairly small aperture and a low ISO.

Make sure to set the camera to JPEG. If you’re happy with your exposure, JPEG is more than sufficient for timelapse and it also saves a load of space on your computer (as opposed to RAW) and a step in post processing.

Once your setup is good to go, you’ll need your intervalometer. In this example we’re using Triggertrap Mobile. If you’re not using Triggertrap Mobile, you can skip most of this step and input the interval you’ve calculated.

Plug the connection cable into the camera, then the connection cable into the Dongle. Open up the Triggertrap Mobile app on your smart device and plug the Dongle into the headphone socket.  In the app, open up the ‘Timelapse’ mode and input the interval you’ve calculated.