The scene decides whether it's a good candidate for time lapse or not. Not the ground. You will learn this.

And again, I assume you've never used a big telephoto lens? Film using 800 mm and then tell me what you think about shake in a windy situation.

You get the shot or you don't. I also travel the world, and have had shots I would have preferred being "a little more the left" but couldn't get it without efforts beyond what I was willing to put out.  One thing I have learned is that I have very little idea what will sell well and what won't.  My all-time best seller is a landscape that I liked, but didn't really expect to sell at all.  Others that I loved and thought would sell well have never sold a single download.

I learned that back in the 1980's when I produced a series of 54 full length (90 minute) instructional videos that we first sold ourselves, then later (and still to this day) through Amazon.  Some that I loved had terrible sales and never recouped their costs. Others that I thought were "meh..." turned into best sellers that made enough to turn the entire enterprise profitable.

Back to the photos and time lapses of today.  I shoot what I hope is a good image (have only done time-lapse as personal hobby until now), but have a limit of the effort and equipment risk I am willing to put forth.  Since I have no idea if any specific image (or time-lapse, moving forward) will be a major seller, I am not willing to go to extremes for most shots (well, my wife may disagree with that on a few occasions, but... )

And yes, I have used super-zooms and super-wides, and super-macros, and most everything in between.  I have learned the "Ansel Adams Zone System" until it was part of my bones back in the 70's, and spent hours (and days) in the darkroom perfecting a B&W print -- and later (though towards the end of my darkroom days) color prints.

From 1980, when we went bankrupt and lost everything, until 2005, when my wife bought me a Canon 5D and said "you need a hobby!" I didn't do much photography between 1980 and 2005 (other than the 54 commercial videos in 46 months referenced above).  Within 2 years of that 5D, I had taken over 2 bedrooms for studios, plus equipment coming out into the halls.  And that was just the start of it.  Had a crazy dozen years since then, with drones, and international travel, and cabinets filled with photog equipment.  And now... a pair of Sony A7R3's, Phantom P4P, a Ziiyun Crane just ordered for pickup next week.

Never ending quest for gadget freaks like me...

increasingdifficulty,
I'm begining with timelapses and still choosing the tools for the trade.
Do you use after effects exclusively ours do you use LRtimslapse?
Do you use premiere at all?
is the warp stabilizer enough for timelapses or do you normally go into tracking?
I'd greatly appreciate your feedback.
BR
jpbarcelos

Hi, I use 99% After Effects, no LRTimelapse. I do use Lightroom quickly to set a good starting point for grading, and apply the standard chromatic aberration removal, the right color profile and minor tweaking. I then just save the sidecar files. The Camera Raw module can be used within After Effects too, so it's not a necessary step at all, it just looks a bit nicer. The controls are the same. Lightroom is nothing more than a "skin", or fancy interface for Adobe Camera Raw, which can also be found in Photoshop and After Effects.

No Premiere for single clips, only if I'm making a film, but I usually prefer Final Cut Pro X for that. So much faster on Mac.

You can do everything from a simple grade to advanced compositing in After Effects from the RAW files to finished product, without using any other application.

The warp stabilizer works really well for some clips, not so well on others. It sometimes makes things worse. You will have to try it on a clip-by-clip basis. I do quite a bit of manual tracking when necessary.

For some really challenging situations (hyperlapses with a 16 mm lens for example), the Align Layer function in Photoshop can be the best stabilizer out there. But it's a pain to work with hundreds of RAW files in Photoshop unfortunately...

one trick you can use with a shakey frame is to just delete the frame.

That is usually not a good idea at all, since the motion will be uneven and choppy. And the camera doesn't usually bounce back to the exact previous spot anyway.

Here's some of my first experiences dipping my toes in footage (timelapse), in a blog post.

www.brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2018/05/28/update-on-creating-profitable-time-lapse-footage/

Any comments/tips/feedback would be appreciated while I learn the ropes.

Best regards,

Alex

I think the best way to succeed in microstock is to keep production simple... if you are able to produce content on daily basis, at reasonable cost, even average sales can make nice profits. Timelapse is one of the most time consuming and gear demanding productions, so probably not the best way to achieve financial success in microstock. I produce timelapses, because I love doing it, but the income from them is not great... some stupidly simple shots from GoPro or drone make me better money and required much less time and effort. 

My thought is that, since time-lapse is more difficult and time consuming, it should not be suffering as much of an over-supply.  As with you, I am mostly looking at it because I enjoy the process.  I have dabbled in the past, and am thinking of doing it a bit more seriously -- again, mostly because I like the process and results, but hoping I can make a few bucks too.

Do you have a link to your "stupidly simple GoPro or drone" shots that make you more money?  I don't have (or really want) a GoPro, buy my drone to date have all been stills.  They sell reasonably well, but certainly not enough to pay for the drone... (not that I really expected them too -- again, largely for enjoyment, but it is a rush when I see them come up in my daily reports...  )