The Best Dash Cams with Time Lapse ?

[javr]

Hello, I'm looking for a camera with "time lapse" photography. That means, it can be set to take one photo every 1, 2, 5, 10, 60 seconds, and so on.
I checked the The Best Dash Cams , and I can't find any such camera, or am I searching by the wrong key-words ?
Someone mentioned, that DVR 027 can make photos, but you have to push a button every time you wanna make a photo, you can't set it up to do it automatically.
Any suggestions ?

 

[DashCamMan]

Hi javr,

Most of the dash cams can take photos, but you need to press the button. There may be some that do this, I just haven't looked into it.

 

[Mtz]

If you want another camera which is not a really dashcam you can use the mini camera 808 #16 which can be found on ebay for about $40 (the real one, not the fake).
Here is a screenshot from the setup program which is showing also the timelapse option.

But also have a very interesting option of a recording at 5fps with a playback at 30fps so the video is speed up 6 times when viewing.


The only reason you cannot use 808 #16 as a dashcam is because it cannot start recording when starting the engine and you must to press the start and stop buttons to start/stop recording. But if you really want you can use the Motion Detect mode and keep it always on.
I was using it a lot in my cars.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[javr]

I got a reply from a Youtube F900LS user. My question was:
"can you check how does the function SELF TIMER work ? Does it make ONE photo 3/5/10 seconds after you push the button and that's it ? Or does it make ONE photo EVERY 3/5/10 seconds untill memory card full ?"
The answer:
"it doesn't such a feature. There is no such a thing as "self timer". However, there is a feature called "Periodic Capture" You can set it to capture a snapshot every 5 seconds or 10 seconds."
Just in case anyone else might be interested in, because I sent a million (at least) such questions to Youtube users of F900LHD and F900LS, and this is the only answer where the user actually bothered to check the cam's function.

 

[inlifing]

Time Lapse Parking Mode allows your dashcam to continuously record at 1FPS (one frame per second). Videos are played back at 30FPS.
Each one-minute video recorded covers a 30-minute period.

No more worrying over files getting overwritten in Parking Mode.
Put simply, each hour of Time Lapse video covers a real-time period of 30 hours.
In other words, an M02 dash camera with a 16GB microSD card–55 minutes recording front and rear in Extreme mode–could run for over 27 hours in Time Lapse Parking Mode before starting to loop.
Pretty cool, right?

 

[kamkar]

Some of the newer dashcams do time lapse parking mode, and i guess some of them you could cheat to remain in parking mode even when driving.
But you could also do with a action camera, the last year models from SJcam i have all can do time lapse video or photo.

The Sj6 legend can do videolapse with 1-2-5-10-30-60 seconds, it even have dashcam function too so it start recording with car power on, but not really a camera i can recommend for dashcam use.

This is videos i made last year, but using regular video mode and then speed up in post + upscale to 4K to cheat youtube so people dont have to sit thru 9 hours of driving at 1:1 speed.
This is 1 hour of real time driving compressed.

If you want to do something similar while driving, i find even at 1 FPS time lapse the footage are too hectic to watch, better to use regular 30 FPS video and then speed up in post production.

 

[jokiin]

this thread is from 5 years ago so I guess a lot has changed since then

 

[Dashmellow]

this thread is from 5 years ago so I guess a lot has changed since then

Even five years after its introduction in 2013, the Mobius (1), still offers the most customizable and fine grained or long duration time lapse control available to my knowledge.

 

[jokiin]

Even five years after its introduction in 2013, the Mobius (1), still offers the most customizable and fine grained or long duration time lapse control available to my knowledge.

View attachment 41620

it was a feature that was certainly more prevalent in the sport cam sector which is where the Mobius had it's bigger user base so that's a good side benefit I guess, timelapse video is reasonably common among the sport cams, the timelapse photos though is a step above that you don't often see, they were well ahead there, a good thing for a product like this where it's not really a single purpose device as it broadens the appeal

 

[Dashmellow]

it was a feature that was certainly more prevalent in the sport cam sector which is where the Mobius had it's bigger user base so that's a good side benefit I guess, timelapse video is reasonably common among the sport cams, the timelapse photos though is a step above that you don't often see, they were well ahead there, a good thing for a product like this where it's not really a single purpose device as it broadens the appeal

The ability to shoot one frame a day (or days) or one frame per hour (or hours) is highly unique in my experience, at least at this price range and size. This feature is great for wildlife observation for example when you only want to know when something occurred but don't necessarily need to record the event like the time frame when an egg hatched in a nest or a butterfly emerged from a cocoon. We've used the capability at the Environmental Center a few times. In the old days it would have to be done with an expensive device called an intervalometer which would be connected to an SLR with a motor drive.

 

[SawMaster]

Time-lapse is proving it's worth in dashcam parking modes as it keeps the processor heat down, and that heat has always been an issue with dashcams. It's even reached budget-level cams now like the B1W, so I expect we're going to be seeing it frequently in the next generation of dashcams.

Phil

 

[jokiin]

Time-lapse is proving it's worth in dashcam parking modes as it keeps the processor heat down, and that heat has always been an issue with dashcams. It's even reached budget-level cams now like the B1W, so I expect we're going to be seeing it frequently in the next generation of dashcams.

Phil

I'm not sure you'll see it across the range of low end products, the B1W is a bit of an anomaly as it has quite good levels of post sale development that you don't normally see in the entry level, I think it must be of case of knowing the right people as there are other (bigger) brands that come out of the same factory that don't get anywhere near the same level of support that the B1W does

 

[SawMaster]

@jokin- As someone who pushes hard for development yourself, you know the value of that. And apparently BlueSkySea has discovered it too. But you're right- it's not going to reach all the bottom-level cams mainly because those people are not all going to be pushing for anything which takes that kind of extra effort. But it will filter down to some, possibly through reverse engineering if they can't get their factory to assist in the process. And as we're seeing more of here, now there is a growing movement of hobbyist firmware developers who may move past image improvement and do some feature implementation work too.

Around a year ago I was saying that it was a good time to be a dashcam enthusiast. I will say now that it is a GREAT time to be a dashcam enthusiast.

Phil