Timewarp vs Timelapse: A Beginners Guide For When To Use What
Tips for capturing cinematic footage with your GoPro Hero 9
Waking up with the sun is one of the best habits I try to implement. It’s not so much about being the early bird and catching the first worms. For me, it’s time to warm up and ease into the day ahead.
I have a GoPro Hero 9 and setting up a time-lapse, to capture the elegance of a sunrise is a fun activity to add some playfulness to the morning.
Initiating a timewarp, if I’m going for a run- allows me to speed up a 5k so that it’s interesting, and fast-paced, to grip the attention of someone should I wish to share it.
Knowing when to use a timelapse, and when to use a timewarp has impacted how I go about filming, but it has made the editing version of myself have a great time when it comes to adding the moments to music.
This article is for a beginner who is unsure of the difference between a GoPro TimeWarp and a GoPro Timelapse. I’ll explain the difference as well as give a few tips on how I use them for a cinematic feel to my videos.
GoPro Time Lapse vs TimeWarp
You may recognize the term time-lapse from cinematic videos with mindblowing sunrises and sunsets.
At least, that’s how I was first introduced to time-lapses.
To take a time-lapse, you place your GoPro on a stabilized surface or mount that will remain stationary for the duration of your shot. So, under Time Lapse settings, you select how often your GoPro takes a photo. My GoPro has interval options between 0.5seconds and an hour.
The GIF below shows a snippet of a GoPro Time Lapse at a 0.5s interval, 4k, and a Wide lense. This was sped up in editing by 1000%.
A GoPro Time Lapse is most effective when your GoPro is on a tripod or on a still surface. It captures shots over a duration of time, and what we perhaps wouldn’t normally see, because of change being too gradual, we are now able to experience in a short period of time. This is maybe why a sunrise time-lapse, or a sunset time-lapse feels so magical.
I personally use GoPro Time Lapse for showcasing the following:
- Sunrise/ Sunset/ Clouds,
- The buzz of the city awakening/ cooling down,
- Something growing,
- Something rising.
My rule of thumb is that there is a clear before and after. The time-lapse documents the change.
A time-warp is different.
You are able to incorporate movement and still achieve a somewhat stable shot. GoPro defines their TimeWarp feature as:
TimeWarp is HyperSmooth applied to TimeLapse Video. It allows you to Capture super stabilized time-lapse videos while you move about a scene. Increase the speed up to 30x to turn longer activities into shareable moments.
In cases where there can be a temptation to record too much slow-motion to introduce a cinematic feel to a video, it’s often fun to throw in a little bit of a fast forward instead.
Also, when using slow-mo, there is often an emphasis on capturing a variety of different angles to keep things interesting. With a timewarp, things are a lot simpler. You can either have someone follow you, you follow someone else, or you deciding to attach the GoPro to an accessory as you move in a direction.
I have used GoPro TimeWarps to showcase:
- Linking two scenes together,
- Running,
- Cycling,
- Walking,
- A quick tour of a building,
- Revealing an object,
- Pulling away from an object.
Again, my basic rule of thumb is to use a timewarp to add a different feel to a video. What I mean by this is that a timewarp is fantastic in speeding up an activity that isn’t interesting enough to consume at a normal speed. Or, when you’ve used so much slow motion that your video is begging for a different feel.
A tip that you may find interesting, is that I usually add a timewarp to a specific build in a song. This has increased the energy and pace in some of my vlogs.
I’ve also seen timewarps used in travel videos to speed up the journey from arriving at a location to identifying a specific tourist attraction.
So where I use a time-lapse to show a before and after, I often use a timewarp to showcase an activity's start and finish.
Final Thoughts
Personally, I use both a GoPro TimeWarp and Time Lapse to link scenes in a larger video.
However, a Time-Lapse could be a cinematic start to a video too. Or, a TimeWarp could pull you into a video at the start as well. There are really no set rules of how and when to use either. I try to challenge myself to play around with how I use both the timewarp and time-lapse so that I don’t get too stuck in a rut.
But if I had to choose, I find the time-lapse to be epic for establishing shots and a timewarp to be brilliant to speed up an activity that takes a little too long.
Both add to the overall feel of a video, but yet they are so different. So if you find yourself getting confused, a simple rule of thumb is- Time Lapse is where your GoPro is stationary and capturing the before and after of a scene, and Time Warp allows you to incorporate movement while filming an activity.
I hope you found this helpful and all the best with your GoPro Time Lapse and TimeWarp shots.
