Tutorials

The time-lapse technique is used extensively in nature, city and night sky photography, and it is also suitable in scientific investigations, for monitoring processes that normally take a long time.
MECHA can help you take such photos when you need to pan or tilt the camera at a very slow pace, but also when you need to take them from exactly the same camera angle.
Let's see what MECHA settings would be needed when creating a preset for time-lapse photography.

Example 1 – 360° time-lapse shots.
As usual, when you need to create a preset, we recommend loading a factory preset, which cannot be overwritten, but can be modified and saved with a different name.
Select "FE 12mm NZ Level" and load it with the Load button.
The first term in the script refers to the position of the upper rail when the preset is launched. "L" means Level, or horizontal position.
This is the MECHA C2 Controller. So before you launch the preset, make sure that the upper rail is positioned correctly. The other positions are Parked and Raised.
And this is the C1 Controller in MECHA DAC (Dual Axis Combo).
"N,Z" stands for one Nadir and one Zenith shot, which can be deleted if not needed.
The second term means: "at a tilt of 0°, 4 shots around", and you should change it according to what you want to photograph. For cityscapes, maybe one position every two degrees would be appropriate. So 180 instead of 4.
Also change the tilt, if needed.
The script has priority over the other settings, so they will not be taken into account.
MECHA will send a single camera trigger signal per position if the TRG is 1.
"E" is the duration of the shutter button signal, and "A" is the delay after each trigger sequence.
When setting the exposure on your camera, remember that it should be no greater than "E+A".
You know that MECHA only triggers a camera, normally. Only when the camera is set to Bulb mode you can control the camera exposure using MECHA.
We will set A to 1.25s, so A+E is 2s, which means one camera trigger signal, or shot, every two seconds.
An important setting for time-lapse is Repeat. For example, 60*2 means "after a full rotation, wait 2 seconds then do this again 60 times."
Save this preset, adding a power code to the beginning of the preset name if you want, so you can launch the preset using the controller buttons as well.
Here is our preset in the Presets list.
From the User Interface, you can launch the preset either with the LEFT or RIGHT button.
The preset execution can be cancelled, for example, with the STOP button in the User Interface, or with the power button on the controller.

Example 2 - time-lapse shots from exactly the same camera angle.
Let's load the same preset as in example 1. So we have 4 shots around (or positions) at a tilt of 0° (no tilt).
One way to keep the camera in the same position, for a long time, is by setting a large number of camera trigger signals per position. For example, 1800.
We will leave the duration of the trigger signal set to 0.25s.
A positive "A" is equivalent to a pause only after all 1800 signals are sent.
If the delay is needed after each trigger signal, then put a minus sign in front of this value. Note the minus sign.
The exposure set on your camera should be no greater than "E+A".
Always use the absolute value of the numbers when doing this addition.
The absolute value of −1.75 is 1.75.
Also note that we still have 4 shots around (4 positions). This means that after sending the 1800 signals, there will be a 90° rotation to position 2, where another 1800 signals will be sent, and so on. Put 1 instead of 4, if only 1 position is needed.
And at the end, there will be 1800 nadir and 1800 zenith shots, which you can remove from the script now if they are not needed.
Save this preset, as before, in example 1. This type of power code, from 021 to 089, causes the preset to be displayed in the Preset menu of C2 as well. So it can be launched not only with the controller buttons, but also from the OLED menu.
Here is our second preset.
We will launch it by clicking the RIGHT button in the User Interface.
There are a few more shots from the first set of 1800, and notice that about one hour has passed. Position 2 follows, and so on.