Hyperlapse lets you shoot time-lapsed movies like a pro

Instagram launched a cool new app today called Hyperlapse.

This is exciting stuff. I’ve always appreciated time-lapsed movies of sunrise, or sunset, or the moon and stars, or flowers blooming, or mushrooms growing, etc. I’m a geek. I think that stuff is cool. Now I can make my own.

In a blog post announcing Hyperlapse, Instagram explains:

“Traditionally, time lapse videos depend on holding your phone or camera still while you film. Hyperlapse from Instagram features built-in stabilization technology that lets you create moving, handheld time lapses that result in a cinematic look, quality and feel—a feat that has previously only been possible with expensive equipment.”

It’s simple to use. Just open the app and tap the button to start recording. As it records, the actual time elapsed is displayed at the bottom on the left, while the default time-lapse time of one second for every six real seconds is displayed on the right.

When you tap the button again to stop recording you can choose how much or how little to accelerate the video. Again, it defaults to 6x, but you can select 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x, 10x, or 12x. Once you select the acceleration, the movie is saved to the camera roll on your iOS device, and there is a button to share it on Instagram or Facebook.

For recording something like a bean sprout emerging from the dirt and growing, or even a sunrise or sunset, it would probably still be helpful to have some sort of tripod. The app may be able to stabilize the image, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is both tiring and boring to stand there holding an iPhone in one position for 15 minutes or more just to capture a time-lapsed movie.

Instagram says it is working on an Android version, but for now Hyperlapse is only available for iOS.

If you have an iOS device, you should check out Hyperlapse. Let me know what you think of it in the comments below. Have fun!