How to Shoot Time-lapse Videos on iPhone & iPad in iOS 8

One of the newer additions to the camera app in iOS 8 is the “time-lapse” option. You can now shoot glorious time-lapse videos using your iPhone (and a stand or a tripod, if you’re looking for that professional-quality).

Time-lapse videos are extremely cool (think a flower blossom or a sunset). The fact that all you need is an iPhone is even cooler. (At the time of writing this, iOS 8 is in beta and not available to all. But it’s safely assumed that this feature will be there in the public release and the method will remain the same).

Here’s how to capture time-lapse videos on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 8:

v  Open the camera app

v  Swipe left/right till the mode shows “Time Lapse”. There are other modes like Video, Photo, Square, Slo-mo (iPhone 5s-only).

v  Now, start recording by tapping on the record button. Unlike the other modes, you’ll not see any controls here. Also, since we’re talking Time Lapse, you’ll need to record a lengthy video to see the effect. For starters, you can record a sunrise/sunset video (but if that’s clichéd, record a recipe being prepared in the kitchen).

v  Once you are done recording, tap the stop button (the record button becomes the stop button just like in video mode). The time-lapse will be automatically saved to the camera roll.

Open the camera roll and tap on the time lapse video to check out how it has panned out.

One of the first things I’d like you to note is that time-lapse “quickens” the video playback by a huge factor. A two-minute video will play out in a few seconds so you can’t see much at all. You’ll need to record a video close to an hour’s length to get a couple of minutes of time lapse footage.

We haven’t seen other settings or features to control time lapse (but hope that Apple would probably include them in iOS 9. Or before).

Time-lapse can be great if you get an iPhone tripod. You can shoot flowers blooming, sunrise/sunset, traffic lights in the evening/night from a high-storey building, road-travel (use iPhone bike mounts) or you can shoot a video of yourself demonstrating something.