You can't with MiniDV - not easily, at least. They don't have single-frame
record & advance.

Your best bet is to find a cheap* Nikon** DSC and a cheap* PC, and control
the former using the latter (running Krinnikam) and a USB cable. Depending
on the selected image resolution, you can set the timelapse as low as 1.5
seconds.

Then you bring your list of frames into your favourite mid-range editor
(Windows Movie Maker won't quite hack it, here) and equate one image to one
frame.

If you bring the frames in at their native size (as opposed to automatically
resizing them to fit the video frame) it allows you to do some cool effects
like panning and zooming around the stop motion

Take a look at:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gareth.hardy1/Clouds.wmv (1.7MB)
It's just a concept test, but it should give you the idea. It was done using
a £100 eBay laptop and a Nikon CoolPix 5700 - bought new, but they currently
appear to be going for about £100-135 on eBay.
So you can get a better result than DV for a quarter of your budget.

Note - you'll get a better result if you save to media card rather than PC,
so work out your resolution, shooting rate and card size appropriately so
you 75% fill the card with a day's shooting, then download all the images at
the end of the day.
Note also - if you plan to shoot a frame every two minutes or more, you can
get an electronic remote shutter that will bypass the need for a PC/laptop
to be running alongside the camera. That's for the 5700 - you might be able
to get a higher shooting frequency if there's an electronic remote for your
own camera.

* Cheap - means that you're less distraught when they get nicked during
timelapse photography.
** Any make will do, but you'll have to search for the appropriate control
software and use the appropriate cabling. For example, the Fuji S2 Pro and
up come with all the cables and software you need for this very task - you
just need a firewire port available.



"Tx2" wrote in message
T...

we have a massive new building development going into our college, and i
would like to film it in timelapse.

I am thus looking for a MiniDV camera that will allow me to achieve this
with simplicity and at relatively low cost (sub £1000)

Any ideas?


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