Time lapse camera: “the big dig” Comparison Wingscapes vs. Brinno vs. Recolo

 

Why using time lapse camera instead of DSLR or time lapse Apps on i phone?

No.1 reason:

The limited DSLR shutter life: http://photocamel.com/forum/canon-forum/79862-canon-discloses-camera-shutter-life-expectancy.html–> 1 min a photo for 10 days will cost you 14,400 shots!  Supposed the life of the DSLR 100,000 shots only. i.e 8 times of 10 days time lapse shooting then you are completely toasted!! It can also be better put like this:

Will you drive your Ferrari from LA to New York? 2,400 mi or 4,000 km. you can but you won’t.

Extra batteries and memory cards and the interval. Battery is no cheap! The other reminding is you probably need to wake up at mid night to replace the batteries and SD cards.

Unless you were James Cameron’s dive in Mariana trench then no doubt your should use the DSLR for your historical deepest time lapse video.

Reason2: Why time lapse apps on the smartphone?

The battery life is one thing (normally it won’t last for half a day). The other issue is you simply cannot use you phone for shooting many hours time lapse only without moving around. And how about your facebook?

The big dig—Resolution is just a factor, minor one

A Balance in resolution, photo quality and power management

Is the resolution the key differentiation in this whole comparison? Not exactly. A camera’s megapixel count simply reflects the number of pixels it can capture by the million. For example, a digital camera capable of 3.1 megapixels has a sensor that can capture an image of 2048 pixels wide by 1536 pixels tall, because 2048 times 1536 = 3,145,728 pixels. If you think about this for a second, you’ll quickly see how out of control the megapixel myth has gotten. A 3.1 megapixels digital camera shoots more pixels than is crisply displayed on a 60-inch, 1080p (1920 x 1080 = 2.1 megapixels) high definition television set showing a Blu-Ray movie. But most people use digital cameras to take 4 x 6 inch prints. Even a 0.3 megapixel digital camera does wonderfully at that.

How is Recolo 0.3 MP(640×480) doing? Take a look and you can tell me the answer

The Recolo 480p is simply no match(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwxwqO80jE&feature=related) to the rest two especially in photo quality.

Megapixel count is not an accurate reflection of a camera’s quality, end of story. Even the cheapest digital camera on the market will have enough megapixels to meet the needs of 99% of non-professional consumers. The camera in your cellphone probably has enough megapixels to comfortably blow up to a poster-sized print. Unless you need to do more than that, buy a digital camera with the least amount of megapixels as possible… and for reasons to be explained in our Sensors section, it’s best not to stray above 8 or 10 megapixels.

But the Wingscape plantcam is 8MP, does that mean “resolution” dominate the ultimate time lapse video? As mentioned earlier, The photo fidelity is lower as up to 8MP if you are not choosing the related sensors. the more expensive the camera with the lower the megapixel count, the larger the included sensor is likely to be. It can be found when shooting in dark environment or by the fidelity of the photos.

Let’s make it simple, resolution is not the only answer, and it’s hard to tell the real size of the sensors. how to compare? The photo quality in dark. The Wingscapes time lapse seems to have a higher resolution than its real sensor size.

Power management and response

This one is easy by referring to the following chart.

Comparison the power consumption for Recolo vs Brinno time lapse camera TLC200:

the Recolo peak current is almost 373mA for 2.5V input voltage and need around 3 seconds to capture one frame.

The Brinno TLC 200 peak current is almost 44mA for 5V input voltage and only 0.8 seconds to capture one frame.

5 seconds time interval testing for battery life:

Recolo: Use 2 AA batteries, only can capture 6,250 frames for 5 seconds time interval.

TLC200: Use 4 AA batteries, it can capture 300,000 frames for 5 seconds time

The Brinno TLC 200 is the definite winner in this item. It consumes much less power (Wingscape vs Brinno: 10,030 mW-Sec vs 140mW-Sec) about 70:1 ration. See below:

Wingscape Plantcam vs. Brinno time lapse camera TLC 200 in power

The left red number is the mA, the right one is the 5.0 Volt

Total power needed for capturing one frame:

Wingscapes Plantcam: 10,030 mW-Sec

Brinno TLC200:     140mW-Sec (70:1)

Capturing time for one frame:

Plantcam:  15Sec.

TLC200:  0.8~1Sec.       (15:1)

Result

As said, A time lapse camera is determined by the total balance in resolution, photo quality and power management. We can easily conclude that Brinno time lapse camera TLC 200 emerges as the clear leader in this test.