A hyperlapse is a time-lapse variant where the camera physically moves — walking, driving, or otherwise travelling — between each individual shot, rather than staying fixed on a tripod.
A hyperlapse is a time-lapse where the camera physically travels between frames instead of sitting still, producing a gliding, high-speed move through space that a fixed time-lapse cannot. It is popular for city and travel work because it makes the viewer feel carried through a place. The catch is that it needs two things planned together: the distance moved between each shot and the number of shots.
Move too far between frames and the result strobes and lurches; move too little and the sequence barely travels. A consistent anchor point in the frame, kept in the same spot shot to shot, is what holds the motion stable enough to be watchable after stabilisation in editing. Uneven spacing shows up straight away as a stutter, so hyperlapse photographers count paces or use floor markings rather than eyeballing each step.
A photographer wants a hyperlapse walking toward a cathedral entrance, ending as a 6-second clip at 30fps, which is 180 frames. The distance from the starting point to the doors is 90 metres, so the step between frames is 90 divided by 180, which is half a metre: one short pace per shot.
At each stop the photographer keeps the tip of the cathedral's central spire on the same gridline in the viewfinder, so the building stays anchored while the foreground rushes past. Doubling the step to one metre would halve the frame count to 90 and make the final motion twice as fast but noticeably jumpier. Shooting every quarter metre instead gives 360 frames, a smoother 12-second clip, at the cost of twice as long spent walking the route.
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