Thanks for the quick answer - my project is both video and photo.
I plan to go to an astronomical observatory next summer and create a day-to-night time lapse video, a star trail time lapse (like this https://flic.kr/p/eabmnG - each frame is just a composition of the last few frames, so trails are visible) and then compose a set of night shots to create a star trail image like I did with this:
My main problem with that picture is that the camera seems to “move” features on the stitch line from one shot to the other, and when I compose several equirectangular images I got distortions on the stitch line.
My workaround so far has been to shot so that the seam line is along the horizon (i.e. I put the camera horizontal), but this way the tripod is too visible, like in this pic:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10215654214529532
Another problem I got with my previous experiments is that I need a shorter interval between the shots, so that the trails are more regular.
I think I could perhaps mitigate these problems taking a set of dual-fisheye shots, composing them in a star trail stitch them at the end of the process (in the past I’ve used Hugin to stitch images taken with a DSLR and a fisheye lens).
About the details:
- For this project I need to shoot every 30 seconds for the day-to-night sequence (with auto exposure) and every 62 seconds (with 60s long exposures) for the night sequences.
- I need to take as many images as possible - passing clouds are not predictable and can affect the final result, so I need a lot of shots to be sure to have all the data I need - I’d prefer to manually stop the camera turning it off when I’m fine with it. I’ll power it with an external power bank, so battery life will not be a problem.
- I’d like these configurations:
- Shot every 30s, auto exposure, unlimited shots.
- Shot every 30s, 25s exposure, 400 ISO, unlimited shots.
- Shot every 63s, 60s exposure, 400 ISO, unlimited shots.
- For my workflow I’d prefer a filename suffix - pattern like 2018-11-21_04.35.02-theta-tl
Many thanks!