Fujifilm X-T3 Sky Lapse

My last blog post describes field testing my Fujifilm X-T3 for making time lapse videos, when two sets of photos were taken: the first set was used to create the following "Sky Lapse" time lapse video; next I shot the set used to create the "Road Lapse" featured in my last post.

The camera was facing east toward the sky from the 6th floor of a seven-story parking garage. A time series of 302 JPG photos was shot from 12:06 pm to 12:21 pm using a three (3) second interval. 15 minutes of actual recording time resulted in approximately 10 seconds of time lapse video, given the recording settings I used.

31 March 2026. Facing east.

A few thin, wispy cirroform clouds were the only clouds in the sky. 

Panorama Photo

The following panoramic composite image was taken from the top of the same parking garage using the "Camera" app on my Apple iPad mini 6, set for "Pano" mode. The camera panned nearly 360° from west-northwest to south-southeast.

31 March 2026 at 12:42 pm. Panoramic view. (16350 x 3790 pixels.)

Wind (mph), Weather and Sky Condition

"Wind (mph)," "Weather" and "Sky Cond." are highlighted by red rectangles in the following excerpt from a table of three-day weather observations for KDCA on 31 March 2026 nearest the times when I recorded the photos used to create the time lapse video, and the panoramic composite image.

Source Credit: KDCA | National Weather Service.

A few clouds were reported at 25,000 feet. At that altitude, the cloud types were high level cirroform clouds.

Tech Tips

My Fujifilm X-T3 camera was set for manual exposure and manual focus. Aperture was set for f/11. Shutter Speed was 1/500 second. ISO was set for 160. White Balance was set for "Daylight." The focal length of the 18-55mm kit lens was set for 18mm (27mm, 35mm equivalent). Aspect Ratio was set for 16:9 (6240 x 3512 pixels). Image Quality was set for FINE+RAW (Fine JPEG plus RAF).

The ELECTRONIC LEVEL was turned on. The manual focus DEPTH-OF-FIELD SCALE was set for "FILM FORMAT BASIS."

I selected a three (3) second interval to be sure there was enough time for the camera to write the FINE+RAW files to a memory card. Each Fine JPG is 8.1 MB; each RAW (RAF) is 56.1 MB. In retrospect, my usual two (2) second interval probably would have worked.

I set the camera to use the Fujifilm "Velvia/VIVID" "Film Simulation" in the hope it would add a little "pop" to the clouds in the sky. In this case, the film simulation didn't help with the thin, wispy clouds. I haven't edited the RAW files I recorded -- maybe I can tweak them to look better than the JPEGs that were processed in-camera.

Related Resource: Field test: Fujifilm X-T3 time lapse - a blog post by Walter Sanford.

Copyright © 2026 by Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.