Panoramic Cumulapse

The following panoramic time lapse video shows the sky over Fairfax County, Virginia USA during the afternoon on 20 April 2026. The camera pans counterclockwise from east-northeast to south-southwest.

The sky was filled with low level cumuliform clouds.

Tech Tips

Two video segments were recorded using my GoPro HERO4 Black action camera mounted on an inexpensive one-hour mechanical kitchen timer (available from Amazon): the first video segment is 14:11 seconds of "raw" video; the second segment is 36:19 seconds.

The camera was set for "Video" mode / "Time Lapse Video" submode at a resolution of 4K and an interval of one (1) second. This is the first time I've used a one (1) second interval for "sky lapses." I think the resulting video looks a little "smoother" than my go-to interval setting of two (2) seconds. 

There is no viewfinder screen on the back of the HERO4 Black, only a small "Camera Status Screen" on the front of the camera. Although it’s possible to operate the HERO4 Black manually using only the small screen on the front of the camera, it’s less than ideal for navigating menus and making settings.

In my opinion, it’s much easier to pair the camera with either a smart phone or tablet running the GoPro “Quik” app and use one of those devices to control the camera remotely. In this case I used the GoPro "Quik" app [Version 13.20.2 (18532)] -- running on an Apple iPad mini 6 -- to compose the scene.

You go, GoPro!

The GoPro HERO4 Black is easy to use for creating time lapse videos and works well. Under ideal conditions (primarily good light) the GoPro works as well or better than more expensive photography gear I own. For example, compare/contrast the GoPro time lapse video (shown above) with the time lapse video output from my Fujifilm X-T3, shot a little earlier the same day.

And it's worth mentioning the mechanical one-hour kitchen timer works as well as sliders that cost hundreds of dollars. That's why I refer to it fondly as "the little kitchen timer that could."

Related Resources

• "CommerciaLapse" is a blog post by Walter Sanford that provides detailed information about how the kitchen timer can be mounted on a tripod.
• Blog posts with label "one-hour kitchen timer."
• [Gotta get] Back In Time - another blog post by Walter Sanford that features time lapse video from 20 April 2026 created using my Fujifilm X-T3 camera.

Copyright © 2026 by Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.