Long Term Capture

The Biolapse LT

Yes I do offer these for sale. The current price is $2000 which includes the housing, solar panel, mounting system, batteries, and camera controller. Please email me for sales Chris@biolapse.com

While working on the BBC’s Green Planet, we were using some commercial long term capture rigs, they were pretty expensive and somewhat buggy and difficult to use. The team asked if I could design and build similar. I called these systems Watchmen, and built about a dozen of them, and over the next three years I’ve built dozens and the system has gone through quite an evolution. The current iteration is the Biolapse LT unit and is a system I am working to bring to market.

Biolapse Lt

The design philosophy for this was simple. Make a solar powered weatherproof system that can survive the elements with a number 1 goal of taking photos. The Biolapse LT uses the Solar panel to charge the batteries which power the controller and camera. The controller keeps the camera off to reduce power waste and offers an effective and customizable shooting schedule. It will fit nearly any camera and lens combination, and requires no subscriptions to work. While it does not currently offer 4g/wifi connectivity, most of the places I have set these systems have little or no cell coverage anyway. So these are perfect for long term setups in remote locations where the subscription based timelapse cameras are unable to operate, for a fraction of the cost of the commercial units. Available in many colors!

Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, Long term Motion Control

StormBreaker on location


Recently a colleague reached out to me, he had a client that wanted to do a 8 week timelapse with motion and asked if this was possible, oh yeah, and they have to be tornado proof. No problem right?

Two weeks later after a lot of cutting, printing, machining, coding soldering and engineering I introduced Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, named after Thor’s Axe and Hammer, these twins are a pair of custom built long term solar powered timelapse rigs. They are the only 2 sliders of this kind in existence. They use the same schedule engine as the Biolapse LT, but rather than triggering a camera they move a motor. For this project we used two timelapse systems from Photosentinel and set them for the same shooting schedule. This will produce the first long term motion controlled timelapse in the field.

Each track is about 8 and a half feet long, extremely power efficient with a large solar panel and plenty of battery to keep things moving. Simply tell the system how far to move, how often to take images, what hours to shoot, and the number of days and it will work out all the math and make it happen.

Mjolnir and Storm Breaker ready for install
Mjolnir on location with a Photosentinel

Earier prototype of the Biolapse LT, this Watchman Installed In a remote field. 3 Month capture, no issues.
Another Watchman, This is my test unit on my Studio which has been filming for over a year without issue.

There is nothing I like more than a challenge, if you have need of long term capture systems or long term solar powered motion control I am more than happy to design and create a system that will fit your needs.