Time-Lapse Photography Art and Techniques by Mark Higgins

This example shows how the pixel dimensions relate to the actual image. The horizontal edge has
6,000 pixels and the vertical side has 4000. To find out how many pixels there are overall, multiply
6000 by 4000 and this gives us our total surface area. In this example the result is 24 million pixels or
megapixels.
The first thing that will come to mind for most people when the word resolution is mentioned is
‘megapixels’. This is a marketing label that refers to the number of pixels you are using on your
sensor to make up the image. If your camera records 24 megapixels, it means that your image will
have 24 million pixels in it. Video format is mostly how we view our time-lapse photography, so it is
important to know what resolution means in the context of video as well.
The term ‘megapixels’ is not used for video: instead we use terms such as HD (High Definition),
Full HD or 4K. Sometimes video resolution is referred to as 1080p or 720p. These references are
useful, as they tell us the actual number of pixels along the short edge of the frame that we are
recording. Listed on the next page are the terms by which we refer to them, alongside the actual
resolution. The two numbers shown are the pixel dimensions. This is the number of pixels that make
up the long edge and the short edge of the frame of the image or video. If you multiply one number by
the other, the total number of pixels can be calculated and therefore the total resolution. For imagemakers,
the most useful numbers to look at are the pixel dimensions. Looking at these values tells us
how many pixels we physically have in our frame, which helps us when we need to re-size images for
our output.
These pixel dimensions are approximate dimensions and may vary slightly depending on the