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I am having inconsistent results while taking time-lapses. I have batches where almost all images are incomplete/garbled/not fully-rendered while other images are perfect. Then, I'll get a batch where all images are perfect with exception of 1 or 2.

Initially, I thought there was a problem writing images on-the-fly to a mounted Samba/cifs share (established with /etc/fstab), so I started writing them locally instead. Unfortunately, this didn't remedy the issue.

So, my thought it that it must something with my camera settings. Any help is appreciated from those with time-lapse experience.

I have a Raspberry Pi Model B+ with the V2 NoIR camera module.

Time-lapse code that takes a picture every 2 seconds over 60 seconds:

raspistill -bm --nopreview -ex sports -e jpg -t 60000 -tl 2000 -vf -hf -w 1920 -h 1080 -o ~/hallway/image%04d.jpg

System Information (I have updated & upgraded all packages as well as the firmware):

Linux mypi 4.14.24+ #1097 Mon Mar 5 16:16:18 GMT 2018 armv6l
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="9"
VERSION="9 (stretch)"

Example: not fully-rendered job example Update 3/13/2018 I have ordered a new micro SD card as per the comments below.

  • View the 64 GB card (it defaults to the 32 GB)
    • Link: http://a.co/gSMBRx8 Samsung 100MB/s (U3) MicroSD EVO Memory Card with
    • Adapter 64 GB (MB-MP64GA/AM) Up to 100 MB/s Read and 60 MB/s Write speed with Class 10 and U3 compatibility

I'm hoping this will remedy any type of write related issues that this problem might stem from as suggested. Fingers crossed. Will post an update when I receive the product and perform additional tests.

|improve this question
  • SanDisk Ultra microSDHC UHS-I Card, 16 GB, Speed up to 98 MB/s. I write to the internal/SD card first, then after sequence is complete, I then transfer to network share. – vsiege Mar 12 '18 at 19:57
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_Card#Speeds – Fabian Mar 12 '18 at 20:07
  • OK, so a card that has higher write speeds might be better for this kind of application (time-lapse). Can you let me know if this card looks to be appropriate for the task? a.co/5D76vUO – vsiege Mar 12 '18 at 20:08
  • Each image is 1.4 - 1.5 MB – vsiege Mar 12 '18 at 20:41
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As mentioned in my update above, I ordered a new and faster Samsung 100MB/s (U3) MicroSD EVO Memory Card (http://a.co/gSMBRx8). I ran the original code (above) three times, and all images came out great. I also performed a much longer time-lapse, running for 1 hour capturing images every 2 seconds. With 1800+ images, the card performed great as every image I've checked, rendered correctly. The recommendation to look into a faster card was the solution. While I might have been able to get a slightly less performant card, this was clearly the right solution for my application.

|improve this answer
  • glad to hear it works now – Fabian Mar 17 '18 at 10:47

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