Plants · seedlings · garden beds · grow journal
A seedling to a harvest, without moving the camera.
Plant time-lapses are the easiest to start and the easiest to ruin, because a pot that gets rotated or nudged five centimetres breaks the illusion instantly.
- Shoot
- Every day for seedlings, weekly for beds
- Projects
- 4
- Photos stay
- On your device
Cadence
Every day for seedlings, weekly for beds, and here is why.
Seedlings visibly change day to day and produce the most satisfying reels. Established plants and garden beds move on a weekly scale.
The setup
Decide this once. Then stop deciding.
Every one of these is a decision you make a single time. The whole point is that the next photo needs no thought at all.
Mark the pot and the sill
A pencil line around the base of the pot and a mark on the rim facing the camera. Rotating a plant is the fastest way to make a smooth time-lapse jump.
Leave room to grow
Frame with the seedling in the lower third and empty space above it. Reframing at week six to fit the plant in breaks the whole sequence.
Overcast light, or the same hour
Direct sun moves across the frame through the day and through the season. Overcast light is the most repeatable light there is.
Keep a rigid object in frame
A window frame, a watering can, a stake. The overlay needs something that does not grow to lock onto.
The payoff
Two photos that agree on everything except the subject.
Drag it. The wall, the floor, the light and the lens are identical, so the only thing your eye can read is the change. That is the entire trick, and it is decided at capture time, not in an editor afterwards.
Try it with your own photosWhat goes wrong
The mistakes that quietly ruin the set.
- Turning the pot to give it even light and forgetting to turn it back before the photo.
- Zooming in as the plant gets bigger.
- Shooting at whatever time you happen to walk past.
Questions
Plants photos, answered.
How do I make a plant growth time-lapse with my phone?
Put the pot in one marked spot, frame it with plenty of empty space above, and take one photo a day from the same position in similar light. Line each new photo up with the last one, then export the run as a video. No tripod rig or intervalometer is needed.
How often should I photograph a growing plant?
Daily for seedlings, which change visibly within a day, and weekly for established plants or garden beds. Daily photos of a slow-growing plant just make a longer video of the same thing.
Also tracked with SameShot
Same camera, different subject.
Guides & Tools
Related guides and tools for plants progress.
Take the first one today.
The starting photo is the only one you can never go back and take. Free on Google Play, no account needed.
SameShot: Progress Photos
Appynox · Lifestyle
Before and after photos that line up. Ghost overlay camera, AI auto capture.
- Price
- Free
- Rated
- Everyone
- Account
- Not required
- iOS
- In development
Free, no account, nothing uploaded. Android 8.0 and above.