Best timelapse cameras for 2026 – record construction, events, or speed up nature

The best timelapse cameras allow you to compress the passage of time into a short, dynamic video clip. Taking photos at regular intervals and stitching them into continuous video, timelapse cameras give the impression of time passing at a rapid pace, and can be used to document a multitude of subjects, from the growth of houseplants to multi-month construction projects.

I admit that I'm a bit of a timelapse addict. I've made them with regular cameras, specialised cameras, action cameras, drones, and more. You can create a great-looking timelapse over almost any stretch of time – your shoot might be as short as an hour, or as long as six months. Many timelapse cameras are designed to be set up and left in place for this reason; it’s common for construction companies to set up a timelapse camera on the jobsite to provide a visual record of a building coming together.

My guide reflects the multitude of possibilities for timelapse creation. While it consists mostly of dedicated timelapse cameras, I've expanded the remit to include action cameras, 360 cameras, and even a drone (as DCW’s resident drone enthusiast, I felt I had to – they can be AMAZING for timelapse). I've made sure to include options at a range of price points, and have discussed in detail the kinds of features that make for a good timelapse camera, like long battery life and weatherproofing.

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Adam Juniper

With over 25 years of expertise as a tech journalist, Adam brings a wealth of knowledge across a vast number of product categories, including timelapse cameras, home security cameras, NVR cameras, photography books, webcams, 3D printers and 3D scanners, borescopes, radar detectors… and, above all, drones.

The best timelapse cameras 

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Best for simplicity

If you're new to timelapse creation, here's our recommendation. The Brinno BCC300-C Timelapse Camera Kit gives you everything you need to start creating timelapse, including not just a capable timelapse camera, but also a waterproof housing, clamp mount, batteries, SD card and more – all for a pretty reasonable price of around $300 / £300.

While it doesn't have proper night vision, it does have HDR, and our reviewer Jon found that when he put it to the test, the camera produced solid-quality imagery in daytime and at night. Sure, the night footage was a little grainy, but it was still clear enough to share, and that's impressive at this price.

The Brinno is relatively easy to use. Its small screen and minimal buttons mean that understanding the settings can take a little deciphering, but once you're up and running you can program in timelapses with a few simple button presses. Bear in mind that with its latest firmware update, this camera combines its timelapse into ready-made MP4 videos. This is a timesaver for those who don't want to fuss with editing, but also means you don't have to option to extract or edit individual frames.

While you can purchase the camera as a standalone, you're definitely best off getting the full kit – not only do you get a waterproof housing (vital for outdoor use) but also a clamp mount with bungee cords to keep it secure, and even an SD card and AA batteries. And those batteries – the longevity of this camera is truly impressive. Jon used it to create multiple multi-day timelapse videos, and the meter was still showing 100%!

Ideal for kids and family as well as novice timelapse shooters, this is a perfect starting point for anyone who wants to create timelapse videos as quickly and easily as possible.

Read our full Brinno BCC300-C Timelapse Camera Kit review

Best premium

Sitting at the other end of the scale from Brinno's BCC300-C kit, this dedicated timelapse camera requires a pretty sizeable budget, but produces impressive 4K footage and can really go the distance. The Brinno BCC5000 Time Lapse Bundle is the kind of camera you want when your project is going to stretch out for months, or possibly even years. When it's something worth really investing in.

Like the previous Brinno camera, this model really comes into its own when bought as part of a full kit. This gets you the weatherproof housing and clamp mount, which are basically essential for any serious outdoor project. It also includes multiple rechargeable batteries, which can be swapped out and charged up to keep the camera going essentially indefinitely – while the case has room for three, the camera can run for a while on just one.

Unlike the BCC300-C kit, the camera here does not have a screen. What it does have, and the other camera lacks, is connectivity via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and you can therefore connect to your laptop or other smart device to change settings and compose your imagery. Our reviewer James found this process a bit fiddly, with the browser-based interface not the most intuitive. However, Brinno has promised iOS and Android apps down the road, which should make things easier.

It's certainly not a cheap option. But if you're looking for a camera to capture multi-month or even multi-year projects, it makes sense to invest to make sure that all that time and effort isn't wasted on a sub-par video.

Read our full BCC5000 Time Lapse Bundle

Best for construction

This piece of German product design has a very specific purpose in mind; long duration timelapse. That's evidenced by the 12 spaces for AA cells: four beneath the electronics, and another eight in the door.

The unit is IP66-weather sealed when closed, so it can be mounted in harsh environments. Just like some German car brands, while the engineering feels firm, the menu system could be easier to navigate, though there is a real manual in the box alongside several mounting options and proportionally you won’t be spending that long with the menu.

We appreciated the inclusion of a tree rope as well as a drillable wall bracket with a ball joint with screws. The range of mounting options is very handy for making sure the camera is secure for long-term projects. The 2.4-inch LCD makes directing the camera simple, and there is also an LED flash to light the night mode with an 18m (60ft) range. It’s also very handy that the system allows microSD cards up to 512GB.

In use, we found that the Technaxx TX-164 does an acceptable job at creating decent-looking time-lapse video, with Full HD quality – though with an output frame-rate of just 5fps, the resulting video has none of the smoothness you get from more expensive time-lapse cameras. Granted, you could always download the photo sequence and stitch them together yourself in editing – but that does seem to rather defeat the purpose of a specialist timelapse camera.

The Technaxx TX-164 is best for the really long-term projects, like construction. Its super long-lasting battery life and hardy build means you can leave it capturing for as long as six months. Though be warned that we did experience a mild technical hitch with our review unit – which locked up post-capture. Though the footage survived, had we been retrieving the camera after half a year, it might have caused a few heart palpitations.

Best for social media

If you’ve been caught by the timelapse bug on social media but don’t want to tie up your phone, the EON is built with you in mind. Petite and cutely designed, resembling an action camera with a big old manual-focus lens on the front, the aTLi EON

The aTLi EON is app-controlled, so you’ll need your phone to get things going, but the app offers more than mere interval settings. You can tap to zoom on an area as you adjust the manual focus, check a live preview even as a shoot is in progress, or take control of exposure settings to fine-tine your look.

While you're still limited by the quality of a fairly small sensor, this does open up quite a bit of creative freedom, and means your timelapses have the capacity to look a lot more bright and vibrant than those from simple cameras with no settings control. We also liked the manual-focus lens – it's a simple touch, but one that expands creative options and helps the aTLi EON feel a lot more like a 'real' camera.

In our review, we were able to quickly and easily create a decent-looking timelapse video – and this ease of use is what the aTLi EON really has going for it. The tripod mounting thread in the bottom of the camera expands your setup options, though it's small and unobtrusive enough that you could equally easily set it up on a desk or shelf.

However, it's worth noting that the diminutive aTLi EON is not waterproof or weatherproof. Unlike many of the cameras on this list, it can't safely be left outside for long periods – and that's going to restrict its utility for many time-lapse use cases.

Best 4K timelapse camera

If you like the sound of a dedicated timelapse camera but are less enthused by the idea of poor-quality Full HD video, then the aTLi X10 4K could well be the right choice for you. Not only is it capable of capturing 4K video and stills but it also boasts a sophisticated, high-quality lens on the front, which includes an aspherical element to counteract the effects of distortion.

The X10 looks and handles a lot like the aTLi EON, but that superior lens makes a marked difference when it comes to footage quality – in use, particularly up close, the X10 genuinely impresses, produces clear, vivid and detailed images and videos. Timelapse-wise, you have a range of interval options from 1sec to 24 hours, and the body of the camera is IP64 weatherproof, so it'll survive a long spell outdoors.

Able to be mounted on a tripod, the X10 shares another bit of DNA with the EON – it's entirely phone-dependent. You need to use the app in order to be able to use the X10, and while this can in practice make for a bit of an awkward juggling experience, the app is at least well-designed and intuitive, making it straightforward to program, set up and execute your timelapse.

In our review, while the camera's live view functionality was noticeably laggy, the footage quality it produced was generally solid – particularly in low light. aTLi have keenly extolled the X10's prowess in low light, and we found their claims to be mostly justified, with good close-up detail in images taken at night.

While it's more expensive than many other options on this list (though a good deal cheaper than many specialist time-lapse cameras), the aTLi X10 provides noticeable uptick in quality that makes it the superior choice for anyone who wants to create smooth, polished, professional-looking time-lapse content.

Read our full aTLi X10 4K review for more.

Best action camera with timelapse

The DJI Osmo Action 6 is DJI's latest flagship action camera, and it boasts a number of excellent timelapse modes that make it our pick as the best action camera for timelapse. With a larger sensor than the likes of GoPro (and than many of the timelapse cameras on this list) it offers a significant low-light quality upgrade over the competition.

It's easy to set up, and produces great-quality footage as well as vivid 10MP stills. Its rugged build, generous battery life and abundance of video options make it a solid all-rounder for all sorts of timelapse situations – and images from footage shot in Timelapse mode can be downloaded individually if you would prefer to assemble the final video yourself.

There's also plenty of storage space, with 50GB effective built-in storage and the option to download via Wi-Fi 6, as well as a slot for a microSD card with up to 1TB capacity. You'd have to be putting together a really ambitious timelapse to bump up against a limit like that.

All the same, the DJI Osmo Action 6 isn't really designed to be left somewhere for months on end the way that specialist timelapse cameras are. However, it will produce timelapses that look a lot better than you'd get from those cameras, especially in low light, If you're looking to create multi-hour timelapses of the night sky, rather than multi-month timelapses of a construction site, the Osmo Action 6 is a much better bet.

Read our full DJI Osmo Action 6 review for more details

Best 360 timelapse camera

At a tangent from this list – because it's a different technology – is the DJI Osmo 360 which, as the name suggests, is a 360-degree camera (sometimes known as a panoramic camera). It is also an action camera – with similar advantages and disadvantages in terms of battery life and flexibility; it'll survive some rough and tumble, and some weather.

The real advantage, though, is that the back-to-back lenses let it "see" in any direction. It also earns its place here (as you'd imagine) with a timelapse mode.

There isn't space to talk about all the possibilities that shooting with a 360-degree camera offers but, essentially, there is a trade-off – you don't need to think too hard about where you're pointing the camera at the time, but you'll need to spend some time composing a normal view later. And, of course, despite all the megapixels, that will also involve cropping quite a few.

The camera's ability to capture 120MP resolution stills is at the top end for similar devices (check my guide to the best 360 cameras), but it has automatic timelapse and hyperlapse modes which produce 8K 30p. If you're setting up your camera somewhere your subject might move around, you can edit the footage later, choosing to move the 'camera' to track it – and DJI's software can help with automatic subject tracking and/or key frames.

The reason I put this in the list (rather than its competitor the Insta360 X5, which has a special 11K mode for timelapses so is also worth checking out) is that it boasts 1-inch image sensors. This means it's better able to cope with changes to lower light over time (though I'd strongly recommend using a power bank and being careful about where you run the cable for long timelapse videos).

Read my full review of the DJI Osmo 360

Best drone for timelapse

The improved stability and flight times of contemporary consumer camera drones makes them a much more viable option than they used to be for creating spectacular timelapse videos from the skies. DJI, aware of this, has given many of its drones the ability to capture Hyperlapse footage, and I can personally recommend the Air 3S as an absolutely brilliant choice for this. With a larger sensor than the previous Air 3, it produces dynamic and great-looking footage, and also offers generous 45-minute flight times.

It's priced around the mid-range, neither the cheapest drone DJI produces, nor the most expensive. I think it offers brilliant value, to the point where it's arguably eating the lunch of the more expensive Mavic 3 Pro. Its main wide sensor is a 50MP 1-inch type that delivers excellent quality in low light – however, personally I find the 48MP tele lens to be more cinematically exciting.

The Air 3S's 45-minute flight times give you latitude to capture hyperlapses that are longer than just a few seconds. And as long as you've got plenty of storage space, you can take advantage of the Air 3S's ability to produce big RAW files and really fine-tune your creations – though I found that the JPEGs also looked great, even in tricky backlit conditions.

Though it undoubtedly takes a bit of practice, you can use the Air 3S to capture the kinds of timelapse videos that simply aren't possible with anything else. Bear in mind though that as it weighs more than 250g (considerably more), it's subject to different drone regulations, and depending on where you are you may need a license or registration to fly it. Check your local regulations for details.

Read more: DJI Air 3S review

FAQs

How to choose the best timelapse camera

Most of the best professional cameras and even some camera phones have some sort of timelapse function, letting you set an interval timer to capture a series of photos, which you can combine into a video later. If you're using an iPhone for photography you'll have noticed that they have a particularly useful timelapse function in the native camera app, so it’s easy to get a taste for this form of creativity.

However, there's one big problem with using your camera or phone in this way. Timelapse videos are captured over hours, days, weeks or even months – and having your day-to-day tech tied up for that length of time just isn't practical.

So, the best timelapse cameras have to be robust and stable to be able to be left wherever you desire to capture a vast array of visuals, from cityscape timelapses that we often see in movies to great moving vistas of the landscape.

Naturally, the actual images they capture also need to be of a good level of quality. for sharing. It’s also useful if the device can process the stills straight into a video clip for you rather than requiring a potentially irritating excursion through software. If on the other hand you prefer to edit your timelapse shots to taste then the ability to shoot in RAW will be handy — as long as you have editing software that's capable of batch-processing.

Battery life with these things is also a big consideration when picking out which one is best for you. Some will be able to capture hours of footage, whereas others can capture days, weeks, or even months in one clip. Alternatively, you may want to consider a camera with hot-charging functionality — i.e. the ability the charge while recording. This will allow you to top it up as needed, meaning the length of your timelapse will only be limited by your storage media.

Weatherproofing is also going to be a factor, especially if you're planning on creating a timelapse over a timeframe that can be measured in weeks or months. A good timelapse camera should be able to withstand a little rain, snow and sleet without issue.

How we test cameras

When we test cameras, including drones and action cameras, we take them into real-world environments to see how they perform in live shooting scenarios. We test all cameras for their photo and video functionality, and if they have a timelapse mode we will take that for a spin too to see what kind of results we get.

For putting a camera through a full review, our Imaging Labs manager Ben Andrews will test them under carefully controlled conditions. These lab tests will give us an exact picture of what the sensor can do, measuring resolution using ISO resolution charts, and analyzing dynamic range and noise with DxO Analyzer test equipment.