Go Back in Time With the Brinno TLC 200 Pro Time Lapse Camera

Brinno TLC 200 Pro brings time-lapse capture to photographers and videographers on a budget. While the picture quality is not as good as what you would get on your iPhone, I challenge you to leave your phone on time-lapse and see how long it lasts. Brinno? On four AA batteries, it will last you months. That’s months as in plural as in multiple.

Here is a sample video to show you the quality you are working with. The original video ran from 8 AM to 4 PM but I’ve condensed it with Adobe Premier Pro and sped it up to 400x its normal speed. If you want to see the unaltered version you can check it out on my YouTube channel.

The Brinno is easy to set up and has some pretty neat features including:

• f/2.0 aperture (great for low light environments)
• LCD monitor
• No editing software required. All footage is compressed and stitched together on the camera.
• HD videos are in 1280 x 720 resolution.
• Ability to adjust the white balance.
• No mounting. Just pack it up and go.
• Interchangeable lenses available.

I only have two complaints about the camera so far.

The first is the LCD doesn’t show the battery gauge as it records. I’m sure this cuts down on the LCD eating up the battery, but it would be nice to have some way of keeping an eye on the battery levels while it’s recording.

My second complaint is the LCD is not very crisp. If you are going to rely on the video for anything mission critical, set it up, do a test run with the settings, and double-check the footage before you just leave it and go.

Need some ideas on what to point it at? Here are a few I’ve come up with for the average geek.

Leaving the house? Set it up in a common area to see what happens while you’re gone. This could be a lot of fun if you have pets.

Going on a cruise? Point it out your window and let it run overnight for a neat memory.

Science project coming up? It would be easier to record those results with a dedicated camera aimed at the project. And you’d get the added bonus of the images to put on your poster board.

Trouble sleeping? My son used to have walking night terrors. With the low light ability, this would have been great to set up in his room to see what happened when he had one of his episodes.

Food going missing in the fridge? Not anymore. Hide it in the fridge and catch the person who keeps stealing your leftover Chinese takeout in the act (consider putting it in the weather case just to be safe).

Road trip! Mount it on your dashboard and you can re-take that four-hour road trip in under five minutes.

Depending on what you are going to be recording make sure you get an SD card that will hold it all. A 4 GB SD card is included with the camera, but between you and me, that’s really not a lot. I maxed mine out in no time. You can insert up to a 32 GB card and with as cheap as they are these days ($12.95 on Amazon), there’s no reason to not max it out from the start. Better safe than sorry right? Who knows. That video you capture of your pets at home by themselves might just win you $100,000 on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Brinno TLC 200 Pro retails for $219 and is available at select retailers. You can grab it for $150 on Amazon right now. Not a bad price for a time-lapse camera that doesn’t eat up all your batteries.

Disclaimer: GeekMom was given a review sample of this product.