Level 1 (4 points)

How do I take Time Lapse Still Photos on iPhone 15 Pro using Sensyne tripod?

In Sept 2025, I went to Great Basin National Park (a Dark Sky International park). While there I used the Sensyne phone tripod and remote (which connects via blue tooth to my iPhone 15 Pro) to take still photos of the night sky. I was able to get a couple of great Time Lapse Still Photos there, and a few more at Monument Valley. Most of the shots were 10 to 30 second exposures and resulted in photos like this one...

This year (Sept 2026) I returned to Great Basin and attempted to take more Time Lapse Still Photos of the night sky. But what I got were compressed videos. If I shot what I thought was a 30-second still exposure, I ended up with a two-second video that had been compressed from 30 seconds. I had three incredibly clear nights at Great Basin, and I tried every setting option I could to reproduce the kinds of STILL PHOTOS that I had taken the year before. When I got home, I called AppleCare and was told that not only is there no option for taking Time Lapse Still Photos... there has NEVER been an option on the iPhone 15 Pro to take Time Lapse Still Photos, only time lapse videos that are then compressed to two-seconds. I experimented at home and learned that if I shot a 60-second time lapse video, I would end up with a four-second compressed video. I know what I did in 2025 and I have not lost my mind. A compressed video is NOT a Still Photograph, and looks nothing like a still photo, even if you extract a frame from that compressed video. Please, has anyone on this forum had a similar thing happen using the iPhone 15 Pro? Thank you. (P.S. Yes, I used the Time Lapse option in the camera, AND I tried using the Photo option. Both produced videos. The only difference is that the Photo option resulted in a 30-second video, while the Time Lapse option produced a compress two-second video from the 30-seconds I shot.)

[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: Time Lapse Still Photos

Posted on Sep 28, 2026 3:23 PM

4 replies

Bear159quinn Author

Level 1 (4 points)

Sep 29, 2026 9:02 PM in response to Johnathan Burger

Jonathan, I just now sat down to look at your link, and I believe you have hit upon the one thing I totally forgot about... the Exposure setting on the Photo option of the camera. When I was trying to take my night sky shots at Great Basin, I moved it to 3, thought it didn't make a difference, obviously didn't give it time to reflect the 30-second exposure, and moved it back to zero. I can't believe the solution was staring me in the face.

And still, AppleCare insists there is no way to take Time Lapse STILLs with the iPhone 15 Pro. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will be giving that a try tomorrow night, assuming the sky here on the Central Coast is clear.

Johnathan Burger

Level 9 (72,811 points)

Sep 28, 2026 4:34 PM in response to Bear159quinn

https://www.reddit.com/r/iPhoneography/comments/1gnkklt/how_to_take_long_exposure_shots_with_pro_model/

Jeff Donald

Level 9 (64,078 points)

Sep 28, 2026 4:32 PM in response to Bear159quinn

The very definition of time lapse is a series of still frames (could be called a photo) at a predetermined interval. In one situation I could take a still frame every 12 hours and do this every day for 6 months. This would yield 2 frames per day for ~180 days or 360 frames. When played back at the standard frame rate of 30 frames per second, yields a 12 second video (360 divided by 30 = 12 seconds).

Apple does offer a feature that uses LIVE Photo feature and creates a still image from the series of LIVE Photo images (approximately 2 seconds).

I don’t want to ramble on without knowing more details about what results you obtained last year and this year. Do you have a link to see both sets of results? That will a lot in helping to analyze what’s going on. Thanks!

Bear159quinn Author

Level 1 (4 points)

Sep 29, 2026 2:40 PM in response to Jeff Donald

Thank you, Jeff, but I included a photo from Sept 2025 in my question. I no longer have the two-second compressed videos because what would be the point? I can't print them. To me, they are worthless.

As for your reply, in past years, when I used a film camera (Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F) I could use a trigger to hold the shutter open for however long I wanted. That would produce a time lapse still PHOTO. In Sept 2025, I was able to do basically the same thing by keeping the 15 Pro shutter open for 10, 20, or 30 seconds... and get a PHOTO. I understand the product that you are describing.... a series of frames strung together to make a video, but I'm not interested in making videos. I really just want to make some Time Lapse Still Photos. As I did before.

Again, thanks for your response.

Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256366782