What's more self-absorbed than taking 10 pictures of oneself and posting them all on Instagram? Shooting a 45-minute video of oneself staring at the camera and posting it as a time-lapse video on Instagram.
Apparently, this is now possible with Instagram's new update to its new Hyperlapse app, which allows users to take time-lapse videos using the rear camera on their devices. With Hyperlapse 1.1, however, comes support for the front-facing camera, which means users now have new ways to express their vanity in creative ways by taking time-lapse videos of themselves or, as Instagram calls them, selfielapses. The update also includes the usual bug fixes and reliability improvements.
"You can use your front-facing camera to shoot a video of yourself," writes Instagram in its Help section. "Tap [the front-camera button] to switch the camera to front-facing ("selfielapse") and if you change your mind, tap it again to return to regular Hyperlapse."
Users can also toggle between regular Hyperlapse and selfielapse modes by swiping the screen to the right, but Instagram warns that they cannot switch between modes once they start recording.
Traditionally, time lapse videos are taken by keeping a recording device still for long periods of time. With Hyperlapse, Instagram reduces camera shake from hands that can't stay put using its own image stabilization technology. This means, moving backgrounds such as cars zooming past or people walking by will look good on a selfielapse.
After recording, users can choose between 12 video speeds, with 1x being the slowest and 12x being the fastest, before tapping the green check on the upper right corner of the screen to share the selfielapse on Instagram or Facebook. Users can also save the videos for later editing or delete them if the videos are not representative of the image they want to make online.
Hyperlapse is limited to a 45-minute recording time and users can only post selfielapses up to 15 seconds in length. By contrast, the time-lapse mode on Apple's iOS 8 camera app can record until the iPhone runs out of space. Also, users are not able to import videos already stored on their iPhone and can only take videos from the Hyperlapse app itself.
The app, which debuted in late August, is doing quite well on the Apple App Store, where Hyperlapse has earned a 4.5-star rating from reviewers and has attracted more downloads than other apps launched by Instagram owner Facebook.
