Posted on: September 26, 2019

Real Deal Review: Brinno Jobsite Time Lapse Camera

Set it. Forget it. Time lapse it.

I have always been a fan of time-lapse videos and they have been a huge part of growing my business, Premier Outdoor Living, in Southern New Jersey where I build decks and outdoor spaces for residential customers. I get a lot of questions about how I make these videos and how others could do the same. Creating content can be involved, but time lapses are the easiest and usually our most popular videos.

The author liked the external battery pack, which lasted a long time. Unlike other cameras on which he constantly had to check the battery charge level, he left the Brinno on an entire job with no issue. Set it to time lapse for a particular time range—8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for example—for an even longer run time.

The biggest advantage with the Brinno TLC 200 was the fact that it comes with an external battery pack to mitigate any issues with dying rechargeable batteries. With other time-lapse cameras, I had to constantly check the charge on the battery to ensure I was capturing everything. All you have to do with the Brinno is set it up on your jobsite and forget about it until you’re done. It also has a setting to capture your time lapse during set hours so you can leave it mounted for the entirety of the project.

The housing that comes with the Brinno is diesel. It’s built for the jobsite.

The housing that comes with the camera is extremely durable and obviously built for a jobsite environment. It is easy to use and does a great job of protecting the camera from the elements.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a multitude of accessories for mounting on ladders, houses, posts, or anything else close to your jobsite.

The author was impressed with how many different ways there were to mount the camera and the number of included accessories and mounting points.

One of the coolest accessories the camera comes with is an adjustable arm. It can be easily configured to mount to just about any object. Finding a solid mounting point that will capture your project can be difficult with other cameras. I have even taped cameras to the tops of ladders. Brinno’s adjustable arm is a much better solution.

This camera is designed almost solely to capture time-lapse videos. And it does it really well. For beginners or those who are not tech savvy, this simplicity is welcome. Those more adept with software and editing, however, may want to consider a camera that can also capture video. Those who fancy themselves content creators or avid marketers of their work could definitely benefit from having this camera as part of their arsenal alongside other cameras.

The mounting jaw is well designed and versatile as all get-out. The author has taped other cameras to things to get a proper mount. Not so with the various knuckles and clasps on the Brinno. Well done.

Overall, I thought it was a great product especially for beginners and for those who would consider having multiple cameras on site. If you are looking for a camera that can capture video as well as time lapses, you may want to look at some other options.

I will be keeping the Brinno camera to capture entire projects and using it alongside a few other cameras to continue creating our content.

Four out of five hammers.