You can use your RaspberryPi to create a perfect TimeLapse-System using Gphoto2. You can easy install it by typing following
sudo apt-get install gphoto2
with
gphoto2 --auto-detect
you can see if and what camera is connected. Then (if you want to record on the SD Card) you have to check the „location“ of your memory card
gphoto2 --get-config capturetarget
the output should look like:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ gphoto2 --get-config capturetarget
Label: Capture Target
Readonly: 0
Type: RADIO
Current: Internal RAM
Choice: 0 Internal RAM
Choice: 1 Memory card
END
Now we can set the capture target to the Memory Card with this command:
photo2 --set-config capturetarget=1
Now you can use following command to take pictures and save them direct to your SD Card
gphoto2 -–capture-image
For timelapes I would recommend that you use the screen command to build a virtual terminal session and easy detach and attach this again
Link to Screen Help
Now you can start your photograph session with this command.
-I defines how long you want to wait between the pictures
-F defines how many pictures you want to take
gphoto2 -I 20 -F 10000 --capture-image
If you want to download the pictures to your Raspberry Pi’s SD card you have to use following:
gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download
All other commands can be found here LINK