Today, we will be taking a look at a unique camera system developed by the Taiwanese manufacturer Brinno. The TLC5000 (and the BCC5000 kit that we received for this review) is a rugged camera developed for the construction industry, but, as we will try to show in this review, it has surprising uses in many other applications, some of which could be fascinating for photographers as well.
About Brinno
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Taiwan, Brinno has carved out a unique niche in the imaging industry as a pioneer of hardware-processed, long-term time-lapse photography solutions. Unlike traditional cameras or action cams that drain batteries quickly and require extensive post-processing software to stitch frames together, Brinno designed its proprietary system to deliver instant, ready-to-view time-lapse videos directly from the device while utilizing ultra-low power consumption.
The TLC5000 that we shall be reviewing today is the company’s flagship model with WIFI and 4K resolution, although the company does include several more affordable, lower-resolution models as well, such as the more basic BCC300 and BCC2000 lines.
The Brinno TLC5000 time-lapse camera
Design and Build Quality
The TLC5000 has a very basic rectangular design. It is made of hard plastic and is very robust (it survived more than one fall to the ground in our case).
On the front, you have the camera itself, which uses a 1/1.8″ Sony STARVIS CMOS sensor with an ultra-wide-angle f/2.0 lens with a focal range equivalent to around 13mm on a full-frame sensor.
There is a bubble level on the top and a start/stop button on the front that requires a long press, and the time interval button that toggles between 10s, 30s, 1m, 5m, 10m, and Custom modes. The last one needs to be set in the app or via the browser.
On the left side, there is a USB-C port for charging (there is one on the battery inside as well), a microSD card slot, and an on/off switch for the camera. Other than that, there is only a ¼” 20 thread on the bottom and a release switch on the back for the cover exposing the replaceable battery.
Beyond the camera, the BCC5000 bundle includes the Brinno camera housing with ¼” 20 connectors on the back and bottom and 3 extra battery slots for extremely long recording.
In our kit, we received two batteries, but you can purchase more if you want to populate all battery slots in the housing and the camera.
Finally, there is both an arm with a quick release and a very well-made, metal, heavy-duty clamp (ACC5000) that we are still trying to learn how to operate.
There are several optional accessories that we didn’t get, including the aforementioned battery kit and a 10W Solar Panel kit. We were also told that the company is working on a 4G router with a solar panel.
The Brinno Camera Clamp with quick release
Battery life
These days, it is possible to shoot time-lapse videos with almost any camera (directly or via some type of accessory). Some cameras can even make a video from the still images in the camera. So what makes the Brinno TLC5000 so special?
Besides the ability to control the camera from any location using the app or web interface, which we shall look at next, and the highly rugged design of the camera, the most unique aspect of the camera is its battery life.
The camera was supplied to us in a kit with two 45Wh MRB1000 batteries. While the camera itself can hold only one of those, you can use the housing to add 3 more to a total of 4. According to Brinno, the camera can record in this setup for over 6 months. We know of no other camera that can do that.
In our experience, the camera’s battery life is indeed exceptional and one of the highlights of the TLC5000 (for our use, we didn’t have much need for the BCC5000 bundle with the extra battery and large case). It can easily run for many days, shooting every few seconds. Just keep in mind that if you want to go for months, the camera will need to record every 10-15 min or more, and limit the live view usage to a minimum.
Also note that fully charging the battery can easily take over 6 hours in our experience.
The Brinno BCC5000 outdoor case with 3 extra battery slots for extremely long time lapses
Wireless connection
There are two main ways to control the camera beyond the very basic functionalities that the camera buttons provide. The first is through a web interface, and the second is through an app. Both have essentially the same interface and the same options.
You can connect to the camera via BT, but for whatever reason, this connection method only provides limited control of the camera. The preferred method to connect to the camera is over Wi-Fi, and this will allow you to connect to the camera from any location.
We had to struggle quite a bit with the Wi-Fi settings. Brinno uses an interface that requires the user to enter both the network’s full name and password instead of selecting the name of the network from a list. The interface can only remember one network, so if you move the camera to a different location, you need to re-enter both the network name and password manually. Moving the camera between our studio and home office during testing required a lot of involvement.
Also, please note that both the WIFI network name and password are case-sensitive, a fact that we had to discover the hard way after hours of failed login attempts.
The wireless connection process needs some simplifying
Interface (web/app) and options
The interface of the app (and the web interface) is fairly basic. The initial screen allows the user to choose between BT and Multi-camera WIFI. For us, this is somewhat confusing, as the WIFI works with a single camera just as well.
When using the WIFI mode, you can schedule a specific day or days and time to start and stop recording. The second option is the time interval, and you can set the camera to record an image every 10s/30s/1m/5m/10m, or an option to set a custom time with a minimum of 3s. We would have liked to see a much shorter minimum option, but we suspect this has something to do with the hardware limitations of the camera.
The minimum time between frames is 3 seconds
In the settings mode, you can watch live view, change between daytime, twilight, and night recording, use flicker reduction, and add a time stamp to your video. Please note that live view is off during recording, which is a pretty big limitation of the camera at the moment.
You also have some advanced options to change the sharpness and saturation, as well as the playback speed of the video. Interestingly, you can set it to 20p and 30p (as well as some slower ones), but there are no 24p and 25p options, which we would like to see added in a future firmware.
Next, you have the option to look in depth at all the batteries connected to the camera, directly or via the housing, with lots of details.
The next option is the SD card, but this title might not be exactly accurate. The camera doesn’t only store the videos it makes on the microSD card inside the camera; you also have the option to sync it to the cloud, and this is turned on by default, although you can disable it in the settings if you like.
This is a very useful backup for a camera that can be located outside for months, but if you don’t want to store your videos on the cloud, turning this option off is a good idea. Our only complaint here is that the PLAY button is not marked in a different color/size on the playback page.
The last couple of settings include the download status of videos, the camera access management allowing you to give permissions to other users to view footage, and some info about the camera itself, firmware version, etc.
The camera does let you know when there is a new firmware version, and it can download it directly from the app, which is convenient, although it does take some time.
Playback from the cloud
Using the camera
We talked about the design, build, and features, but how does the camera perform in the real world? The BCC5000 bundle is primarily designed for shooting long-term construction projects, and you can see on the company’s website several impressive videos recorded by users who have used it for this purpose.
We are not in the business of shooting huge construction projects, which you can check out on Brinno’s website; however, in the past 8 months or so, we did renovate our new studio from scratch, giving us lots of opportunities to shoot one- or two-day-long construction time-lapses.
For the most part, the footage was great, but you do need to have enough light, which you don’t always get on indoor construction sites, and you need to be careful with construction light flickering and use the anti-flicker option when possible.
We do think that the camera can be used in many other scenarios, including behind the scenes for productions and basically any other activity that involves some form of change over hours or days.
We like it so much as a BTS camera that it is now part of almost all of our commercial shoots.
We also ran a quick nighttime test with the camera for a few hours, and the results were way better than we expected for such a relatively small sensor.
One other surprising aspect of the camera is the file sizes that you get. The TLC5000 is extremely efficient, with 3 hours of footage squeezed into a file size of less than 1GB. The image quality is not going to be comparable to that of a quality full-frame camera, of course, but for the type of use cases that we have in mind for the camera, it is more than enough.
Update: Just as we were wrapping up this review, we noticed that the colors of the camera shifted. After some testing, we discovered that something happened to the infrared filter on the sensor of our camera. You can partially correct this color distortion in post, but we are in talks with Brinno about other ways to fix it (the company has acknowledged the issue and is actively working on a fix; we will update this article when we hear back from them).
A screengrab from behind-the-scenes time-lapse we shot in our studio with the TLC5000 for a food production
Conclusion
Brinno created a very unique product with the TLC5000 camera (or, for that matter, the BCC5000 kit). It’s highly compact, extremely rugged, and can create in-camera 4K timelapses with a single click of a button.
The camera can be controlled from any location as long as it has a Wi-Fi connection. Its biggest feature is its outstanding battery life that can last for days, weeks, and even months if you use the housing with the extra batteries and limit shooting to every 10-15 min or more.
The only three weak points of the camera at the moment are the inability to watch the feed from the camera while recording, the WIFI setup, and the minimum of 1 frame every 3 seconds, making it difficult to shoot faster-style action timelapses. If you plan to switch networks often, it can be quite annoying, and we hope Brinno will fix this in a firmware update.
All in all, we feel that the TLC5000 is way more than just a construction camera. It can be super useful for anything that has movement and takes time, such as DIY projects, renovations, conferences, and, for us, lots and lots of BTS projects.
- Pros:
- True “set and forget” reliability.
- Outstanding battery life.
- Excellent weather protection.
- 4K resolution and in-camera time-lapse.
- Surprising nighttime image quality.
- Cons:
- WIFI setup can be annoying.
- No live view during shooting.
- Limited to a minimum of 1 frame every 3 sec.
- Price point is on the high side.
The Brinno BCC5000 kit
Pricing
When it comes to pricing, the BCC5000 kit with 2 batteries sells for $2200.
You can find more gear reviews on our LensVid.com gear section.
Iddo Genuth 
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