This also explains why when we shot with the Hasselblad at ISO 50 and f/5.6, the images were nowhere near as sharp as with the 1Ds MKIII at ISO 400 and f/4. I thought the Hasselblad sucked for night shots, but I was getting unbelievably great images with it in the day at ISO 50.
My mind is doing loop the loop right now trying to figure that one out ... am I right in assuming then that the 1Ds shutter speed was a lot higher therefore there was less time for the thermals to take effect?
I'll admit I'm way out of my depth with this project you're doing but I want to understand it better as it's just so damn inspiring!
I'm thinking of going back with the D3 jacked to ISO 1000 or 1200, which it seems to be able to handle, the 500mm f/4 prime, and shoot a two-row pano in portrait mode. That's gonna give me a pretty good shutter speed.
So does this mean, following on from Marc's post, that a higher shutter speed has bigger grain which therefore somehow makes the image appear sharper as you're anyway printing it at such a high pixel-per-inch that the grains are then made smaller. Did I say that right?
Like I said I'm trying to understand as I always thought that the longer shutter speed at night would allow you to capture more details...
My mind is doing loop the loop right now trying to figure that one out ... am I right in assuming then that the 1Ds shutter speed was a lot higher therefore there was less time for the thermals to take effect?
That's exactly it. Think of all the photo's you've seen of a nice flowing stream. It's all about the shutter speed. With a fast shutter speed, you get crisp sharp details in the water. slow the shutter speed down and you get soft blurry motion blurred water.
Thermals in the air act very much like a flowing fluid.
Baldy, I'm worried that even if you get your shutter speed up high enough to get crisp frames, because the warp caused by the thermals in the air is going to be different for each frame, you're going to have more ghosting and errors when you come to stitching those frames together later on.
In Telescope land, they have technology for correcting atmosphere distortion, they call it Adaptive Optics When can we get that in a big L zoom
In Telescope land, they have technology for correcting atmosphere distortion, they call it Adaptive Optics When can we get that in a big L zoom
Wow, that is interesting. Dunno why I didn't think of it, but now that you mention it I have an astronomer friend at NASA. I'm gonna call him to see if he has any insight into this project.
I notice the lens I've been thinking of renting for this has a tripod mode for the vibration reduction, to reduce vibration from the shutter:
Wow, that is interesting. Dunno why I didn't think of it, but now that you mention it I have an astronomer friend at NASA. I'm gonna call him to see if he has any insight into this project.
I notice the lens I've been thinking of renting for this has a tripod mode for the vibration reduction, to reduce vibration from the shutter:
Anyone know if that makes much of a difference if you're shooting in mirror-up mode anyway?
Before I bought the 200-400, i tried various lenses. Using the delay function compared to the tripod mode seemed to work in the same way. The shutter was delayed allowing the vibration of the shutter to calm down before actual exposure time began.
There must be a way to defuse the wind before it hits the camera during set up. Since you are using such a long telephoto, making some sort of baffle to protect the camera and lens from direct changes in wind pressure should be obtainable. Almost like shooting from a blind; directing wind around the camera into the direct wind to the camera causing eddy effects which lowers the wind pressure and makes the change of wind flow more consistent. We called them vortex generators and they work quite well.--- is this info too nerdy:crazy
Yes, and I totally want a vortex blind now :davidto
Pedal faster
0
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited September 17, 2008
Well, during our last exciting episode, I boldly proclaimed that the shorter the shutter the sharper the shot because I haz atmospheric physics insight and thermals doncha know.
But here are the actual pixels from the D3 from the other night for a shot I bracketed. They're all ISO 400 with 400mm on the 200-400 zoom at f/4.5. Outside temp was 56 and I understand that's about the water temp. Winds were 10 mph.
On the left is 0.3 second exposure (-1 stop), center is 0.6, and right is 2.4 (+2 stops):
Some say the left is definitely sharper, some say it's too close to call. I say the better test would have been to shoot the scene by bracketing ISO, not exposure.
Sam brought a meter when he shot with his 1Ds MKIII and ended up with 1 second at f/4.5 and ISO 400. I thought the highlights were just a little blown so I went a little lower.
By comparison, here are the pixels from Sam's shot (he also used a 600mm prime):
Hey Ian, looks like there might be pretty good fog tonight, wanna go up to the city and take another swing at the bat with me tonight? Peeps seem to want fog in the shot.
Hey Ian, looks like there might be pretty good fog tonight, wanna go up to the city and take another swing at the bat with me tonight? Peeps seem to want fog in the shot.
What time?
Moderator Journeys/Sports/Big Picture :: Need some help with dgrin?
Sam brought a meter when he shot with his 1Ds MKIII and ended up with 1 second at f/4.5 and ISO 400. I thought the highlights were just a little blown so I went a little lower.
By comparison, here are the pixels from Sam's shot (he also used a 600mm prime):
Looks like a lens problem to me. All three of the D3 shots are muddy, exposure aside. I don't see any camera movement, but there's a ton of flare and chromatic aberation. Sam's shot appears far sharper with better contrast. Quite a feat, considering there must be at least 5 stops spread from dark to light!
It looks like Sam's is a tad hot. Is that motion blur on the tower? Look at the lights at the top of the tower and again in the retail space below. The lights below look OE but also as if they are moving.
Moderator Journeys/Sports/Big Picture :: Need some help with dgrin?
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
I'm afraid fog season is getting away from us, but the last few nights we've had decent fog. They shut of the light to Coit tower at midnight, so I was thinking of shooting around 11 when the fog has had time to build.
I'm afraid fog season is getting away from us, but the last few nights we've had decent fog. They shut of the light to Coit tower at midnight, so I was thinking of shooting around 11 when the fog has had time to build.
See your e-mail.
Moderator Journeys/Sports/Big Picture :: Need some help with dgrin?
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited September 17, 2008
The guys at Keeble and Schuchat told me tonight that thermals affect medium shutter speeds, but not short or long, because they tend to average out for longer exposures.
The guys at Keeble and Schuchat told me tonight that thermals affect medium shutter speeds, but not short or long, because they tend to average out for longer exposures.
Truth?
Mostly. The only sticking point is blown out light sources which are bright enough to have an impact on the image over a small fraction of the overall exposure time.
The guys at Keeble and Schuchat told me tonight that thermals affect medium shutter speeds, but not short or long, because they tend to average out for longer exposures.
Truth?
I am not sure I buy that entirely, Baldy.
I suspect that the intensity of the thermals play the largest role and that they sum over time. I suspect that both fast and long shutter speed images can be adversely affected. As well as medium shutter speeds.
I remember shooting the shuttle night shot in Florida with Harry, and you could see the image warping in the viewfinder when looking through long glass across the ICW, due to the humidity and the thermals from the warm water and the cool air.
If the image is warped to your eye in the viewfinder, I don't think shutter speed will help clarify it that much. Long shutter speeds will average out, as you say, but not by gaining sharpness, but by loss of contrast and clarity. Medium and short shutter speeds will just capture what your eye sees, won't they?
The guys at Keeble and Schuchat told me tonight that thermals affect medium shutter speeds, but not short or long, because they tend to average out for longer exposures.
Truth?
Wouldn't shutter speed be dependent on wavelength?
Moderator Journeys/Sports/Big Picture :: Need some help with dgrin?
I suspect that the intensity of the thermals play the largest role and that they sum over time. I suspect that both fast and long shutter speed images can be adversely affected. As well as medium shutter speeds.
I remember shooting the shuttle night shot in Florida with Harry, and you could see the image warping in the viewfinder when looking through long glass across the ICW, due to the humidity and the thermals from the warm water and the cool air.
If the image is warped to your eye in the viewfinder, I don't think shutter speed will help clarify it that much. Long shutter speeds will average out, as you say, but not by gaining sharpness, but by loss of contrast and clarity. Medium and short shutter speeds will just capture what your eye sees, won't they?
Ken, I didn't see your answer until I had already posted mine
Thermals, give or take, cause Gaussian deviations about a point. What that means is that small deviations are more likely that large ones so as you average the small deviations contribute more to the image than the large ones do and the image gets sharper. However, the brighter the point of light the longer it takes to average out.
Conventional averaging works poorly for atronomical photography because bright points of light (and nearby stars are usually blown out so they are very bright) against a black background is absolutely the worst case. For terrestrial night photography you get sharp shadows and halos around the bright parts of the image. At the exposure gets longer, the halos will get dimmer and smaller.
The guys at Keeble and Schuchat told me tonight that thermals affect medium shutter speeds, but not short or long, because they tend to average out for longer exposures.
Truth?
I have some land in Florida you may be interested in....
X www.thepicturetaker.ca
0
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
I have some land in Florida you may be interested in....
Good reply.
The next chapter in our continuing saga is I moved locations because Andy wanted to see some reflections off the water, and I was thinking maybe less bridge and more city.
So I moved up the island closer to the bridge, which had the welcome advantage of much better shelter from the wind and presumably lower thermal distortion by being higher off the water.
Then I remembered Sam's suggestion, that maybe we should blend darkness into light along the length of the pano. It sounded too hard when we were shooting off sandbags, but I was able to use The Mother of All Tripods in my sheltered location last night, so I did the exact same pano 5 times as morning broke (see next post).
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited September 18, 2008
So we were thinking that the bridge looks good dark, the heart of the financial district looks good in between like this with some morning light reflecting off the glass, and that we'd continue getting lighter to the right and maybe even include the Golden Gate as the morning sun hits it (they don't light much of it at night so it makes for a poor inclusion into a nightscape).
Lookin' good. In fact it'll be stunning -- if it holds sharpness to the 72" height. It's not quite as fresh or as dramatic as the other composition though, is it?. Not as memorable.
X www.thepicturetaker.ca
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Lookin' good. In fact it'll be stunning -- if it holds sharpness to the 72" height. It's not quite as fresh or as dramatic as the other composition though, is it?. Not as memorable.
Well I shot the heck out of the other composition last night too, so I can stitch a few of them together.
In fact, I moved further down the island than I had before to get further from the bridge so that I could get where it joined to Treasure Island top to bottom on the stanchion (in the previous location, the last stanchion was too close to get it in the frame).
But I shot it with the 600mm, two rows with the 1Ds MKIII so it's got a gazillion pixels and will take forever to stitch.
Well I shot the heck out of the other composition last night too, so I can stitch a few of them together.
In fact, I moved further down the island than I had before to get further from the bridge so that I could get where it joined to Treasure Island top to bottom on the stanchion (before, the last stanchion was too close to get it in the frame).
But I shot it with the 600mm, two rows with the 1Ds MKIII so it's got a gazillion pixels and will take forever to stitch.
So, how many frames is that!
X www.thepicturetaker.ca
0
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Comments
I'll admit I'm way out of my depth with this project you're doing but I want to understand it better as it's just so damn inspiring!
So does this mean, following on from Marc's post, that a higher shutter speed has bigger grain which therefore somehow makes the image appear sharper as you're anyway printing it at such a high pixel-per-inch that the grains are then made smaller. Did I say that right?
Like I said I'm trying to understand as I always thought that the longer shutter speed at night would allow you to capture more details...
This thread is major interesting!
Jase // www.stonesque.com
That's exactly it. Think of all the photo's you've seen of a nice flowing stream. It's all about the shutter speed. With a fast shutter speed, you get crisp sharp details in the water. slow the shutter speed down and you get soft blurry motion blurred water.
Thermals in the air act very much like a flowing fluid.
Baldy, I'm worried that even if you get your shutter speed up high enough to get crisp frames, because the warp caused by the thermals in the air is going to be different for each frame, you're going to have more ghosting and errors when you come to stitching those frames together later on.
In Telescope land, they have technology for correcting atmosphere distortion, they call it Adaptive Optics When can we get that in a big L zoom
I notice the lens I've been thinking of renting for this has a tripod mode for the vibration reduction, to reduce vibration from the shutter:
http://www.borrowlenses.com/product/nikon_super_tele/Nikon_500mm_f4_VR
Anyone know if that makes much of a difference if you're shooting in mirror-up mode anyway?
Before I bought the 200-400, i tried various lenses. Using the delay function compared to the tripod mode seemed to work in the same way. The shutter was delayed allowing the vibration of the shutter to calm down before actual exposure time began.
There must be a way to defuse the wind before it hits the camera during set up. Since you are using such a long telephoto, making some sort of baffle to protect the camera and lens from direct changes in wind pressure should be obtainable. Almost like shooting from a blind; directing wind around the camera into the direct wind to the camera causing eddy effects which lowers the wind pressure and makes the change of wind flow more consistent. We called them vortex generators and they work quite well.--- is this info too nerdy:crazy
My Photo Blog -->http://dthorpphoto.blogspot.com/
Yes, and I totally want a vortex blind now :davidto
But here are the actual pixels from the D3 from the other night for a shot I bracketed. They're all ISO 400 with 400mm on the 200-400 zoom at f/4.5. Outside temp was 56 and I understand that's about the water temp. Winds were 10 mph.
On the left is 0.3 second exposure (-1 stop), center is 0.6, and right is 2.4 (+2 stops):
Some say the left is definitely sharper, some say it's too close to call. I say the better test would have been to shoot the scene by bracketing ISO, not exposure.
By comparison, here are the pixels from Sam's shot (he also used a 600mm prime):
Truth?
Mostly. The only sticking point is blown out light sources which are bright enough to have an impact on the image over a small fraction of the overall exposure time.
I am not sure I buy that entirely, Baldy.
I suspect that the intensity of the thermals play the largest role and that they sum over time. I suspect that both fast and long shutter speed images can be adversely affected. As well as medium shutter speeds.
I remember shooting the shuttle night shot in Florida with Harry, and you could see the image warping in the viewfinder when looking through long glass across the ICW, due to the humidity and the thermals from the warm water and the cool air.
If the image is warped to your eye in the viewfinder, I don't think shutter speed will help clarify it that much. Long shutter speeds will average out, as you say, but not by gaining sharpness, but by loss of contrast and clarity. Medium and short shutter speeds will just capture what your eye sees, won't they?
Astronomical photographers deal with this by shooting multiple frames and them stacking them and using the de-noise filters in Photoshop to remove the data that is not consistent from frame to frame, as seen in this video showing how to remove crowds from a landscape shot with a P&S camera.
Ken, I didn't see your answer until I had already posted mine
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Thermals, give or take, cause Gaussian deviations about a point. What that means is that small deviations are more likely that large ones so as you average the small deviations contribute more to the image than the large ones do and the image gets sharper. However, the brighter the point of light the longer it takes to average out.
Conventional averaging works poorly for atronomical photography because bright points of light (and nearby stars are usually blown out so they are very bright) against a black background is absolutely the worst case. For terrestrial night photography you get sharp shadows and halos around the bright parts of the image. At the exposure gets longer, the halos will get dimmer and smaller.
The next chapter in our continuing saga is I moved locations because Andy wanted to see some reflections off the water, and I was thinking maybe less bridge and more city.
So I moved up the island closer to the bridge, which had the welcome advantage of much better shelter from the wind and presumably lower thermal distortion by being higher off the water.
Then I remembered Sam's suggestion, that maybe we should blend darkness into light along the length of the pano.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Your thoughts.
You're definitely on the right track. I love how the buildings are side lit by the early sun.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
In fact, I moved further down the island than I had before to get further from the bridge so that I could get where it joined to Treasure Island top to bottom on the stanchion (in the previous location, the last stanchion was too close to get it in the frame).
But I shot it with the 600mm, two rows with the 1Ds MKIII so it's got a gazillion pixels and will take forever to stitch.