Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDecepticon
I think I have asked this before, however the search function doesn't seem to work for me.
What format do you normally shoot your time lapse frames in? RAW or Jpeg? My camera is a bit noisy so I am trying to do RAW. How then, do I calibrate the frames with at least darks?
I think I will have to get that book Mike was talking about.
Thanks.
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I suggesting shooting RAW (I always do, 32GB memory cards are not that expensive now). If you need to recover some shadow detail after the file is written RAW gives you 12 or 14 bit data to work with, JPEG has only 8 bit of lossy compressed data per pixel.
As far as darks, for timelapse work you want to avoid long exposure noise reduction done in-camera (ICNR, LENR) because it will make long gaps between your shots when it is taking a dark frame and the final video will look jerky.
The biggest benefit of calibration is the removal of hot pixels which stand out in time lapse. I used to convert RAW to TIFF, calibrate the TIFFs in DeepSkyStacker with a master dark frame made at the end of the imaging run. Then adjust curves in the TIFF files and save as JPEG for video rendering. Now Nikon Capture NX includes a hot pixel removal algorithm in RAW files only and I don't do the dark calibration any more. Adobe Camera RAW converter found in Photoshop and Lightroom also removes hot pixels when it opens RAW files, so here is another pro-RAW argument.
Hope it helps,
Alex