Couple of short time-lapse sequences

[DavidTrap (David)]

More D800 testing.

IMHO if one is spending the time to take a celestial time-lapse, it's worth the effort to shoot individual frames and post-process everything through something like Lightroom & LR Timelapse, rather than use the internal timelapse feature. Processing up to 8Gb of data per sequence was a lot less painful than I expected. (I just need to buy a 32Gb SD card to allow me to shoot an all night time-lapse!)

I took two 200 frame x 20sec exposure sequences, one at 3200ISO in RAW and the other at 6400ISO in medium quality JPEG. I used f4.5 for the first and f2.8 for the last, so the exposures aren't comparable - however, I did have to stretch the former a lot more (but that's easier to do if you've shot RAW).

The sky was extremely HAZY last Saturday, so I definitely hope for better results with more favourable conditions. In the second one, you can see the halos develop around the Southern Cross towards the end of the sequence. The light bubble on the left in the first one is Warwick (looking south from Leyburn)

ISO3200 f4.5 RAW

ISO6400 f2.8 JPEG

C&C welcome,

DT

[multiweb (Marc)]

Looks very sharp and smooth. Nice one. I got a 64GB SD from eBay. I can store a bit over 4000 subs full quality RAW and I download them in the morning on the laptop. Takes a bit over an hour to do.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Thanks Marc.

32Gb would be 800images (40Mb RAW files), so that's around 7hrs worth of 30sec images. I just hate massive cards for fear of something failing and losing the lot!

DT

[h0ughy (David)]

looking good there - must have taken a mountain of processing

[DavidTrap (David)]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

looking good there - must have taken a mountain of processing

Thanks David,

Actually less than expected. LRTimelapse is quite quick at equalising exposures, so added to the fiddling in Lightroom it was probably only 15mins of work, before it took about 15mins to render the 8sec of video.

An all night sequence will certainly take a bit longer!

DT

[RickS (Rick)]

They came out well, David. Looking forward to what you can do with some more practice, experimentation and good seeing!

Cheers,
Rick.

[colinmlegg (Colin)]

Hey David,

Looking good. Do you mind if I ask a couple of techo questions that relate to D800 and timelapse. Traditionally Nikon cameras have had some issues in these areas.

1. Are you using automatic aperture lenses - G series? If yes, is there anyway to lock the aperture between exposures? If not, can you lock the aperture (via depth of field button) then partially twist off the lens to lock the aperture in place?

2. Precision of bulb. This maybe hard to test, but it's important for bulb ramping that the bulb precision is < 10 ms, preferably 1 ms.

3. What are the maximum number of shots you can take in continuous mode?

I ask because I'm evaluating 5D3 vs D800. I haven't got my hands on a D800 yet. Currently I'm a 5D2 user, but have been using a Nikon 14-24 with adaptor for timelapse. So happy to use whatever works best.

Thanks
Colin

[Ross G]

Nice timelapse David.

Very smooth.

Ross.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Thanks Rick & Ross,

Colin - as far as I'm aware, there is no way to lock the aperture of the G Series lenses. Not sure what you mean by "Bulb Ramping"? I used LR Timelapse to "deflicker" the image sequence. I think you can go to 999 on the internal intervalometer, but not sure.

DT

[gregbradley]

Very nice time lapses David.

To my eye I find it hard to see much difference between the RAW and the JPEG. In fact I slightly prefer the jpeg because its a bit brighter.
ISO6400 still seems nice and clean and F2.8 is always a nice thing.

So ISO 6400 F2.8 and 30 seconds as a formula or is that too much.

Perhaps even ISO12800, 20 seconds and F2.8.

Greg.

[DavidTrap (David)]

The exposures were totally different Greg (about 3 stops different), and both have been stretched in Lightroom.

I'll try 30 sec exposures at F2.8 at both ISO3200 & 6400 next time and compare results. Hopefully the transparency will be better.

I ran a sequence through HLVG plug-in which definitely got rid of the green. Unfortunately there was still a brownish gradient across the horizon - I dampened that down with a "desaturating gradient fill" in LR. I think it's probably worth using the HLVG plug-in on good data. Takes a while to export the files out and then run through a batch process in PS, but not too bad. I can't upload a HD version to vimeo this week.

DT

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

The exposures were totally different Greg (about 3 stops different), and both have been stretched in Lightroom.

I'll try 30 sec exposures at F2.8 at both ISO3200 & 6400 next time and compare results. Hopefully the transparency will be better.

I ran a sequence through HLVG plug-in which definitely got rid of the green. Unfortunately there was still a brownish gradient across the horizon - I dampened that down with a "desaturating gradient fill" in LR. I think it's probably worth using the HLVG plug-in on good data. Takes a while to export the files out and then run through a batch process in PS, but not too bad. I can't upload a HD version to vimeo this week.

DT

That's good to hear. I think the HLVG plug in is pretty vital for DSLR night shots otherwise they all look too green (Canon/Nikon - all of them except Alex's). He must do some post processing to get rid of it I suspect. Then again he is also shooting at a very dark sky.

Can you run something like Gradient Xterminator in a batch process for that? That would be cool.

I could create an action to remove a gradient better than Gradient Xterminator but it wouldn't apply to every different image - only those of the same type of shot.

But perhaps it could be done for a specific sequence and it may be worth the trouble.

If you are interested email me a couple of stills in a sequence and I'll record a gradient removal action for you and it'd be interesting to see if it works well or not.

Greg.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Thanks for the offer Greg, but I think I'll wait until I get some better data, before spending more time.

DT

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

The exposures were totally different Greg (about 3 stops different), and both have been stretched in Lightroom.

I'll try 30 sec exposures at F2.8 at both ISO3200 & 6400 next time and compare results. Hopefully the transparency will be better.

I ran a sequence through HLVG plug-in which definitely got rid of the green. Unfortunately there was still a brownish gradient across the horizon - I dampened that down with a "desaturating gradient fill" in LR. I think it's probably worth using the HLVG plug-in on good data. Takes a while to export the files out and then run through a batch process in PS, but not too bad. I can't upload a HD version to vimeo this week.

DT

No worries.

Greg.

[RobF (Rob)]

Very promising animations David. Looking forward to future work.

[colinmlegg (Colin)]

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

Thanks Rick & Ross,

Colin - as far as I'm aware, there is no way to lock the aperture of the G Series lenses. Not sure what you mean by "Bulb Ramping"? I used LR Timelapse to "deflicker" the image sequence. I think you can go to 999 on the internal intervalometer, but not sure.

DT

Thanks David.

Bulb ramping is where you incrementally adjust the bulb setting to accurately follow light during twilight periods. With 1ms precision it's smooth enough not to need de-flickering (I have some examples on my vimeo page). I'm hoping the D800 has better precision than earlier Nikons.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Thought that might be what you were referring to. Far beyond my knowledge to help you there!

DT

[gregbradley]

Although David, the first sample time lapse you did you used the internal time lapse function and it did a very smooth transition from daylight to nighttime automatically.

But I think that is jpeg only.

Greg.

[DavidTrap (David)]

A more recent one was no where near as smooth. Not sure why?

DT