My first long exposures. - DPChallenge Forums

Nikon AF-S DX 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 ED VR

03/19/2010 04:54:27 AM · #1

Obviously nothing special, but I just got a remote release, and wanted to share my first shot at long exposure with everyone here.

I learned quite a bit tonight, and thought I would share some of my first experiences with everyone as well:
1. DSLR's really do eat batteries like crazy when doing this.
2. Noise sucks
3. I should have checked where my lens focuses to infinity when compared to the rangefinder (it's not accurate on my 28-135IS)
4. Noise sucks
5. Putting it all together for a good image at night is much, much more difficult than shooting during the day.
6. Noise sucks
7. Clouds and Airplanes are not our freinds
8. Noise sucks

Message edited by author 2010-03-19 05:10:49.

sarampo

Nikon D7100

03/19/2010 04:58:36 AM · #2

Hey Cory, everything ok?

Could you just post some details about the photos? Aperture, shutter time, etc?

Taking a look at your pictures, I think that the only one in focus is the third one, the star trails are very visible. And not much noise is noticeable, so I guess you did it at a low ISO.
But the second has the most interesting composition, too bad about the focus.

Cheers,
Joao

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX100

03/19/2010 05:04:59 AM · #3

Originally posted by sarampo:

Yeah I'll add that info, good point :)

As per the focus, the second at least is suffering from wind :) I started the exposure and the wind decided to start up about 2-3 minutes in..

spiritualspatula

03/19/2010 05:14:22 AM · #4

How many minutes of exposure did you get on a battery?
How cold were the conditions?
Did you use a dark frame?

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX100

03/19/2010 05:17:43 AM · #5

Originally posted by spiritualspatula:

How many minutes of exposure did you get on a battery?
How cold were the conditions?
Did you use a dark frame?

As for minutes on a battery- they are 2000mAh and I was getting about an hour each (sounds like a long time, but it's not when you're in the field..)

It was light-jacket cold, ie. ~50 degrees

I'm not positive about the dark frame - I think you are referring to the long exposure noise reduction where it images an equivalent length of nothing then subtracts the result from the image... Yeah, I did start using that at the end, and it really, really improved the images - definitely a needed feature for doing this well...

Message edited by author 2010-03-19 05:53:21.

spiritualspatula

03/19/2010 08:39:16 AM · #6

Yeah, that's what I meant by dark frame. I've been itching to do some of these shots up in the mountains but it'll be somewhere between 0 and 20 degrees most likely...
luckily I have two D300 batteries and a enEL4a battery for the grip... yet to test it out yet, but I intend to. I'll discuss it more when I get some myself.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

03/19/2010 12:47:39 PM · #7

Originally posted by spiritualspatula:

This weekend I'm going to go shoot some @ just over 10,000ft. I'll report back and let you know how that goes..

FWIW- @0-20 degrees, I think I might be a bit relieved when the batteries died. :)

manavg

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

03/19/2010 01:42:41 PM · #8

How does one decide how long an exposure to take? I do take some "evening" shots but mostly for city/skyline... but they're usually around 20 to 70 seconds, depending upon ambient light... do you use an external light meter?

What are you carrying in your backpack to set these shots up (flashlight, woollen jacket, coffee thermos, bubble level, wired/wireless remote, etc)?

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

03/19/2010 01:57:06 PM · #9

Originally posted by manavg:

Ok so first off, I cheat. Now that that's out of the box, here's how I cheat.

1. Gear:
Jeep - Tripod - Three Batteries - Several Lenses (I need a faster lens, probably going to be a 1.4) - a light leather jacket (cuts wind really well) - A friend (I like company, this is optional equipment) - Wired Remote - Water (you are going to be out for a few hours at least..) - and a few flashlights

2. How long do I expose for and how do I determine it?
I did mention that I cheat right? So what I'll do is setup the composition using flashlights and guesswork, then I'll crank the ISO up to 3200 and take a couple of exposures to determine what I feel is the "right" amount of light, then it's just a simple bit of math to figure out what my settings need to be for the lower ISO shot. (Practice here if you don't know what I mean //dryreading.com/camera/index.html)

Other than that though, I view this as a marvelous opportunity to slow down and really ENJOY my photography :)

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

03/19/2010 02:25:18 PM · #10

For star trails, take what you think is the exposure time you want and split it among 3-5 exposures. Then, in Photoshop, stack them set on "lighten". The star trails will magically lengthen with each added exposure but the noise will diminish due to the stacking of the images.

03/19/2010 02:54:36 PM · #11

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Genius... Too bad I couldn't enter it into a challenge that way!!!!

Senay

Canon EOS-50D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

03/19/2010 03:29:15 PM · #12

I had this bookmarked but I've never tried it, it might be worth a shot?
//www.startrails.de/html/software.html

Dudski

Nikon D700

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

03/19/2010 04:15:36 PM · #13

Out of the approximate 20 times that Iâ��ve tried, Iâ��ve only been very successful once:

In terms of â��lessons learnedâ��, itâ��s such a hit and miss thing for me that I donâ��t really have many to offer. One thing I have learned, on the other hand, is that you donâ��t necessarily need an extremely long exposure as long as you point toward the north or south star. Also, if youâ��re not aware of this technique, look up how to use multiple short exposures (then combining them) as opposed to one long one in order to reduce noise (I see this has already been mentioned).

In fact, Iâ��m hoping to learn from this thread as well as long exposures are somewhat of a little passion that I have and would love to learn more..
A couple of questions I have:
1) for star trails within a scene containing a background, is it worth stopping down? I havenâ��t yet been successful with the fisheye, but thatâ��s probably my best lens to date for this type of stuff which of course allows up to f2.8
2) focus-wise, Iâ��ve always tried to find a far-off light and auto-focus on it, then re-compose and shoot (provided everything is at â��infinityâ��) â�� my luck with this has been so-so: even static objects which should not move with the wind, etc. arenâ��t ever quite sharp. This of course goes along the same lines as my first question.
3) long exposure noise vs. high iso noise: is a 20min iso 400 shot noisier than a 10min iso 800 shot?
4) any way to get rid of those horrible purple corner blotches which seem to curse the Nikons when it comes to long exposures (in the 10s of minutes)?

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

03/19/2010 04:47:23 PM · #14

Originally posted by Dudski:

4) any way to get rid of those horrible purple corner blotches which seem to curse the Nikons when it comes to long exposures (in the 10s of minutes)?

I believe those are a function of the sensor getting warmer closer to the batteries. I don't think there's a simple way to get rid of them; you have to be ready to PP them. I could be wrong. I know it's an issue with certain Canons more than with others...

R.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

03/19/2010 05:16:28 PM · #15

Originally posted by Dudski:

Out of the approximate 20 times that Iâ��ve tried, Iâ��ve only been very successful once:

In terms of â��lessons learnedâ��, itâ��s such a hit and miss thing for me that I donâ��t really have many to offer. One thing I have learned, on the other hand, is that you donâ��t necessarily need an extremely long exposure as long as you point toward the north or south star. Also, if youâ��re not aware of this technique, look up how to use multiple short exposures (then combining them) as opposed to one long one in order to reduce noise (I see this has already been mentioned).

In fact, Iâ��m hoping to learn from this thread as well as long exposures are somewhat of a little passion that I have and would love to learn more..
A couple of questions I have:
1) for star trails within a scene containing a background, is it worth stopping down? I havenâ��t yet been successful with the fisheye, but thatâ��s probably my best lens to date for this type of stuff which of course allows up to f2.8
2) focus-wise, Iâ��ve always tried to find a far-off light and auto-focus on it, then re-compose and shoot (provided everything is at â��infinityâ��) â�� my luck with this has been so-so: even static objects which should not move with the wind, etc. arenâ��t ever quite sharp. This of course goes along the same lines as my first question.
3) long exposure noise vs. high iso noise: is a 20min iso 400 shot noisier than a 10min iso 800 shot?
4) any way to get rid of those horrible purple corner blotches which seem to curse the Nikons when it comes to long exposures (in the 10s of minutes)?

I had a wind issue later in the evening, but the way I was dealing with this was to use the 3200 ISO test shots to determine focus and then play with it manually (5-10 seconds looks bright @3200), so I did that about 5 times for each setup, then took the long exposure.

As far as stopping down, man that's a hard call... I guess if you want stuff in the foreground to be sharp, then yes, stop down, but this makes even less light available, so that's really a trade-off..

If you really want stuff in the foreground sharp, I guess a fast long lens would help, you could use a more distant object as the foreground, and that would at least compress the scene somewhat..

franktheyank

Canon EOS-5D Mark IV

03/19/2010 05:28:53 PM · #16

As to noise, make sure you go to your Menu, select Custom Function 2 Image, scroll to Long exp. noise reduction, and select on. Make sure you swicth it off when you aren't using it.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

03/19/2010 05:35:40 PM · #17

Originally posted by coryboehne:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
For star trails, take what you think is the exposure time you want and split it among 3-5 exposures. Then, in Photoshop, stack them set on "lighten". The star trails will magically lengthen with each added exposure but the noise will diminish due to the stacking of the images.

Genius... Too bad I couldn't enter it into a challenge that way!!!!

Well, not exactly true. You can use that technique in Advanced, but not in Basic.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

03/19/2010 05:50:49 PM · #18

Originally posted by franktheyank:

As to noise, make sure you go to your Menu, select Custom Function 2 Image, scroll to Long exp. noise reduction, and select on. Make sure you swicth it off when you aren't using it.

For moderately long exposures (up to a minute or so) the in-camera long exposure noise reduction (LENR)is a good idea, unless you need to take several exposures one right after another. In that case it's useless because you will have a minimum delay between exposures equal to the exposure time. The LENR is also a hassle if you are shooting *really* long exposures, because you will wait seemingly forever after your exposure for the NR to finish... and you better hope your battery doesn't run out during the NR portion of the exposure!
An alternative approach is to shoot your dark frames manually before and after the sequence of actual exposures. This does get complicated, and the technique is kinda out of scope for a thread on basic technique.
Let me leave y'all with one final thought... it is usually better to break up really long exposures into a series of shorter ones, and combine in post. You can reduce one of the two major sources of noise this way, but it in order to reduce the other major source, you need dark frames.

spiritualspatula

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX100

03/20/2010 03:54:35 PM · #19

At Corey RE: 0-20 degrees... I'm planning to just hang out in my sleeping bag in my tent reading. This will be at 10,500 or so feet, with nobody for miles, so it isn't like I'm afraid my gear will be taken.
Does anybody know if the power source for DSLR's switches over seamlessly from the grip battery to the onboard? Is it okay for one battery to die during capture?
Also, what

Dudski is talking about is amplifier glow. The D200 was known to suffer from it, unfortunately. Google amplifier glow or amp glow and you'll find lots of info.

03/20/2010 03:57:19 PM · #20

Originally posted by Dudski:

Out of the approximate 20 times that Iâ��ve tried, Iâ��ve only been very successful once:

Man that's a great shot! I love the inclusion of the tent.. Sorry to reply again to this post, but I've probably looked at that thing five times now, and I think I need to try doing something similar..

Message edited by author 2010-03-20 15:59:06.

Dudski

Nikon D700