Any of you ever have this problem? When I was doing long exposures of a waterfall this morning the Milky Way ran right down the middle of the sky in the photo, which of course blurred during the 30-minute exposure. I've been shooting star-trail shots for nearly 30 years an don't recall ever seeing this before. I figured this would be an issue when I saw it at 2am this morning, but what the heck - it is not like you can move the sky around. I guess if you know that you are looking at the Milky Way it is OK, and in fact kind of cool (oops, I didn't mean to say that - I'm a product of the 60's but never used that term, but since my daugher does now I guess I'm still cool, I mean hip, or something...).
Neato! I haven't had a chance to see this on my monitor at home yet, but I can see there is way less noise than your first try. How'd you do that? I tried some light painting last summer, and found there is way too much noise with my D2x, so I haven't tried it since. I know your using a different system now, but I'm still curious about how you got rid of the noise (shorter shutter speed?). After seeing Wayne and Glenn's results a couple of weeks ago, I told myself I was going to brush the cobwebs off my 4x5 and try some night waterfall shots. I need to use up some of that film anyway...looks like tonight might be a good night to try it out, if it clears off.
Noise doesn't have anything to do with the painted light - it has to do with the sensor and the exposure, and Nikons are about the worst you can get for that. Canons are much better overall, but can still build up a good bit of noise with longer exposures. The key is getting the exposure correct and not having to move the exposure slider to the right at all in your raw processor - that is the kiss of death for noise. And that is what I was dealing with on the first version of this shot - I found out quickly that a correct exposure on the waterfall for starlight was way too long for any digital sensor to handle - simply no way to do it. It would probably take something like 6-8 hours of exposure at iso 100 and f4, perhaps a lot more - those suckers don't put out much light by the time that light hits earth!
So the solution is to paint with light. And by the way I hope everone does a better job of this than Art Wolfe did on his OP cover shot last month - that was TERRIBLE! But just goes to show that even a crappy photo can be published if you have the name (for those who did not see this, it was a long exposure with film - the stars turned out great, but he painted a bunch of cactus plants in the foreground with light and all of them were way out of focus, not even close - and looked terrible, especially on the cover of a big-time mag like that).
So focus is also an issue with these type of shots - kind of a catch-22 though - you have to focus at infinity in order to get the stars in sharp focus, but you also need enough depth of field to get your foreground in focus (although I guess you can still get your photo published on the cover of OP even with everything out of focus!). This is one reason to use a wide-angle lens since it would have more depth of field than a longer lens. But then you run into the issue of the wider your lens the less aparent star trail you will get for the same exposure time, so you need to increase you exposure time, and then you end up with a lot more noise! Bill, you may have issues getting enough dept of field with your 4x5 lenses, however since you would be using film you can set that guy up and shoot for 8 hours if you need to. However, when you stop down to get more depth of field you lose a lot of stars - fainter stars will drop out - so you almost have to shoot wide open, or perhaps not more than one stop down. It is all a very tricky game.
My exposure for both nights was 30 minutes, however I simply painted more on the second night so I did not have to bump up the exposure slider in camera raw any. 30 minutes is the limit for my digital back (although I'm getting a new one this summer that will go to one hour, which is unheard of with a digital back - in fact most digital backs get way too noisy even after a few SECONDS much less minutes or even an hour - this back can actually do an hour exposure - I did two of them last night - but the dark slide exposure is limited to only 30 minutes so the images did not turn out at all). My advice to you Bill is to STAY HOME! ha, ha!!!
Mike:
Yes, I actually did blend two exposures and I did it in a hurry this morning after two nights of no sleep so screwed up the blend - the one in the book will look much better! (I also did that on purpose to show you guys that this is really tough to make happen with just a single exposure!)
Tim, probably good advice, at least for tonight. Looks like more thunderstorms are headed our way, so there won't probably won't be too many stars out tonight. But the weather satellite indicates a break in the cloud cover could occur about sunset making for some incredible afternoon light!
I spent more time than I would like to admit chasing long exposures with a D2x last summer - with and without light painting. I found out quickly that there is an art to painting with light, and that getting something decent from a D2x was not going to happen anytime soon, even when the exposure was right - just too much noise without the extra light. But I think if I worked more with the painting, I might get some good results.
I think you should offer a night-shooting workshop...
I meant that you should stay home an never go shoot this - I don't need an incredible 4x5 from you out in the marketplace!
If you are serious about doing night photography via painting (first you would need to buy a canon - nikons are just terrible at long exposures, even short long exposures), you should have a look at one of these - the very best, color-corrected, light-painting tool you can get for our kind of stuff! But at nearly $500 I would probably be afraid to carry one around in the dark for fear of losing it!
Tim,
Nice image. I used to do star trails in Alaska with my Yashica Mat 124G (6x6) on Tri-X film. Can't remember what aperture I used then. Seems like it was wide open and about 20 to 45 minutes. The camera froze open once. It was only 25 below. Wimpy camera. The color I shot showed the different temperatures of the stars.
Condensation on the lens? I used to spend my summers high in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming - my job for the forest service was to go out and hike for ten days at a time and take pictures, come down into civilization for four days and then head back up into the wilderness again for another ten days. They would send up a pack horse to meet me somewhere in the middle of each "tour" with a resupply (which included a lot of fresh film!). One very cold August night (temp down in the low 20's), sometime in the early 1990's, I was camped right in the middle of the Cirque of the Towers along the Continental Divide, and had set up a 6-8-hour photo looking right into the face of the Cirque, with a sky filled with a zillion stars behind and above. I got up and out of the tent to pee around 3 or 4 in the morning and found my entire camera setup covered with white, including the front of the lens! It was the heaviest frost I'd ever seen, and it must have come on like a snowstorm since I had checked the camera just an hour before. But during that time the end of all the star trails were blurred so that I could not use the image (and when you are doing a 6-8 hour photo you only get one shot a night!). I got some other good images that week so not all was lost. But YES, you do need to think about the front of your lens, and often the problems of humidity or spray or frost or dew are things that you just have to work around. I don't know what makes dew form or if heat would help keep it away, but good luck!
Posted by Wayne Rhodus on May 15, 2007 at 10:50 PM
You know I was thinking about that 100,000 candlewatt spotlight I used to have (before the fuzz convascated it!). You could have painted the heck out of stuff with that sucker!
I found a really cool knarly tree a couple of years ago and tried backlight painting it with my extra flash unit. The shots didn't come out like I'd hoped but I sure had fun shooting off my flash! And I really liked the fact I could walk around in front of the camera and not have my ugly mug show up on the image ... kind of felt ghostly.
BTW, I like this shot a lot Tim, and the Milky Way adds an interesting twist to the scene. It's stuff like this that can keep the creative juices flowing and keep the fun in photography! Good stuff!
For those of you who are big geeks like me and want to know specifically why condensation occurs, here's what wikipedia has to say:
"Water vapor from air which naturally condenses on cold surfaces into liquid water is called dew. Water vapor will only condense onto another surface when that surface is cooler than the temperature of the water vapor, or when the water vapor equilibrium in air, i. e. saturation humidity, has been exceeded. When water vapor condenses onto a surface, a net warming occurs on that surface.
The water molecule brings a parcel of heat with it. In turn, the temperature of the atmosphere drops very slightly.
In the atmosphere, condensation of water vapor is what produces clouds. The dew point of an air parcel is the temperature to which it must cool before condensation in the air begins to form.
Also, a net condensation of water vapor occurs on surfaces when the temperature of the surface is at or below the dew point temperature of the atmosphere. Deposition is a type of condensation. Deposition, the direct formation of ice from water vapor, is a type of condensation. Frost and snow are examples of deposition."
I guess it is very similar to the rules governing fog. Fog occurs when the temperature reaches the dew point. And there is your science lesson for the day.
By the way, the D200 does pretty well up to 10 minutes (that's as long as I've shot) at ISO 100. Though I admit, not as good as the Canons, especially the 5D.
Posted by Glenn Carter on May 16, 2007 at 11:10 AM
Bill,
Somehow, or someway, someone threw out my box of Alaska negatives. I lost the whole lot. Very sad. I had 6x6 shots of Aspens back when I didn't know what they were called. I helped a guy build a log cabin literally in the wilderness in amongst a grove of those trees with the white bark. May not of been aspens. I do have some 3x3 prints I printed myself in the dark room. I might see if I can scan some of that stuff. I also have some 8x10's of star trails.
Discussion
16 repliesStar Trails Waterfall with Milky Way
I think you should put some color in it and say it's the Aurora Borealis.
Really cool shot, by the way. I mean groovy, dude.
Noise doesn't have anything to do with the painted light - it has to do with the sensor and the exposure, and Nikons are about the worst you can get for that. Canons are much better overall, but can still build up a good bit of noise with longer exposures. The key is getting the exposure correct and not having to move the exposure slider to the right at all in your raw processor - that is the kiss of death for noise. And that is what I was dealing with on the first version of this shot - I found out quickly that a correct exposure on the waterfall for starlight was way too long for any digital sensor to handle - simply no way to do it. It would probably take something like 6-8 hours of exposure at iso 100 and f4, perhaps a lot more - those suckers don't put out much light by the time that light hits earth!
So the solution is to paint with light. And by the way I hope everone does a better job of this than Art Wolfe did on his OP cover shot last month - that was TERRIBLE! But just goes to show that even a crappy photo can be published if you have the name (for those who did not see this, it was a long exposure with film - the stars turned out great, but he painted a bunch of cactus plants in the foreground with light and all of them were way out of focus, not even close - and looked terrible, especially on the cover of a big-time mag like that).
So focus is also an issue with these type of shots - kind of a catch-22 though - you have to focus at infinity in order to get the stars in sharp focus, but you also need enough depth of field to get your foreground in focus (although I guess you can still get your photo published on the cover of OP even with everything out of focus!). This is one reason to use a wide-angle lens since it would have more depth of field than a longer lens. But then you run into the issue of the wider your lens the less aparent star trail you will get for the same exposure time, so you need to increase you exposure time, and then you end up with a lot more noise! Bill, you may have issues getting enough dept of field with your 4x5 lenses, however since you would be using film you can set that guy up and shoot for 8 hours if you need to. However, when you stop down to get more depth of field you lose a lot of stars - fainter stars will drop out - so you almost have to shoot wide open, or perhaps not more than one stop down. It is all a very tricky game.
My exposure for both nights was 30 minutes, however I simply painted more on the second night so I did not have to bump up the exposure slider in camera raw any. 30 minutes is the limit for my digital back (although I'm getting a new one this summer that will go to one hour, which is unheard of with a digital back - in fact most digital backs get way too noisy even after a few SECONDS much less minutes or even an hour - this back can actually do an hour exposure - I did two of them last night - but the dark slide exposure is limited to only 30 minutes so the images did not turn out at all). My advice to you Bill is to STAY HOME! ha, ha!!!
Mike:
Yes, I actually did blend two exposures and I did it in a hurry this morning after two nights of no sleep so screwed up the blend - the one in the book will look much better! (I also did that on purpose to show you guys that this is really tough to make happen with just a single exposure!)
I spent more time than I would like to admit chasing long exposures with a D2x last summer - with and without light painting. I found out quickly that there is an art to painting with light, and that getting something decent from a D2x was not going to happen anytime soon, even when the exposure was right - just too much noise without the extra light. But I think if I worked more with the painting, I might get some good results.
I think you should offer a night-shooting workshop...
I meant that you should stay home an never go shoot this - I don't need an incredible 4x5 from you out in the marketplace!
If you are serious about doing night photography via painting (first you would need to buy a canon - nikons are just terrible at long exposures, even short long exposures), you should have a look at one of these - the very best, color-corrected, light-painting tool you can get for our kind of stuff! But at nearly $500 I would probably be afraid to carry one around in the dark for fear of losing it!
http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/Lights/LupineWilma.html
Nice image. I used to do star trails in Alaska with my Yashica Mat 124G (6x6) on Tri-X film. Can't remember what aperture I used then. Seems like it was wide open and about 20 to 45 minutes. The camera froze open once. It was only 25 below. Wimpy camera. The color I shot showed the different temperatures of the stars.
Far out man! I'm hip.
Glenn
6x6 B&W in Alaska? ! I'd love to see some of that work! Sounds like Ansel Adams' kind of playground. Do you still have any negs?
Just one more question Tim -
Did you do anything special (hand warmers or a camping fan) to prevent condensation on your lens?
I found a really cool knarly tree a couple of years ago and tried backlight painting it with my extra flash unit. The shots didn't come out like I'd hoped but I sure had fun shooting off my flash!
BTW, I like this shot a lot Tim, and the Milky Way adds an interesting twist to the scene. It's stuff like this that can keep the creative juices flowing and keep the fun in photography! Good stuff!
"Water vapor from air which naturally condenses on cold surfaces into liquid water is called dew. Water vapor will only condense onto another surface when that surface is cooler than the temperature of the water vapor, or when the water vapor equilibrium in air, i. e. saturation humidity, has been exceeded. When water vapor condenses onto a surface, a net warming occurs on that surface.
The water molecule brings a parcel of heat with it. In turn, the temperature of the atmosphere drops very slightly.
In the atmosphere, condensation of water vapor is what produces clouds. The dew point of an air parcel is the temperature to which it must cool before condensation in the air begins to form.
Also, a net condensation of water vapor occurs on surfaces when the temperature of the surface is at or below the dew point temperature of the atmosphere. Deposition is a type of condensation. Deposition, the direct formation of ice from water vapor, is a type of condensation. Frost and snow are examples of deposition."
I guess it is very similar to the rules governing fog. Fog occurs when the temperature reaches the dew point. And there is your science lesson for the day.
By the way, the D200 does pretty well up to 10 minutes (that's as long as I've shot) at ISO 100. Though I admit, not as good as the Canons, especially the 5D.
Somehow, or someway, someone threw out my box of Alaska negatives. I lost the whole lot. Very sad. I had 6x6 shots of Aspens back when I didn't know what they were called. I helped a guy build a log cabin literally in the wilderness in amongst a grove of those trees with the white bark. May not of been aspens. I do have some 3x3 prints I printed myself in the dark room. I might see if I can scan some of that stuff. I also have some 8x10's of star trails.
Glenn