Posted by Jerry Rawdon on August 25, 2007 at 1:20 PM
I'm new to photography & NPNW so please be kind. :)
I own/use a Oly E500. My lenses are what came w/my camera; 14-54mm f2.8-3.5 & a 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5 Zuiko Lenses
I have a couple of questions...
Often, in a low light senario, it can be difficult for AF to lock on. Or, worse, even if I get a confirmation of a lock, when I view the image it is not sharply focused as it would be in a fully lit room. I have tried using MF but, jeez, trying to see through the tiny viewfinder to determine whether or not I've properly focused is impossible. It is just to small and my eyes to bad for MF to be useful in bad light let alone good light. Is there a consistent way to overcome this focus issue? Could it be a limitation of my lens? My camera? I do use a tripod, of course, and use the timer to insure any possible shaking from me depressing the shutter button is over before the pic is taken.
Another focus question...I noticed a post (Does long exposure increase saturation?) in this forum where a user had taken a picture of some boats on the water at the glomming hour. He indicated that he set an exposure of around 5 minutes. How can the image he captured be so incredibily focused? The sharpness is amazing yet the boats were on the water. It seems *any* movement at all would have ruined this image. How can that be?!
I did a search of the forum for the word "Olympus" but it turned nothing up. Is that normal?
To answer your first question, a method one can follow is to seperate the two functionalities of focussing and metering. Thus you meter with your in-camera light meter, find out the best shutter/aperture combination and ISO speed, and switch to manual mode and plug in your values. Then, bring out your large flashlight, and illuminate the subjects you want in focus, and then use autofocus to, well bring them into focus. Then put your flashlight away, switch to manual focus, and take your shot.
Posted by Jerry Rawdon on August 25, 2007 at 1:53 PM
Thank you for your response! That method would certainly work for some situations and I will defintely use it. But I can think of a couple of situations where it wouldn't. For example, last night I was taking pictures of the night sky off my deck. One problem I had was the complete inability to focus. I just wanted a wide shot where everything is focused (is that a wide apeture or a small?). The only way I could find to focus was to point at the moon or a star or a plane so AF would lock. Then I'd sit the camera back down very carefully while still holding shutter button half way down. Again, I can't see well enough through the viewfinder to MF. There must be a better way!
BTW, I have included one of the shots I captured last night. Is there a way to make the sky brighter and the moon more like the moon and less like the sun? I set that image for a 60 second exposure.
I used an Olympus 8080 for land and underwater photography for some time, and I had the same issue with the autofocus. The autofocus has a terrible time in low light situations. After spending some time on the Olympus user's group on Yahoo, I found out that it was a characteristic of the camera, and not much that you can do about it. Compared to my new camera (I won't use the "N" word here), it is a whole different story. I suggest trying some other cameras out for comparison.
Posted by David Bostedo on August 25, 2007 at 4:06 PM
Jerry - First off : Welcome,
Second : You've maybe opened quite a can of worms with your second post and picture. I'm not sure how new to photography you are, but based on aperture question, I'd guess fairly new (I apologize if I'm wrong). So you may want to start looking at some basics of exposure - how to tell what shutter speed, aperture, ISO combination to use with various scenarios (and yes, some of this can be handled by your camera, but it still helps to know when to take over for your camera - for instance in night shots). There are some posts here if you search asking for book and website recommendations. I'd suggest reading as much as you can.
Now for the specifics of your shot :
1) Getting the moon to look more like the moon and getting a brighter sky are mutually exclusive - you can't brighten one without blowing out the other, unless you can dull down the moon somehow. The other option is to take a shot of the sky that you like, ignoring the moon, and then one exposed to get the moon right and blend them on the computer.
2) If you look up "Hyperfocal distance" you can find out what aperture can be used so that just about everything is in focus. There are other techniques as well that you might find. (For the record, smaller apertures - larger f numbers - have larger depth of field, so more of the view will be in focus, assuming everything else equal.)
3) Autofocus in low light is always a problem for cameras. Most use some sort of contrast detection to focus, and there isn't much contrast in low light. Some are much better than others, though.
4) For the long exposure boat image, things don't have to be perfectly still for the entire exposure time. In fact, short duration movements won't register at all. If the exposure is a minute or two, you could probably wave your hand back and forth in front of the lens for a second, and it won't show. The reason is that the light is being gathered over such a long time, that the amount of light registered off your hand is a miniscule amount compared to the total exposure. So the boats were basically still, and the small movements got left out, because it recorded the most light where the boats were most of the time (from the cameras point of view).
This same effect can be seen more obviously on the water in that image. The water would never actually look so perfectly like a mirror, but over the 5 minute exposure, it recorded the average position of the water and reflections, which makes it looks like glass.
Posted by Jerry Rawdon on August 25, 2007 at 5:05 PM
Thank you for your explanation on the water image. The example you gave concerning the waving of a hand in front of the camera was, in hindsight, just what I had seen while taking pictures last night. I set a long exposure of my backyard at night which also included a dog. The dog moved somewhat and then went back to the same position. At the time I figured he ruined the image but later I found I couldn't tell he moved at all! --just in your example.
At any rate, yes, I am new to photography. I appreciate your comments greatly and will search for recommendations of books/web sites for beginners.
For your night sky photo, try one exposure for the moon and a seperate exposure for everything else, then put the two together as seperate layers in Photoshop. I find F/5.6 to F/8 at 1/125 with an ISO of 100 to be about right for a bright moon. The rest of the scene will probably look right at somewhere between -1 and -2 stops from what you meter. Experimention is half the fun.
Welcome, Jerry! You've come to a great place to learn a lot about photography. Having said that, a good way to get a start on all the technicalities is to take a workshop that's geared to getting acquainted with your camera. It will also orient you to making exposures; i.e., choosing the combination of aperture and shutter speed to use for various conditions. Perhaps the camera shop where you bought your equipment has such a class...
Anyway, like Dave says, experimenting is really fun!
If you are taking long exposures that include lights, you should use mirror lock-up and a remote control or time-delay to trip the shutter. Movement of lights will show in a long exposure. Remember also that the moon and stars are moving. The motion of the moon can cause blurred edges in exposures of just a few seconds, especially with longer focal lengths.
To properly expose to get details of a full moon on a clear night, use the sunny 16 rule: At f16, set shutter speed to inverse of ISO, i.e. 1/100 of a second at ISO 100, just as you would for a scene in bright sunshine. The sky of course will be black.
Focusing on a light or the moon, locking the focus, and recomposing, is not a bad way to achieve focus. If your subject is the sky or distant objects, you can simply set your focus to infinity.
Jerry, basesd on the picture you posted I would say that your moon is grossly overexposed and not necessarily out of focus; although that is difficult to determine with it so overexposed. The E500, and all E-system cameras for the matter enable you to re-program your AEL button so that it functions as an auto focus button while the camera is set to manual focus. This is really handy in that the camera won't try to re-focus every time you half depress your shutter release. I'm not sure how to find this in the E500 menue, my E1 is a different settup but my wife has her E500 set that way so I know it can be done. Sometimes it takes a bit to get an auto focus in low light. Don't use all auto focus points turned on at once ... use only the center one or one of the peripheral ones. In close quarters you can use you built in flash as an auto focus assist but that won't help your moon shot.
If you get a focus comfirmation but the viewfinder still looks blurry take a look at the eye piece dioptre. It may need to be reset for your eyesight. Other than that, the viewfinder should not present a problem as the viewing screen is quite clear and MF is quite easy. You might consider learning to use your mirror lock-up. Olympus calls it "Anti-shock" ??? but you can find it in the menue on the second page, one layer down. Locking up the mirror helps with all SLR's.
There are absolutely no issues with your lenses. The 14-54 f2.8 is a superb lens and, since we are all mature and secure members here I can tell you without fear of persecusion that Zuiko takes a back seat to no-one! Even the Oly kit lenses are continually rated among the best.
Discussion
10 repliesI own/use a Oly E500. My lenses are what came w/my camera; 14-54mm f2.8-3.5 & a 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5 Zuiko Lenses
I have a couple of questions...
Often, in a low light senario, it can be difficult for AF to lock on. Or, worse, even if I get a confirmation of a lock, when I view the image it is not sharply focused as it would be in a fully lit room. I have tried using MF but, jeez, trying to see through the tiny viewfinder to determine whether or not I've properly focused is impossible. It is just to small and my eyes to bad for MF to be useful in bad light let alone good light. Is there a consistent way to overcome this focus issue? Could it be a limitation of my lens? My camera? I do use a tripod, of course, and use the timer to insure any possible shaking from me depressing the shutter button is over before the pic is taken.
Another focus question...I noticed a post (Does long exposure increase saturation?) in this forum where a user had taken a picture of some boats on the water at the glomming hour. He indicated that he set an exposure of around 5 minutes. How can the image he captured be so incredibily focused? The sharpness is amazing yet the boats were on the water. It seems *any* movement at all would have ruined this image. How can that be?!
I did a search of the forum for the word "Olympus" but it turned nothing up. Is that normal?
OK, that's it for now.
To answer your first question, a method one can follow is to seperate the two functionalities of focussing and metering. Thus you meter with your in-camera light meter, find out the best shutter/aperture combination and ISO speed, and switch to manual mode and plug in your values. Then, bring out your large flashlight, and illuminate the subjects you want in focus, and then use autofocus to, well bring them into focus. Then put your flashlight away, switch to manual focus, and take your shot.
BTW, I have included one of the shots I captured last night. Is there a way to make the sky brighter and the moon more like the moon and less like the sun? I set that image for a 60 second exposure.
Thanks!
Second : You've maybe opened quite a can of worms with your second post and picture. I'm not sure how new to photography you are, but based on aperture question, I'd guess fairly new (I apologize if I'm wrong). So you may want to start looking at some basics of exposure - how to tell what shutter speed, aperture, ISO combination to use with various scenarios (and yes, some of this can be handled by your camera, but it still helps to know when to take over for your camera - for instance in night shots). There are some posts here if you search asking for book and website recommendations. I'd suggest reading as much as you can.
Now for the specifics of your shot :
1) Getting the moon to look more like the moon and getting a brighter sky are mutually exclusive - you can't brighten one without blowing out the other, unless you can dull down the moon somehow. The other option is to take a shot of the sky that you like, ignoring the moon, and then one exposed to get the moon right and blend them on the computer.
2) If you look up "Hyperfocal distance" you can find out what aperture can be used so that just about everything is in focus. There are other techniques as well that you might find. (For the record, smaller apertures - larger f numbers - have larger depth of field, so more of the view will be in focus, assuming everything else equal.)
3) Autofocus in low light is always a problem for cameras. Most use some sort of contrast detection to focus, and there isn't much contrast in low light. Some are much better than others, though.
4) For the long exposure boat image, things don't have to be perfectly still for the entire exposure time. In fact, short duration movements won't register at all. If the exposure is a minute or two, you could probably wave your hand back and forth in front of the lens for a second, and it won't show. The reason is that the light is being gathered over such a long time, that the amount of light registered off your hand is a miniscule amount compared to the total exposure. So the boats were basically still, and the small movements got left out, because it recorded the most light where the boats were most of the time (from the cameras point of view).
This same effect can be seen more obviously on the water in that image. The water would never actually look so perfectly like a mirror, but over the 5 minute exposure, it recorded the average position of the water and reflections, which makes it looks like glass.
At any rate, yes, I am new to photography. I appreciate your comments greatly and will search for recommendations of books/web sites for beginners.
For your night sky photo, try one exposure for the moon and a seperate exposure for everything else, then put the two together as seperate layers in Photoshop. I find F/5.6 to F/8 at 1/125 with an ISO of 100 to be about right for a bright moon. The rest of the scene will probably look right at somewhere between -1 and -2 stops from what you meter. Experimention is half the fun.
Anyway, like Dave says, experimenting is really fun!
If you are taking long exposures that include lights, you should use mirror lock-up and a remote control or time-delay to trip the shutter. Movement of lights will show in a long exposure. Remember also that the moon and stars are moving. The motion of the moon can cause blurred edges in exposures of just a few seconds, especially with longer focal lengths.
To properly expose to get details of a full moon on a clear night, use the sunny 16 rule: At f16, set shutter speed to inverse of ISO, i.e. 1/100 of a second at ISO 100, just as you would for a scene in bright sunshine. The sky of course will be black.
Focusing on a light or the moon, locking the focus, and recomposing, is not a bad way to achieve focus. If your subject is the sky or distant objects, you can simply set your focus to infinity.
If you get a focus comfirmation but the viewfinder still looks blurry take a look at the eye piece dioptre. It may need to be reset for your eyesight. Other than that, the viewfinder should not present a problem as the viewing screen is quite clear and MF is quite easy. You might consider learning to use your mirror lock-up. Olympus calls it "Anti-shock" ??? but you can find it in the menue on the second page, one layer down. Locking up the mirror helps with all SLR's.
There are absolutely no issues with your lenses. The 14-54 f2.8 is a superb lens and, since we are all mature and secure members here I can tell you without fear of persecusion that Zuiko takes a back seat to no-one! Even the Oly kit lenses are continually rated among the best.
Good luck
Bob