Sigma 30mm time lapse animation of the night sky

[Gordon]

OK, first results with the GentLed! Its a bit jerky in places, due to gaps of up to 2 1/2 mins between frames, when it was supposed to be cycling every 32sec. I set the exposure for 25 sec, to allow time for image saving between frames, using 30 sec exposure caused every 2nd trigger to be missed, which is a bit strange as the image that started to be saved before the shutter opened each time appeared to finish being saved during the early part of the next exposure.
Anyway I doubt the Gentled missed sending out any triggers, the missed ones were probably due to the camera not seeing the trigger. I had the Gentled taped on top of the inbuilt flash, so it was a side-on line of sight, but only from a few cm, so I thought it should be OK... and it was most of the time.
I'll try some more, probably longer sequences soon when I figure out where to mount the Gentled for a surer signal transmission.

I am happy with the images from the Sigma at f/1.4. Yes there is some aberration visible, but its very good for a wide f/1.4 lens.
There is a slight problem with the focusing though, Infinity is not where the lens thinks it is! I have to offset from the infinity index mark by about the width of that mark on the closer than infinity side. Also there was some focus shift with the temperature drop over a couple of hours, although I havent done tests to see which way that went yet.

11MB download DU warning!
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~gordon/20060120-1hour50min.gif


Gordon

[sirhc55]

Gordon - no matter what you missed you have come up with one helluva animation - every time I see your work I feel like buying a Meade

[Gordon]

thanks Chris

I'm hoping to get one with stars + the ridge clouds that form over the Warrumbungles at night sometimes- the ones you can see boiling up in the lower right towards the end of the sequence. The problem is you never know exactly when or were they might form, so theres going to be some trial and error...and probably an ocassional wet camera!

Gordon
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~loomberah

[Killakoala]

That's such an excellent animation. Makes me want to try something similar.

What i really like about the image though is the location, with the grass trees in the foregroud. it adds plenty of interest.

[sheepie]

Very impressive

Well done on having the patience to try this! Can I ask what ISO these were at, and did you lighten them in PP at all? I take it they were at f1.4? (you infer it, but don't actually state it )

[Gordon]

Very impressive
Well done on having the patience to try this! Can I ask what ISO these were at, and did you lighten them in PP at all? I take it they were at f1.4? (you infer it, but don't actually state it )

Thanks all

Taken @ f/1.4 and ISO 200, which is one of the advantages of having f/1.4 available- no need to get into the noisy realms of higher ISO settings

PP in Nikcon Capture involved resizing to 600 pixels across, a bit of D-lighting to bring up the background ( the rising moon also does that during the sequence), and a slight unsharp mask.

Patchy cloud last night kept interrupting my observing, so I thought I'd make the most of having to stay up all night by producing the animation

Gordon

[phillipb]

Very Interesting, I would really like to know a bit about the nuts and bolts of how you created this. Mind you, the thought of stayng up all night doesn't really sit well with me.

[xerubus]

excellent! i too would love to know a bit more about the technique.

I really liked seeing the shooting stars / satellites ? interesting foreground... interesting background... nice.

cheers

[marcotrov]

Very interesting Gordon. I'm impressed with your patience and hard work getting these astounding images together
cheers
marco

[thaddeus]

Inspiring! Thanks for posting!

[Big V]

Gordon, great work..another use for this application you might like to consider, is to take a series (read many hours) of 30 sec or so star trails then combine them all in photoshop (using the layers palette). You may get a small gap as the camera reads the image out from the buffer but you will be able to do a few hours without the hassle of the amplifier glow that the nikon is so bad for..

[Mal]

That is amazing. You captured seven shooting stars as well!!! I am truely inspired by your work. Thank you for posting..

Well worth the wait for it to upload/download.

[SteveGriffin]

Really cool Gordon! Love the way the sky changes colour through the sequence and of course the shooting stars.

[mudder]

Wow, well worth the download, really well done, I'm impressed... The passing clouds seem really spooky...

[BBJ]

Gordon, Top stuff mate well done on this project, looks cool and look forward to see more in the future.

[Dug]

beautiful work.

[huynhie]

Excellent work Gordon. I really enjoyed viewing that!

[Gordon]

...
I really liked seeing the shooting stars / satellites ? interesting foreground... interesting background... nice.

Thanks all for the comments, all the trails in the animation are actually planes and satellites, catching meteors on film is quite rare.

I had the camera out again tonight for another longer animation, until the D70's battery went flat. Its clear so far tonight so not sure when I'll get it done

Gordon

[Sandy Feet]

exceptional work Gordon, love the way the clouds in the right bottom towards the end have that boiling effect.

Cheers
Rod

[LostDingo]

fascinating stuff! Really like this and from some of the comments sounds like you had other images like this?

[Willy wombat]

Wow thats a great animation. The shooting stars reallyu made it interesting. Thanks for sharing it with us!

[mikephotog]

I'm guessing this is an animated gif, i can't get it to run?
My Gentled just arrived in the mail on Friday !
Looking forward to putting some ideas into action.
Did you find James Gentle via an interest in KAP?
I've been testing KAP with a cheap 2mp Ricoh, soon to launch my Coolpix 995.

[Gordon]

I'm guessing this is an animated gif, i can't get it to run?
My Gentled just arrived in the mail on Friday !
Looking forward to putting some ideas into action.
Did you find James Gentle via an interest in KAP?
I've been testing KAP with a cheap 2mp Ricoh, soon to launch my Coolpix 995.

The gif animation should run in any browser, or in your computer's image viewer. Maybe it got corrupted during download?
I heard about the Gentled first in this forum I think.

I'm a bit reluctant to send my D70 up under my Winddance2000 kite, but have thought about building a box kite for that purpose in hte past.

Here are a few short videos taken with the CP5700 of my Winddance in action

http://www.seattleairgear.com/mpeg1.htm#1a

Gordon

[mikephotog]

Where did you get your Windance?
I use a single line Delta Conyne for my KAP. Deltas get good hight and remain stable in the air. Won't be putting my D70 up either, but willing to try the Coolpix now that I have had 20 or so flights with the cheap Ricoh attached.

[Gordon]

Where did you get your Windance?

http://www.seattleairgear.com/

what sort of height did you take the Ricoh up to? I'm interested to see some pics with that setup.

I have an old Minolta IR remote that works up to 100m range, I used to use it on my FE2s, one of these days I'll see if I can trigger the D70 or CP5700 with it.

Gordon

[mikephotog]

A pic taken with the Ricoh can be seen at http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php? ... light=kite.

This camera has a shocking sensor and the lens is not that great, but was ok for testing. It also has a built in interval timer capability.

With the Coolpix I will be using a interval timer that we bought at work for making time lapse of culture growing in a Petri dish. Conects direct to the 995 and is smaller than a box of matches. Its a Digisnap 200 (see http://www.harbortronics.com/)
Picavet cradle/camera hangs from the kite line as per the usual sort of thing you will find if u Google "KAP" or "Picavet"