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tasadam
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Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 81
Location: Near Devonport, Tasmania
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 Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:33 pm Post subject: I hope this impresses you... Moonlight tree & stars + mo |
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So here it is, the first image I have posted here on this forum since I joined. Slack of me to take this long to get around to it.
The detail - 7 mins 28 seconds exposure time
D70 (my wife's camera as I don't have a cable release for my D200)
ISO 800
F8
18-70 kit lens (light weight for bushwalking) at 34mm
Noise reduction on
Taken at an altitude of over 1200 metres, in the centre of Tasmania, north west of Lake St Clair, in an area known as the Labyrinth, and the nearest electric light would have been greater than 20 km away.
Light source on the tree is moonlight, hence the lovely colour of it.
Looking pretty well up, slightly east of south, to catch the main band of the milky way.
Hope you like...
What would I do different?
(1) get a cable release and use the D200.
(2) use ISO 100, F16 or 22 and a much longer shutter time.
(3) persist with my efforts at PP'ing the image. I attempted various things in photoshop then went back to the resized jpg from the camera as I liked it better.
I took the image in RAW + JPG Basic. This is a resize of the jpg basic.
Maybe when I don't have 3 stitches in the end of my finger I might be bothered to have another play at post processing the RAW image. But, for now, I think this is good enough to share!
Oh, and if you look the other way from the same place, you see this...
EDIT - This image is now a thumbnail to an 800x600 file that is 8.5Mb big. Due to its size it takes a while to load, and bear in mind it is a GIF file so is only 256 colour. Enjoy!
Sorry about the size, made it as small as I could, these photos were taken using the D200 automatic shutter timer feature, I chewed a battery up doing this but to see this in full size is pretty cool!
This is the evening before we climbed the big one on the left... Mt Geryon, the Acropolis and Lake Elysia.
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Adam.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then I have a LOT to say...
Last edited by tasadam on Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:19 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Bodak
Photojournalist
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2342
Location: Somerville Victoria
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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Man that nice, real nice..
I like the image as is although the fiddler in me wants to play with the raw, but in all honesty this looks the goods.
You are lucky down there as it is one place I think I would really enjoy touring with the camera.
I might need a couple of months though.
Top stuff.
PS the picture only says one word to me and that is "HEAVEN".
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Be at peace. - Stephen.
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Muzza
Photojournalist
Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 2864
Location: Warriewood, Sydney - Canon 7D, 1D MkIII
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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Impressed I am. 
Very nice and a very worthy first image.
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Later,
Murray
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thaddeus
Cadet
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
Posts: 318
Location: Sydney, NSW PPOK: Mon-Thu
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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Awesome stuff!
Did you get the big pink blob from the battery heat on the sensor?
I love the animation. Do you have a link to a higher resolution? |
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avkomp
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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indeed a worth first image
nicely done. |
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tasadam
Member
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 81
Location: Near Devonport, Tasmania
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| thaddeus wrote: |
| Did you get the big pink blob from the battery heat on the sensor? |
I learned early on when the D70 was mine, all about noise reduction. I have some wonderful shots of another mountain in the moonlight but with pink blobs because NR was turned off.
No pink blobs here thanks to the NR.
BTW On the D70, the NR took just as long as the exposure, so in all this photo took 15 mins to get.
| thaddeus wrote: |
| I love the animation. Do you have a link to a higher resolution? |
I have a larger animation on my PC in a shared folder but don't want to make the link public as it could crash the network here (shared broadband).
PM'd. It's 8.5Mb and I don't have the web space available.
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Adam.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then I have a LOT to say... |
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SteveB
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Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 698
Location: Caboolture, QLD. Australia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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I like the way you have included the tree Adam, a lot of people just shoot the stars and forget about something in the foreground. Very eerie.
Cool effect with the 2nd, what program did you use to put the images together. What setting was the camera set to to allow for the vast change in exposures? |
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Ivanerrol
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Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 49
Location: Ivanhoe, Melbourne Aus.
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent!! |
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nito
Photojournalist
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 2075
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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That image is brilliant, I like it a lot. 
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Sir Tristram
Site Admin
Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 4387
Location: Dundas - NSW
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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That first image is outstanding.
Only issue I have with it is...that you have set yourself an incredibly high standard to stick too after this first image. Good luck with that. 
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John C.
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tasadam
Member
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 81
Location: Near Devonport, Tasmania
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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| SteveB wrote: |
| Cool effect with the 2nd, what program did you use to put the images together. What setting was the camera set to to allow for the vast change in exposures? |
The program I used to animate the jpgs is
http://www.moviegear.com/
It was so freaking easy I couldn't believe it.
Resize pics to what size you want the gif to be. Import pics. Press play. Click on timer. Adjust delay. Set global delay as required, between 6 & 12 works well. Set something like 30 or 40 at start and finish for appropriate pause between loop.
Save as...
As for the settings, well, I probably should have done that differently. If you have a close look, it goes dark then brightens up a bit then blackens out to night.
The camera was set to White balance auto, Aperture priority, the lens was the Nikon 12-24 set to 15mm, F4, it started off at 1/125 second and by the end it was getting dark because the camera wouldn't go beyond 30 seconds. The last 7 frames are at 30 seconds exposure.
Initially I had it taking frames every minute, after the sun went down and it seemed to take forever to get dark I adjusted the settings so the camera took frames every 3 minutes instead of every 1 - pretty long twilight we have down here... The 3 minute gap was only for the last 7 frames.
The first frame was taken at 7:50 pm and the final frame at 8:58. That's when the battery died...
Even though it brightens up a bit once the sun is gone and twilight is the light source, you have to admit, that D200 does a pretty fine job at exposure.
What I would like to try is setting the camera to manual exposure, start when the sun is nearly gone with settings for a correctly exposed image, and allow it to fade away to black. I reckon that would be cool, I might take a drive to Cradle Mtn one evening, it's little more than an hour from where I live so no real excuse not to...
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Adam.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then I have a LOT to say... |
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ripas
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Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 33
Location: Thursday Island
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| As a fellow hiker I am interested in what tripod you are using ? Something suitable ? |
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tasadam
Member
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 81
Location: Near Devonport, Tasmania
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| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| ripas wrote: |
| As a fellow hiker I am interested in what tripod you are using ? Something suitable ? |
There is no easy way out of it. If you want to be able to rely on taking a sequence like this and rely on the tripod to stay put, you need to carry some weight.
I bought a Benro M-128 tripod (carbon fibre) and Benro KB-1 ballhead. I am very happy with the tripod. I would scrap the ballhead and spend double on something more reliable if I had my time over but as I have it, I put up with it.
Overall weight is still under 2Kg and I feel that's a compromise, but when you go to places like we do, that's fair enough.
Better than the alloy Velbon that I carried around (side of pack) up until a year or so ago...
Even so, when changing the camera from 1 minute to 3 minute sequence, the greatest of care was taken not to move it so as not to stuff the sequence by bringing it to a premature end.
In short, I recommend the tripod. I would look for a better built ballhead than the Benro.
All up my tripod and ballhead is under 2Kg but that's a suitable compromise for what I need it to do.
Hope that helps.
Welcome to the forum, by the way! It's a wealth of info and a friendly place to hang out.
So where do you hike? Your profile has no location.
_________________
Adam.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then I have a LOT to say...
Last edited by tasadam on Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:56 am; edited 2 times in total |
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losfp
Golden Cow
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 1243
Location: Quakers Hill, Sydney
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:30 am Post subject: |
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Nice one Adam!! That is a cracker of a shot, and certainly gives me a couple of ideas to play with, next time I'm in a place where it's dark enough to give it a go 
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byrt
Cadet
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 752
Location: beatifuloutbackcarnarvon
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:02 am Post subject: |
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wow excellent, love the long exposures.
i am experimenting with time lapse, but i will post something later.
great inspiration
thanks for sharing
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