test outside seemed ok. I really hope this is just an indoor lighting thing. I will know for sure in 2 weeks when I take pictures at a venus I'm familiar with.

I've seen this effect on a 70-200 as well as a 50mm so I don't think it is a lens issue.

I did a long burst with auto-focus turned off to maximize the 10fps at around 1/1000 or shorter. This showed a cyclical pattern of exposure changes over about a 5 frame period: 0, +1, +2, +1, 0, +1, +2, ... (numbers aren't related to stops, just a way for me to explain the cyclical-ness).

hmmm this article seems to describe what I'm seeing. It's the lighting...


https://photographylife.com/light-frequency-issue

yeah, i would test outside and/or in a room that has nothing but tungsten (old school filament) lights

I have another question that regards training. I took Darrin's class but I feel like I need more. I primarily take pictures of family stuff like vacations, sports, etc., However I feel like I need more training taking photos that are more landscape in nature. We vacation mainly in national parks, so I take a lot of photos in front of amazing landscapes and domains of just the landscapes and I would like to learn more about taking those sorts of pictures. Night photography would be a big bonus as we spend a lot of time around a campfire at night. Any good books or online courses that you would recommend?

Have you read Understanding Exposure?

So this is a series of 3 shots in a burst. Crazy exposure difference. The light pattern in the backdrop is wild. This was completely unprocessed so is a bit under-exposed.

MonkeyKnifeFighter said:

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wee_ag said:

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Hey MKF, I'm curious what camera/lens you are shooting with. I've been with my Canon 5DMKII for years and it's not quite cutting it for Astro shots given the noise level at higher ISOs.

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The 5D2 should do great for wide-field Milky Way shots. I've found that the body is relatively important, but not the be-all end-all for getting low-noise results. The technique and planning element is far more significant in creating a low-noise image.

The idea is to maximize the brightness of the stars while minimizing the illumination of space beyond (and controlling your foreground light too). For best results, that means choosing the right location away from ambient city light, within the window of the year which gives best results, at the right time of month, in flawless weather and atmospheric conditions, and pointing in the right direction at the time of night that best amplifies your composition. It wasn't until I started obsessing about those details that the images came together close to what I would expect.

Anyway, that wasn't to sidestep the question... that's just the real guts of the process that impact the image far more than the gear. I'm bracing for full judgment here, but I shoot Pentax cameras (their full frame K-1 plus a mid-range crop camera and a backup-backup budget crop).

This timelapse was shot on the Samyang/Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, which I swear by for this kind of stuff. It was stopped down to maybe f/2.4 for these shots. But I've also shot astro work with the rest of the Samyang/Rokinon holy trinity... the 14mm f/2.8 and the 35mm f/1.4. And before late March I'll find a way to get their 20mm f/1.8. That being said, I've shot landscape Milky Way images from 12mm to 77mm using cheap zooms and portrait primes that are sometimes older than I am.

But the 5D2 should do great. And if you want one specific lens, I'd direct you to the Samyang/Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 over the 14mm. The 24 gets you great detail in the galactic core - and enough of it to get the wide band, and the 14mm feels way too wide which limits your foreground compositions and squishes all the details of the stars into point-clouds rather than distinct points.

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Thanks for the thoughts, there's some great info there - just to clarify, I've been shooting astro for years (see a gallery of some of my work here: http://adkgraphicdesign.zenfolio.com/adk_astro - admittedly some are better than others). I understand the concepts and live in the mountains of upstate New York, far from city lights. I stack all my newer shots to reduce noise but still run into a lot more noise than I want when I get into ISOs in the 3000 range. I currently use the Rokinon 14mm 2.8, I like the wider field of view but may benefit more from the lower aperture. Rokinon seems to be the new go-to for astro, but the aging Canon CMOS seems to be my bottleneck right now.

Beautiful pics!

sorry, one last set of pics for comment from you experts.
The previous post was more to show the weird light patterns. These two show a bigger difference overall...

That looks like a white balance change

Yeah, that's just color shifting. Huge pain in the ass. Newer cameras like the D5 and D500 actually have anti-flicker technology, so it will take pics in between color shifts.

NO WORRIES! I know there's a lot of people asking questions and I wasn't clear in my post of my history. (I've posted some in the Astro thread, so you may have seen some photos there).

I just started looking at the NIK collection and using Denoise which is great (and free!). I guess I'm just looking for the best I can get in camera for night photography (and perhaps eventually deep sky with a telescope and mount). Overall the 5D2 is great for my landscape and portrait work.

schmendeler said:

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That looks like a white balance change

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That was my initial thought but I took it off AWB and it still did it.

Guitarsoup said:

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Yeah, that's just color shifting. Huge pain in the ass. Newer cameras like the D5 and D500 actually have anti-flicker technology, so it will take pics in between color shifts.

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thanks, I guess I just never encountered it this badly before.

Those are some great astropics! I bet if you use dfine on those aurora pics you'll be amazed by the results. The Nik collection is really amazing.

It's still the lights flickering. Go back to your original 3 photos above. In each shot, the lights on the ceiling alternate between white and magenta. They are flickering at different rates.

In the second post with the two pics, the lights are more or less in sync, so the color shift is more drastic.

TexasAggie_02 said:

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It's still the lights flickering. Go back to your original 3 photos above. In each shot, the lights on the ceiling alternate between white and magenta. They are flickering at different rates.

In the second post with the two pics, the lights are more or less in sync, so the color shift is more drastic.

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Thanks! I hope that's it. I was a little hesitant buying the 1Dm3 since it is no longer supported by Canon and getting old. I love the camera so much and I've only owned it like 3 weeks.

i've never shot in a gym, but i have seen the issue with LED christmas lights, where a whole strand appears to be off.

This thread should always be on 1st page.

I don't have much to say today.

Well, Sony a6300 is pretty awesome for video. 1080p at 120fps creates some smooth slo-mo for kids sports.

Haven't tried the 4K yet.

But this is making my u43 obsolete.

Rolling shutter on 4K is awful but otherwise it's awesome, I just upgraded to the 6500.

Also picked up a DJI Phantom 4 Pro, enjoyed playing with it so far!

What is a Leica? And why do certain photogs use them exclusively? I have never understood the fascination.

Leica is camera brand that is known for its range finders style of cameras. They are manual focus and smaller than other 35mm-based cameras.

When you look through the view finder, you don't see through the lens like a DSLR would let you. You see an image overlayed with another image from the view window, which is a smaller window to the right of the view finder.

Line these images up and it is in focus. Takes some practice.

Leicas were favored by many photojournalists because of their small size, quietness and durability. Now, it is more or less a novelty. I don't know any professionals that solely use Leicas.

With unlimited funds, I would love to have a Leica Monochrom and a handful of lenses. My dream kit would have a Monochrom and a M-P with a 21mm 1.4, 35mm 1.4, 50mm .95 and a 90 f2. That kit would set you back about $40k. Yes, for four lenses and 2 cameras.

I see. So, nothing really to do with image quality per se, just the novelty of that sort of camera style. Okay.

There are some quality things there. They don't have an AA filter, which can lead to sharper images. Their sensors have great dynamic range.

But if I took a day of pics with a Leica and a day with a Nikon, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

KY AG said:

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I see. So, nothing really to do with image quality per se, just the novelty of that sort of camera style. Okay.

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Leica's are status symbols for Drs and lawyers that dabble in photography. Helps them to spot the other Drs and lawyers when out in the field.

Hey guys, first of all thanks for all of the discussion so far. I'm very new to photography and everything discussed has been very informative. Anyways, I recently acquired a Nikon D7000 with a few different lenses and use it mostly for outdoor photography, specifically, fishing. I was talking with a buddy of mine and he suggested that I should start using a polarizing filter, which makes perfect sense. I started looking into them and of course the options range from cheap to crazy expensive for circular polarizing filters. Does the extra cost of a $100+ filter justify the gain over a cheap amazon's basics one that can be had for <$20? Any good recommendations for a decent quality filter at a good price? Also, how does using a filter affect the exposure if any(i.e how is glare handled and how will removing it affect the exposure)?

This next question might be a dumb one but again I've barely gotten my feet wet and am not familiar with a lot of techniques. Every now and then we hire a photographer to take some family pictures. One thing I always notice them doing is they'll point the camera at something off to the side of us every so often, then point the camera back at us and take the pictures. What are they doing when they're doing this? Are they pointing to a different light source to get some desired effect or what?

elnaco said:

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Hey guys, first of all thanks for all of the discussion so far. I'm very new to photography and everything discussed has been very informative. Anyways, I recently acquired a Nikon D7000 with a few different lenses and use it mostly for outdoor photography, specifically, fishing. I was talking with a buddy of mine and he suggested that I should start using a polarizing filter, which makes perfect sense. I started looking into them and of course the options range from cheap to crazy expensive for circular polarizing filters. Does the extra cost of a $100+ filter justify the gain over a cheap amazon's basics one that can be had for <$20? Any good recommendations for a decent quality filter at a good price? Also, how does using a filter affect the exposure if any(i.e how is glare handled and how will removing it affect the exposure)?

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This is the one that I use. It isn't that fun to shoot with, especially if you are moving around a lot, but it will reduce glare off water. The better ones will work better and won't degrade the quality of your image as much.

https://www.amazon.com/Kaesemann-Circular-Polarizer-Multi-Resistant-Coating/dp/B00OK6YSAS/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

Quote:

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This next question might be a dumb one but again I've barely gotten my feet wet and am not familiar with a lot of techniques. Every now and then we hire a photographer to take some family pictures. One thing I always notice them doing is they'll point the camera at something off to the side of us every so often, then point the camera back at us and take the pictures. What are they doing when they're doing this? Are they pointing to a different light source to get some desired effect or what?

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They are likely focusing and recomposing.

Guitarsoup said:

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Quote:

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This next question might be a dumb one but again I've barely gotten my feet wet and am not familiar with a lot of techniques. Every now and then we hire a photographer to take some family pictures. One thing I always notice them doing is they'll point the camera at something off to the side of us every so often, then point the camera back at us and take the pictures. What are they doing when they're doing this? Are they pointing to a different light source to get some desired effect or what?

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They are likely focusing and recomposing.

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Yes, this is what I do with family portraits. It's also possible to lock in your exposure settings from a different area and then recompose to purposefully expose for that specific area instead of the main subject.

You can also lock in focus by shooting in manual mode.