Time Lapse Discussion

NSXTypeR

Just a quick question for those of you who do time lapses, how do you get a consistent exposure? Say if you start a time lapse from before sunset and end hours after, your exposure won't be consistent. So would you lock exposure for the first couple of hours and then "reset" your exposure afterwards?

Thanks.

Golf007sd

Have not done time laps photography myself, but one of the bonuses in having The Promote Control System is to address this question. Here are some videos that will hopefully shed some light or even answer your question, thus the solution.

Killerbob

The equally nice CamRanger system also offers Time Lapse functionality, along with advanced HDR, and of course the capability of full control of the camera via Wi-Fi. I just received mine, but I am in the midst of moving, so have no time to play with it...

Photobug

What is the price of the CamRanger and the Promote?

[Deleted User]

People buy those units for bulb ramping exposure. day to night or night to day. the sad thing is that Nikon cameras WILL NOT bulb ramp. They will not accept arbitrary shutter speeds from external devices like canon will. The promote says it ramps and it does, kinda, sort of, but not really, i guess. though your money would be better spent on a Canon with Magic Lantern.

Your best bet using a Nikon for time lapse is to learn to deflicker in post. Save your money. Here is a free tutorial: http://philipbloom.net/2013/06/15/nighttoday/

NSXTypeR

Thanks for all the answers!

Killerbob

Not completely true. The CamRanger system is connected straight into the Nikon using the USB connection, and has FULL control of the camera. Hence, it supports bulb mode with typical control and by using custom defined shutter lengths. This however depends on the Nikon model (http://www.camranger.com/supported-cameras/).

Take a look at the CamRanger manual page 10 to see if it suffices (http://www.camranger.com/downloadFiles/Mac_UserManual.pdf).

spraynpray

Interesting - it looks like the Camranger can focus stack and the promote control can't.

Killerbob

Yep, CamRanger does Focus Stacking too:) I'm really surprised about this nifty little gadget.

Come winter I'll really enjoy sitting in my warm and cozy living-room, with the CamRanger transmitting LV on my D800 connected to my telescope standing on our balcony in -30 degrees weather. I can remote control the go-to telescope, and with the CamRanger/D800 setup I can finally get going on Astrophotography (without freezing my a.. off).

[Deleted User]

Looks like the cam ranger might do it. 300 bucks... Might be money well spent if timelapse is your thing.

I just wish nikon hacker could do this for us.

Ironheart

These folks seem to have it figured out:
http://www.elysiavisuals.com/tags/bulb-ramping
They produce an XMP file that can be loaded into LR that will automatically compensate for the discrete steps in the Nikon bulb mode.

NSXTypeR

For those of you interested, I ran across this really cool hyper lapse video of NYC on Youtube.



He also has a making of video.

daveznspace

One of Lightrooms features that's actually useful is in dev mode under settings called match total exposure. So you select an image with the exposer you want then select all the whacky ones and hit that and theoretically it'll do the trick but it is Adobe so it doesn't always work.