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To make a sequence from sunset to the motion of the Milky Way, which dsrldashboard configuration is most recommended?
You can change the parameters in dsrldashboard in the same sequence?.
Because the sun requires an interval of 10 seconds and the stars more than 30 seconds
Did you see my video about shooting the holy grail in the tutorials sections?
If you want to change the interval, you will have to do that with the external intervalometer, since qDslrDashboard currently has no built in intervalometer.
I for myself use the same interval of round about 15 seconds mostly from sunset to milky way because I don't want any acceleration. But it's up to you.
Just make sure, that the ( Interval - exposure ) dark time does not get shorter then 2-3 seconds and any time.
Is the 2 to 3 seconds so that the camera can record the picture and show you the histogram?
yes - for storing and transferring the image and allowing dslrdashboard to control the camera.
(2014-07-02, 00:14)gwegner Wrote: [ -> ]Did you see my video about shooting the holy grail in the tutorials sections?
If you want to change the interval, you will have to do that with the external intervalometer, since qDslrDashboard currently has no built in intervalometer.
I for myself use the same interval of round about 15 seconds mostly from sunset to milky way because I don't want any acceleration. But it's up to you.
Just make sure, that the ( Interval - exposure ) dark time does not get shorter then 2-3 seconds and any time.

Hi Gunther,

I understand the motivation to keep the interval constant to avoid acceleration. However, won't that create a jerky time lapse during the sunset? I mean, the clouds movement would be jerky because there is a frame only once every 15s.

Also, shooting the milky way is a lot different than shooting day to night. Shooting the milky way you want as much light as possible so you set the aperture at say 2.8, ISO is relatively high at 1600 for example and the shutter at 20s roughly.

Shooting the sunset time lapse, however, you'd want a bigger DoF so a smaller aperture would be better as well and you would change the ISO and shutter to achieve the holy grail.

This makes the transition from the sunset holy grail to the milky way hard to achieve.
Could you please share your approach on this?

Thanks!
Sefi
Hi Sefi,
of course you might have to go for some compromises. Changing the interval will bring in an accelleration. If you have clouds, you will clearly see that - an effect that might not be desired.
The approach mostly depends of the shooting conditions. If you have no clouds and a good Sensor you can leave the interval constant at 12 Seconds for example and go from day until milky way just by ramping Exposure and ISO.
If you want to ramp Aperture as well, it gets way more complicated, because you will have to motorize your aperture then to avoid flicker.

Zoltan and I are working on a solution to ramp the interval with qDslrDashboard. Like I said, that's a compromise as well because of the acceleration. But it might be a good option under certain conditions.

Another way is to shoot the sunset with the transition and then change the interval for the night part and cross dissolve between both. Obviously this won't work on a slider and might introduce a weird look if you have clouds passing as well.
Hi Gunther, thanks for the reply.

I am shooting with a Canon 5D mark 3, so I can go relatively high on the ISO, though last time I was shooting at 6400 and the footage was completely unusable - the noise was very noticeable. As a one shot it would have been fine but as a timelapse, since the noise is not uniform and changes from frame to frame, it became very apparent and made the footage useless for that purpose.

When ramping shutter and ISO, there's a catch. Set the shutter too slow and you will introduce motion blur on the stars, so I tend to stay away from shutter speeds longer than 20s for a wide lens. Set the ISO too high and the noise, even on the 5DIII, will be very hard to cope with, so I tend to keep it at about 1600, maybe 2000 if I'm hard pressed.

I didn't understand your comment on ramping aperture introducing flicker - I am shooting in manual mode so changing aperture should be similar to changing shutter in terms of flicker...

So the dilemma is, considering I don't want acceleration and set a constant interval, jittery clouds during the sunset or a not so visible and bright milky way at night. I imagine that if the clouds are moving slow the jitter will not be as apparent.

The thing is, that setting a 15s interval will probably cause jitter on the one hand, and won't be enough light for the milky way on the other hand, as it enforces a 13s shutter to allow for write and process time.

One alternative is to shoot the sunset time lapse at 15s interval and when the ramping gets to 13s as the stars come up, stop the intervals on the intervalometer and change the exposure manually to 20s and lock the shutter button while the camera is in burst mode. Since the exposure during the milky way shoot doesn't change there's no need to ramp it. It will effectively change the interval from 15s to 20s but I think it will not be very apparent as the stars move.

I think I'll try this next time.
If you have suggestions - I'd be happy to hear! Smile

Thanks again,
Sefi
If you shoot with a Lens with electronic aperture control and anything else then open aperture, you will get aperture flicker.
So either use a manual lens (rokinon etc.) or use the lens twist trick. But then you won't be able to ramp aperture anyway.
If you do it via the camera electronics, you will get flicker.
Here is my explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVnqd4f3Kmk
You will find more info about this in my ebook (see footer).
Of course you can remove flicker with LRTimelapse - but especially when using the Holy Grail method this is the second best option.

The 5DMKIII is certainly not the best camera in terms of high ISO performance. The 6D oder Nikon D610 is much better in that area.
But to handle the noise you should try the "Motion Blur Plus" feature in the LRTimelapse render dialog - this is a very good noise killer as well.
Hi Gunther, i wonder if you might be able to help?

I have just bought a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 manual lens with a manual aperture ring, however on my Nikon D5100 it won't allow me to set the aperture using the ring on the lens, but only with the camera once the manual ring has been set to f22. Its my understanding that set like this the camera will still operate the aperture mechanically before the exposure and thus introducing flicker.

Is this because i have the version with the AE chip? Or is it because the D5100 doesn't support fully manual lenses? One of the reasons i bought the lens was to lock the aperture to prevent flicker but now i find out that my camera wont allow this. Or is there something i am missing?
On most of the bigger Nikons, you have a setting to tell the camera to operate aperture via the ring, if available, but I think the 5x00 does not offer this.

You might try to set the aperture on the ring and then disconnect the lenst (twist it a little after pressing the lens release button).
Please take care not to loose the lens when packing in! For example put some masking tape on the lens to have a reminder.
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