LRTimelapse Forum

Hi All,

I've been shooting my timelapses with a Nikon D3S, mostly with a Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8 lens. I've been using the manual aperture ring to reduce aperture flicker, and I'm pretty happy with that technique. When I use my G lenses, such as my Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 (no aperture ring), I of course get aperture flicker at any aperture larger than wide open (even a stop down shows flicker). This adds a deflickering step to my post processing in LRTimelapse, and that's if the software does a perfect job (I usually shoot holy grail TLs, which complicates things for the software, and I haven't had much luck getting perfect results).

The lens-twist trick doesn't work with Nikons (well, it hasn't for me, happy to learn I'm doing something wrong), so I am seriously considering buying a Canon body and mounting my Nikkor lenses (likely the ubiquitous 5DIII).

It's a pretty big expense for me, at this stage. I am shooting timelapses mainly for stock at this point, but it's early days and I've had no sales yet (I'm going to assume that I will, eventually :-) but if using a Canon body saves me much time in post, and also ensures my final movies are of a more saleable quality, it'll be worth it.

Can anybody offer any opinions on this plan? I'd very much appreciate some advice from people who have done the same. I'd especially like to hear from Nikon shooters who have a better strategy for avoiding flicker than I'm using :-)

Cheers!

Chas

Hi Chas, try turning on liveview and see, if the aperture stays on its diameter when releasing the shutter. This works with D4,, D8x0, D750. Don't know about the D3s yet, let me know!

Hi Gunther, thanks for the reply.

It's an interesting idea, but leaving liveview on would use a lot of battery power! (and heat up the camera). Or am I not understanding you correctly?

I shoot with a Nikon D750, I found out about the live view trick from Gunther a few months back and I haven't looked back.

Now shoot in live view 95% of the time. I too was worried about battery consumption but it really hasn't been an issue, for longer shoots i use a battery grip, I have never run out of power. You can also select to have a live histogram readout on the back which is also a massive bonus and very useful. It's a win win for me.

Now i can shoot with my 16-35 f4 and not get flicker.. just awesome!!