experimenting with the K-5 at night

2011-04-01 Thread Larry Colen 
As soon as Walt left, the skies cleared and the weather warmed up. I went out 
last night, looked for the darkest patch of clear sky I could find and stayed 
up way too late experimenting with the K-5 bracketing ISO, exposure and even 
lenses to try to find out what combination works best for night time landscape 
photography. What I learned was that the hills of Bonny Doon (Empire Grade 
between Jamieson Creek and Lockheed) have too much light pollution, dust and 
vapor in the air to get good star photos.

If your interest is the foreground, it seems that ISO 1600-6400 may be the 
sweet spot.

I processed this one to leave the foreground dark, to show that it is at night 
(as if the stars aren't enough of a clue)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/5579819441/lightbox/
ISO 3200 FA31 at f/1.8 10 seconds
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/5579819441/meta/

Pointing at a slightly darker patch of sky, if the goal is the stars, leaving 
the foreground dark (or illuminating it in other ways)  it seems that ISO 
250-500 is the best:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/5579893071/in/set-72157626282601669/

This is 4 seconds at ISO 500
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/5579893071/meta/

I'm putting my experiments in a flickr collection:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157626282696191/
I've got a set of everything straight out of the camera, and one of all of the 
shots running lightroom autotone, they're at 400 pixels.  I also have sets with 
other versions of the two pictures I showed.

If anyone else is trying nighttime photography with the K-5, I would love to 
hear what you've learned about sweet spots in various conditions.  If you want 
to try nighttime work, I hope that you find these useful. 

--
Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est





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Re: experimenting with the K-5 at night

2011-04-01 Thread Larry Colen 
I forgot to mention that I learned a few other things about the K-5 last night.

When it is doing the noise reduction dark field exposure, it displays a 
countdown in the viewfinder until the exposure will be done.  It may also 
display a notice about the two second mirror up as well.

I've always avoided ball heads for landscape tripod work. Once I find level, 
it's a pain in the butt to reset it if I lose it, but with the electronic level 
on the back display, it's trivial to reset, and ball heads are much better for 
photographing at high angles.

When I tried a few shots with the 16-50,  I expected them to be darker than at 
f/1.8, but they were much darker than I expected, especially once the exposure 
times got higher. I eventually determined that as amazing as the low light 
sensitivity of the K-5 is, it does not actually work even if you leave the lens 
cap on.

--
Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est





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