Tag Archives: ISO

Painting with Light

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Originally Published: Sep 18, 2012
Last Updated: May 11, 2016

Cascade of Stars [C_049409+12]

A Flickrite asked me a question:

 I’d like to know how long do you shine the light or use flash when you are shooting

I was really tempted to give the answer “as long as I need” but I’d just seem cruel to answer the question that way.

The truth, however is “as long as it takes”. Eric Harness, one of my partners in the Star Circle Academy endeavor uses a quite different technique than I do. He prefers to reduce the ISO and paint with light for the entire length of the exposure.  I like to keep painting short and purposeful. Each strategy has its strengths and weaknesses.

How Long?

Voyage into Pointy Land [C_061012]Painting for best effect is a knack, not a science.  You just have to try it and refine your technique based on your results.  Remember to check not just the LCD, but also your histogram when deciding how well you’ve done.  Here are some important points that will influence both the method and how long you will paint with light:

  1. Check your ISO and f/stop.  The lower the ISO or higher the f/stop the longer you will have to paint and the brighter the light has to be.
  2. The distance to the things being painted (due to the inverse-square law). You may spend a fractional second on a granite boulder nearby and long slow seconds on dark, light-eating evergreens in the distance.
  3. Brighter lights require less painting but a more deft hand.
  4. Ocean foam or white water in a waterfall will reflect a lot more light than lava rock – you have to paint the rock much longer.  A still pond or lake require a LOT more light than you would expect. The reflectivity (texture) of the surface matters quite a lot.
  5. It is harder to be precise with wide beams, but easier to uniformly illuminate.
  6. Spotlight or narrow beams make it easier to highlight specific things – but also makes blow outs and hot spots harder to control.
  7. When trying to highlight a certain thing or reveal some shadow detail you will need more light.
  8. House in the Wood [C_049613-17]Often there is too much to paint in a single shot. Using stacking techniques you can paint the scene in sections – and even in different light knowing that they are easily combined later. Or you could expose longer and try to get it “all in” but it is hard to get it just right like that.

Power and Direction

I think most people overpaint – they make the subject stand out too much or blow out the details.  Neither of these are blown out, but they have obvious hot spots.
Beholders of the Galaxy [C_061001] vs Anticipation [C_050158]

  • Don’t paint “head on”. Paint at a 30-45 degree angle to the camera view – and even from behind the subject for rimlight.
  • Consider painting from both sides to fill in shadows – but paint less from one side than the other to keep the scene from looking flat.
  • Be mindful of the color you are painting with and the thing being painted.  Bluish LED lights produce a very different feel from warmer incandescent light
  • Be cognizant of the color “bias” due to existing light.
  • If you use a flash, set it on manual and don’t try to expose all at once. Tilting the flash upward helps to even out the exposure.
  • When painting with a bright light, quick movement is essential. Continuous circular motion helps prevent hot spots.
  • Sometimes you can get more even and pleasing light on what is in front of the camera by painting the ground or rocks BEHIND you – much like bouncing a flash off an interior wall.
  • For dimmer light slow methodical movement is better.
  • Moonbow with Character(s) [C_039385]Try throwing in some color!

Star Man and Perseus [C_059960-1]

Tools

About now you may be wondering what flashlight(s) to get.  We can’t really answer that, however we do suggest you snag the following:

  1. A BRIGHT light (120 lumens or better)
  2. A SPOT light (one with a very narrow beam)
  3. An incandescent light
  4. A broad, dim light (like a keychain light)
  5. Colored lights (red, amber, blue, purple) or some cellophane or gel.

Sooner or later you’ll be like us and carry EACH of the above. Oh, and don’t spend a lot!  Get some cheap stuff – like you find at the checkout counter in a hardware store.

Nonetheless here is a list of our favorite illumination toys. Some or all of them may no longer be available.

The Elusive Milky Way – Capture an Image

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Published: July 7, 2012
Last Updated: September 10, 2018

I assume you already read part one of this article which describes a bit about what the Milky Way is and what times and seasons are best for photographing the cloud-like expanse of innumerable stars.  In this installment we describe the equipment and settings you will need.

Just Ahead: A Universe of Possibilities

f/2.8, ISO 3200, 30 seconds, 16mm, post processed and combined with shots of the bridge that were lit with a spotlight.

Standard Capture

To get a passable or better image of the rather dim Milky Way you need:

  • A high performing low light camera (more on that in a moment)
  • A large aperture (f/2.8)
  • A wide angle lens. Ultra wide even.
  • A cool/cold night
  • As little city glow and moonlight* as possible – see below for an image taken in twilight
  • A solid tripod
  • Patience
  • To know where and when to look!

To get a recognizable Milky Way in a single frame, you’ll want to use somewhere between 2000 and 6400 ISO at f/2.8 or wider setting. That’s very high, and a wider aperture than many people have paid for.  You’ll also want to expose as long as you can before stars are streaking.  We recommend starting at 30 seconds, and reducing your exposure time if the streaking is objectionable. Below is an image taken when the rising moon was beginning to wash out the sky and this may be typical of attempting to capture the Milky Way in a less than ideally dark scenario. Just want a quick suggestion for settings:  Use these:

  • f/2.0; 24mm; ISO 6400; 15 seconds or
  • f/2.8; 24mm; ISO 3200; 25 seconds (or longer)
Group Hug

Moonlight and Twilight begin to overwhelm the Milky Way in Alabama Hills, California; 30 seconds, ISO 3200, f/2.8, 17mm

Some image degradation is to expected. For example vignetting and coma are both more obvious at lower f/stops. Coma is a comma or “bird-wing” like appearance of stars near the corners of the image.  Both coma and vignetting can be overcome by stopping down the shot – but resist the temptation because stopping down means losing some or perhaps all of the wispy milky goodness that you are trying to capture. Exposing longer will only help if you have some special apparatus (see Tracked Capture below). Are you wondering why exposing longer does not solve the problem? We have tackled the issue in two different styles: a cheerful allegorical example, and a recent math savvy explication.

What will an image look like captured with 3200 ISO? It may look like the image on the left below which is “straight out of the camera” – but perhaps not for you as this image was taken in a VERY dark sky area in Nevada.  On the right is the same Milky Way with some simple processing we will describe in the next installment.

SOOTC (and not SOOTC) [C_039467]

What is a “High Performing” Camera?

I qualified my statement earlier by indicating a high performing camera is needed for a standard capture like those I’ve shown above.  Since it would be impossible to keep an up-to-date list of the current high performing cameras, let me instead point out a few characteristics common to all high performers:

  1. Recent generation (2 or 3 years since introduction) is preferable because technology has steadily improved.
  2. Large pixels (to collect more light).  A common measure of the pixel size is in microns. Generally this puts full frame cameras ahead of cropped cameras.
  3. High “ISO at Unity Gain” – this is a measurement of the efficiency of the sensor. There are two good sources for this information: the DxO Sensor Scores and ClarkVision’s (older) tables.
Don’t be fooled by the highest ISO setting advertised. That number is completely meaningless.
As of August 13, 2018, the highest performers are listed by manufacturer and in order of performance. E.g. the Nikon D3s is better than the D800 – though the difference is small. Indeed, the D800 excels in some categories over the D3s. Cropped cameras are shown in italics – note that there fewer of them and none of the crop cameras exceed their full frame siblings. The first paragraph are the TOP performers. The next bracket list other cameras that “meet” our judgement of “good enough to photograph the Milky Way – with an appropriate lens. Note that the Cybershot DSC-RX1R ranks right after the Canon 1DX II – that’s quite a surprise –  it does have a fixed focal length of 35 mm, however.

TOP PERFORMERS

Pentax: 645Z
Hasselblad: X1D-50c
Sony: A7 III, A7S, A7R III, A9, A7R II, (Cybershot DSC-RX1R II – 35mm f/2.0 lens, A7S II)
Nikon: Df, D3s
Canon: 1Dx II

DECENT PERFORMERS

Nikon: D4s, D600, D800E, D4, D750, D610, D800, D810, D850, D5, D700, D3, D3X, D3300, D5200, D7100, D5100, D7000, CoolPix A, D3200
Canon: 1DX II, 5D IV, 6D II, 1Dx, 6D, 5D Mark III, 5D II, 1DS III, 1DS II, 5D, 1D III, 1D VI, 1D III, 1 D II
Sony: A7R, DSC-RX1R, RX1, A7, Alpha 99, Alpha 900, Alpha 850, A6000, Alpha 580, NEX-F3, NEX-C3, NEX-5N, NEX-3N, NEX-6, NEX-7
Leica: M Typ 240, X Vario
Phase One: P40 Plus, P65 Plus
Pentax: K-1, 645D, K-5 II, K-5 IIS, K5, K-50, K-01, K-30
FujiFilm: FinePix X100

Not in contention: any cameras by: Casio, Konica Minolta, Mamiya, Nokia, Olympus, Panasonic, Ricoh, or Sigma.

The list above shows all cameras having a DxO Sports (low light) score of 1000 or higher.

Cameras like the Nikon D90, Canon 1D II N, Phase One IQ 180, Canon 1Ds, Nikon D3100 and Leica M9 fall just below this threshold and may also be suitable.  The first eight Nikon models outperform the Canon 1Dx, and after the 1DX is the Sony A7R. The Fujifilm just barely cracks the list in 43rd and last place.

If you want the camera to cost less than $2,000 USD your current top choices are: Sony A7 III, Pentax K1, Nikon D610, Canon 6D II (or 6D).  If we were to make a recommendation, we’d recommend any of the full frame choices over the smaller sensor cameras.  Note that prices vary dramatically, and you may find used higher performing cameras for less than $2000. Beware of all Sony models, however, as they have had a long standing problem with “Star Eater” noise reduction problems. As of August 13, 2018, it’s not clear if they’ve actually fixed this problem on all of their models.

Stacked Capture

A “stacked” capture is what you may need to resort to if your camera performance is not so spiffy.  The approach applies astrophotography techniques to create a lower-noise version of an image.  The technique requires MANY shots of the same view. However using this approach you will want to avoid having anything but sky in your photo. Terrestrial elements will make stacking the image tricky.

Urban Milky Way [C_036919-23PSavg]The image at the left is a stacked capture to illustrate the point, however it was done with a high performing camera and only 5 images.  A lower performing camera will require as many as 20 or so captures to combat the noise. The method is described in my a “Astrophotography 101” Webinar and details are walked through in Astrophotography 301.  On the other hand, this image was captured in a location where the Milky Way was quite faint – alongside 7 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area so there is hope even where the Milky Way can only faintly be seen.

Details about the stacking method appeared in an earlier column as well as in an an earlier webinar.

Tracked Capture

The last way to get a great shot of the Milky Way is to track the sky with an apparatus called an Equatorial Mount.  By tracking the sky at the rate of the earth’s rotation you can lengthen a 20 second capture to perhaps a 60 second one. You can also use several such captures to create a stunning “Stacked Capture”. Again, however, shots which include the land are a bit harder to pull off unless you resort to layering. What do you need to do a tracked capture? We cover that in detail in the Astrophotography 101 Webinar, but in short, you’ll want an Equatorial Mount of some sort – not an Altitude-Azimuth (aka Alt-Az) mount! A device that looks intriguing and not terribly expensive is the Polarie.

Once you get that image (or those images), you will no doubt want to tease the most pleasing photo you can out of your data. That is a topic we’ll cover in the next installment: Processing your Milky Way images.

Exposing for Stars

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Original Publication: October 20, 2010
Last Updated: November 2, 2017

In two previous articles I covered the most common problems that face anyone doing long exposures. In part 1 of 2 I discussed: Poor Focus, Dim Stars (low contrast), Strange Colors and Pink or Purple glow. In part 2 of 2, I tackled gaps in star trails, and noise.

It seems like I have omitted a rather important element: how to choose your exposure settings in the first place.  An astute Flickr user asked What is the Best ISO for Stacking Startrails. Good question and I realize I have not approached the question from that point of view… starting from the beginning, that is. So pay a little attention here and I will hopefully demystify that question for you.

First, the answer will always be “it depends”.  Just as with daylight or indoor exposures the settings to pick depend on the conditions. Is there a bright moon? Is there a strong sky glow from light pollution? How well does your camera manage noise? How cold (or warm) is it? Are there any bright light sources that need to be managed?  What is the intended result?

Most people attempt to approach a star trail the way they would expose any low light scene. But that approach is flawed.  Let me illustrate the germaine elements with a story about my friend, the little star named “Drizzle”.

Drizzle Drizzle Little Star

The film in a film camera, or the sensor in a digital camera can be thought of as a piece of absorbent canvas. Imagine that the light (photons) of a single star are a stream of tiny little droplets of star juice. The brightest star – Sirius – can spurt 200 droplets per second. The faintest stars visible to the eye, like Drizzle, only manage a single drop per second.  Moreover to be able to notice anything at all, we require a minimum of 20 droplets. Doing a tiny bit of math we realize that we have to collect droplets from Drizzle for at least 20 seconds. But for Drizzle to stand out in any noticeable way we need to collect Drizzle juice for about a minute – 20 was only enough for Drizzle to be discernable.

But wait. We have a collector in front of our canvas that grabs the incoming droplets and shrinks them. That collector is our lens and the shrinkage is related to the size of the iris (aperture). Even when we make our collector opening as big as we can (f/2.8) it will take two collected droplets to equal up to one direct droplet. In fact, if we make our aperture even smaller (f/16) we shrink all the incoming  droplets so that they are only 1/100th of their original size. If we set our collector on f/16 we will have to collect two hundred minutes worth of Drizzle’s meager output to be able to see Drizzle’s shine.

But wait… we forgot about something else much more important! Drizzle and his companions are continuously moving across the sky and each droplet of their juice passes through our collector and falls on an ever-changing place on our canvas. After perhaps 15 seconds the juice of all of our stars will fall noticeably further away – on the next pixel. Poor Drizzle stands no chance of making an appearance because he cannot spew enough juice in his brief time over any part of our canvas to leave a noticeable mark.
How then can we help little Drizzle make an appearance? Well, we can collect more of Drizzle’s juice by using a bigger collector (lens). With a bigger lens instead of collecting one droplet at a time, we can collect two or with a really, really big lens perhaps 4 droplets at a time. After all, a bathtub in the rain collects more water in a minute than a thimble will! Sadly we already have the biggest collector we could afford, and opened it as wide as it will go: so how else can we help Drizzle? Answer: We will employ the last trick our camera can muster: we can change our canvas so that one droplet leaves a mark as noticeable as though it were 10 times its size. This is what is happening when we change our ISO from 100 to 1000.

Oh, I forgot to mention that while we are collecting juice from our starry friends, truly random events occur that cause droplets to appear out of nowhere and plop onto our canvas. We call this noise. The longer we allow our canvas to collect juice, the more random droplets there will be scattered all over our image – unwelcome intrusion by the sprinkler from hell. Unfortunately our sky is not completely black.  Dust and moisture in the air grab light pollution from distant city lights and make the sky rain droplets everywhere. The stronger the light pollution is the harder it will be for Drizzle to stand out. In fact, when the sky becomes as bright as Drizzle we will not be able to see Drizzle at all.

What did we learn from Drizzle, besides sympathy for his plight?

  1. If we narrow our aperture we will get fewer noticeable stars. And the stars we do get will stand out less (lower contrast).
  2. If we use a bigger (larger diameter) lens we can collect more light and thus see more stars.
  3. If we increase our ISO we get more stars, and unfortunately more noticeable noise.
  4. The longer we expose the more noise there will be.
  5. As the background sky glow increases the dimmer stars will be overwhelmed and there will be insufficient contrast to see them.
  6. Eventually an exposure that is too long will wash out the sky and stars.

And the most important take away:  The number of stars we can capture in an image is unrelated to the length of the exposure because the stars are moving.

That last one surprises most people. That is why I highlighted it. I see many folks trying hard to work out the right exposure based on the ambient light. But that is not the correct starting point.

And Now… The RIGHT Exposure

I hear you: “We just want to know what the correct exposure is! We really did not need to hear about your constipated little star.” True, perhaps I spilled more than you wanted to know but my little drizzle buddy hopefully made it clear that only the aperture and the ISO settings have a significant effect on how many stars will be observable in the image.  Now that we know that a really small aperture will eliminate most of the stars, that a long exposure will invite more noise, and that a higher ISO will both allow dimmer stars to be seen AND increase the effect of any noise we hopefully can use those parameters to narrow in on what we need to control. Here are our goals:

  • Use shorter exposures for less noise, better contrast, and less interference from background glow
  • Select moderately open apertures for more light and better contrast
  • If possible shoot in cooler ambient temperatures.
  • Where possible select locations with darker skies.

I hear you oh impatient one. You wanted to know WHAT EXACT SETTINGS you should use. Try this:

f/4, ISO 200, 4 minutes.

That should be about right on most nights where there is half or less moon and not too much sky glow. But remember that exposure triplet is for the sky not the foreground. We can refine those settings by answering the following questions and adjusting the exposure, ISO and aperture as indicated.  Adjustments to larger ISO are optional. Adjustments to a lower ISO are not… except to try and see that failing to reduce ISO or exposure time produces lots o’ noise.

  • What is the air temperature (Fahrenheit)?
    • Greater than 80 degrees (ISO ÷ 4)
    • Between 60 and 80 (ISO ÷ 3)
    • Between between 38 and 60 (no change)
    • Below 32 (ISO × 2)
    • Below Zero (ISO × 4)
  • How bright is my sky (background glow)?
    • About what you would expect less than 20 miles from a large city:  ISO ÷ 2 and exposure ÷ 4, f-stop +1 (1 minute at ISO 100, f/5.6 or f/7.1).
    • It is quite dark but the moon is full (ISO ÷ 2) – exposure ÷ 2
    • It is dark, but the moon is 1/2 full (no change)
    • Some noticeable sky glow, but I can see the Milky Way (ISO x 2)
    • I sat in the dark for 30 minutes and I literally cannot see my hand in front of my face. I can only tell it is there because it blocks out the star light and I still have sensation in my fingers. (ISO × 3) or f/stop + 1.
  • How many stars do we want in the image?
    • As many as I see with my eyes – aperture at f/4 or f/5.6 or even f/7.1
    • Plenty (ISO × 2)  – an aperture at f/4 to f/5.6
    • A sky full (ISO × 4)  – aperture at f/2.8
  • How good is my camera at managing noise?
    • Really Terrible: ISO  ÷ 4 and exposure ÷ 2.
    • Terrible (ISO ÷ 2)
    • OK (no change)
    • Good to Great (ISO × 2) and increase exposure by double

Suppose we end up computing a value of f/5.6, ISO 25 and exposure 2 minutes. What does that mean?  It means something is far less than ideal and throwing in the towel is in order – especially if the minimum ISO on the camera is 200.  If on the other hand the series of multiplications and divisions nets an ISO greater 1600 it is better to dial the ISO down a bit (unless you have a newer generation, highly  capable camera).  The above is pseudo scientific and adapted from observations and exposures – both successes and failures. Actual results may vary.

Ok, now I am sure an explanation is in order. Let me start with the one thing I think causes the most variability – the ambient temperature. The hotter it is, the stronger the noise. That is simply a fact of the electronic world. Film shooters have an advantage here. Film does not become noisier as it is exposed longer – it does have a different problem though. The longer film is exposed, the less sensitive it becomes.  Scientists and astronomers are well aware of the temperature problem. In fact, the really serious image makers super-cool their sensors to remove as much noise as possible.  How much difference does temperature make?  Well, a guy named Gary Honis built a miniature refrigerator to cool his camera.  He is very happy if the mini-fridge gets the temperature of his camera down to 5 degrees! Why? Well one can take a look at his charts.  But I can summarize: a 5 minute exposure at 77 degrees fahrenheit had more than 2,500 noisy pixels while at 5 degrees, less than 100 pixels displayed noise! Twenty five times LESS noise!  When it is exceptionally cold outside I smile because I know that if my battery survives my image is going to be that much better!

The next issue is the camera itself. The smaller and denser the sensor (the higher the megapixels) the more prone it is to noise. Sure some cameras have sophisticated processing to reduce the noise but most of the algorithms also reduce the contrast and thus the sharpness as well. A big sensor with big pixels is better for lower noise performance.  Another issue has to do with the design of the sensor – the method used to collect and read out the count of photons in each of its buckets (pixels). Some methods are just better than others.

Look at the histogram. If the shots are even close to being over exposed reduce the exposure time. If things are too dark, and it is miserably cold out increase the ISO or open up the aperture – or both. If it is warm only open the aperture because a higher ISO or longer exposures will result in more noise.

To get a well lit foreground requires one of the following:

  • Shooting when there is more moon (and get fewer stars)
  • Painting the foreground with artificial light
  • Shooting for a much longer time (and live with the noise).
  • Shoot some shots at twilight to get a nice foreground and layer in the star trails.

Can I Reduce Noise by Averaging?

In a word, no. The normal method of stacking selects the brightest pixel from each shot… and hopefully those are the stars. But those bright pixels can also be noise. If there is noticeable random noise in 10 images then there will be 10 times as much noise in the finished image! It is important to keep the noise as low as possible in the first place!  Averaging can be done. Something undesirable then happens: the foreground image and the overall sky will look much smoother but the star trails will lose contrast. Why is that?  What is the average of 100 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1?  Answer: twenty one. What did I just do… I took 5 shots with nearly black pixels  (1’s) and one shot with a bright star (100) and effectively I reduced the brightness of the star from 100 to 21.   Here are examples. First is stack which selects the brighest pixel from each of the 11 images. Next the same 11 shots are averaged. The red light on the foreground is from one of the frames. Averaging the star trails clearly reduce the contrast of the stars (and the Saguaro) very significantly.

11 Images stacked using “Brighten” (lighten) mode. One of the images has the Saguaro lit by a brake light of a nearby car.

11 images averaged. Notice the big difference in the contrast of the startrails and the muted light on the Saguaro. On the other hand the sky is “smooth” since averaging also averages out random noise.

If it is not possible to reduce noise by averaging, then what is LENR (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)? Many DSLRs can be configured to enable or disable LENR. Usually I leave it off because using LENR makes your shot take from 50% to 100% longer. Why? Well the camera is effectively doing what the photographer can do by putting a lens cap on. It is taking a dark frame. It closes the shutter and lets the pixel counts accumulate.  It then uses those accumulated pixels to subtract them from the image it just captured. If you have amp glow (multi-pixel hot spots that appear pink or purple) the subtraction will remove the glow.  If you have hot pixels – areas that always read out as bright, the subtraction will eliminate those as well since they will also be in the dark frame.  Since the performance of the sensor changes rather dramatically with increased or decreased heat taking the dark frame immediately after the exposure works best. Of course the camera imaging chips may also do things like sharpen or blur pixels that it thinks are out of range with surrounding pixels. Blurring may improve the appearance overall but it also has an effect very similar to the average stack we looked at earlier.  It is much better to do what we can to keep the noise low in the first place.

What about simply increasing the exposure with the exposure (or lightness) control? There is no magic in that slider. If you do nothing to “increase the exposure” the pixel values are left alone. If, however you increase the exposure by 1 stop, the effect is to double every value. A 10 becomes a 20, a 50 becomes a 100. This, of course, makes those pixels brighter – but it also makes every other pixel brighter, too, including the mild noise. A slightly noisy unnoticeable “3” value becomes a quite noticeable “24” when you increase the exposure by 3 f-stops – an eight-fold increase.

**NOTE: In the earlier Drizzle discussion the word droplet and photon appear to be used interchangeably. But photons are very tiny things and in reality Drizzle’s one droplet per second is really about 2,000 photons per second in case more scientific numbers are desired.

 

***Extra NOTE: There *is* a way to reduce the noise by averaging, even if you didn’t take Dark Frames.