Timelapse Question

[dedzyyy]

Hi all, bit of a noob here.
I've been a very spoilt boy this Christmas and been bought a Nikon D3200 and a GoPro Hero 4 Silver (with the touch screen!).

I've been playing about with timelapses as when I go to Iceland in March, I want to make a video from go pro footage and timelapses of their wonderful night skies.

Now the GoPro is obviously super easy and I've had some great results, however the Nikon is A LOT more difficult.


Last night, we had a bit of snow fall in my part of the UK so I decided to leave my D3200 outside (in a waterproof bag) with a shutter timer and a battery eliminator.

Somehow, when I plugged in my camera to my mac this morning, I found that every other photo was wildly underexposed.

My settings are as follows...

Timer set to 30s exposures, no interval, all night.

Camera set to bulb mode

Image quality - fine jpeg (I seem to have trouble with raw with my mac :S )

Image size - large

White Balance - Auto

ISO - 100

Manual focus (I probably could've done a bit better with this! )



Can anyone help with why this has happened?

And any criticism that would help my night time photos look better would be great!

Thanks!
Lee

 

[WayneF]

I don't understand your situation.. you said timer set to 30 seconds, shutter on bulb, no interval. But there must have been some interval, I just don't understand its timing mode.

I cannot see that this is applicable, except that your problem does match the classic symptoms.

To photography, the concept of a 30 second shutter is that the shutter is necessarily actually 32 seconds. It has to be 32 seconds because of the concept of 2x stops, 1 second, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. Time your 30 second shutter once, and it will be 32 seconds.

This gives interval timers much trouble, because a 32 second shutter cannot work every 30 seconds. Try a 33 second interval for a so-called 30 second shutter.

Whether this is your case or not, I am unable to know. But there had to be some interval, the timer must have been timing both? I just don't know any details.

 

[Eyelight]

Can you add the exposure settings or upload two photos with EXIF intact?

Not sure I follow the timer info. Was the setup intended to take successive 30s exposures with no time interval between exposures??

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

This gives interval timers much trouble, because a 32 second shutter cannot work every 30 seconds. Try a 33 second interval for a so-called 30 second shutter.

Whether this is your case or not, I am unable to know. But there had to be some interval, the timer must have been timing both? I just don't know any details.

Actually I think it will take even more time because the shot has to process first before it can fire again. I know when I take a 30 second exposure it take a long time to process. like 10 seconds or more sometimes. I am shooting in RAW so it would take more time

 

[Eyelight]

Actually I think it will take even more time because the shot has to process first before it can fire again. I know when I take a 30 second exposure it take a long time to process. like 10 seconds or more sometimes. I am shooting in RAW so it would take more time

I was thinking along the same lines. Just timed mine after 30s exposure. RAW and JPEG fine/large took right at 30 seconds to process with NR on. JPEG fine/large took about 1 second with NR off.

 

[WayneF]

Actually I think it will take even more time because the shot has to process first before it can fire again. I know when I take a 30 second exposure it take a long time to process. like 10 seconds or more sometimes. I am shooting in RAW so it would take more time

A slow memory card might struggle on large files, but it writes during the next 30 seconds.

But long exposure Noise Reduction doubles the shutter time (takes as much time again as the shutter).