Beamshot settings
- Thread starter twdant
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I just shoot it on auto...and then adjust it as needed to look like it did in real life.
I find it helps a lot to shoot few control shots with no light first, to see what the scene looks like w/o your lights on it...essentially, how the camera sees the ambient light. That gives me an idea of how much MORE I see is from the LIGHTS rather than what I'd have seen anyway with just the camera setting I have. It also allows me to see the size/brightness of lights in the background, like a distant street light, etc....to help calibrate two comparative shots later...if the background lights look brighter on one, its probably exposed longer, and I can adjust it to make the known lights the same, etc.
I also shoot a flash shot or two, to get the colors with the camera flash, so when I compare the colors for the light's rendering of the scene, I have a baseline, etc.
If I had a camera with manual controls instead of a crappy point and shoot, I migth change the above somewhat, but I'd keep all the control shots, as they really help when going from the camera screen to the computer monitor...big changes with the added resolution, etc.
A TRIPOD is very important to mount the camera on...shake at slow exposures is bad even from just pressing the shutter (I use the time delay function to avoid touching it, etc...)
For throwers, it also helps to have a way to hold them steady as well...as with a few second exposure, with even a tiny wobble in the light, it can spread the perceived beam picture out, changing the way it really looked.
TEEJ's suggestion of a tripod is very helpful, it's very hard to get good beamshots without one.
If your camera has full manual controls, you'll definitely want to use those. Using Auto, the camera will usually raise your ISO a bunch to account for the darkness, which will make your pictures grainy. Ideally you can set your ISO to 100 and adjust the aperture and shutter speed to get something that looks good. You can either try to match what you see with your eyes for each individual lights, or if you plan to do a lot of reviews you can choose some "standard" settings that you will use for every light. If you choose that second route, you'll want to standardize shots at several shutter speeds, otherwise you'll find that super bright lights wash out your shots and dimmer lights don't show up at all.
As for picking the shutter and aperture, just remember:
-A larger aperture lets in more light and small depth of field (things in front of or behind your target will look blurry), and a smaller aperture lets in less light and will have a large depth of field (everything in focus). Be aware that because of the aperture naming conventions, smaller numbers mean a larger aperture (f/3 is a larger aperture than f/6)
-A longer shutter speed will let more light in, but will require your camera and light to be held very still. A shorter shutter speed will let less light in, but be much crisper.
-You might also have the option to adjust EV. I usually leave mine at zero because it tends to wash out the shot, lowering the contrast.
If you like, I've got a "cheat sheet" jpg with this info on it that I send you.
If your camera has full manual controls, you'll definitely want to use those. Using Auto, the camera will usually raise your ISO a bunch to account for the darkness, which will make your pictures grainy. Ideally you can set your ISO to 100 and adjust the aperture and shutter speed to get something that looks good. You can either try to match what you see with your eyes for each individual lights, or if you plan to do a lot of reviews you can choose some "standard" settings that you will use for every light. If you choose that second route, you'll want to standardize shots at several shutter speeds, otherwise you'll find that super bright lights wash out your shots and dimmer lights don't show up at all.
As for picking the shutter and aperture, just remember:
-A larger aperture lets in more light and small depth of field (things in front of or behind your target will look blurry), and a smaller aperture lets in less light and will have a large depth of field (everything in focus). Be aware that because of the aperture naming conventions, smaller numbers mean a larger aperture (f/3 is a larger aperture than f/6)
-A longer shutter speed will let more light in, but will require your camera and light to be held very still. A shorter shutter speed will let less light in, but be much crisper.
-You might also have the option to adjust EV. I usually leave mine at zero because it tends to wash out the shot, lowering the contrast.
If you like, I've got a "cheat sheet" jpg with this info on it that I send you.
Yeah, I found that the exposure program for the camera makes the determination as to if full manual is better or not.
On my old point and shoot, a Nikon S630, it didn't HAVE any manual over ride options...and the auto setting had a hard time taking clear shots even with a tripod. On my new P&S, a Canon S100, the faster lens and full manual over ride options open up a lot of better solutions.
Ironically, I found that the new camera didn't NEED to go manual, as the auto pics were sharp and clear compared to the best the fuzzy Nikon could typically muster under low light conditions.
To make comparisons easier, I shoot some control shots with the flash, and of the dark...to see what the camera "sees" without the lights blazing.
As I might be beam shooting a ZL600 and an Olight SR90 on the same night, I would not be able to use the same manual exposures anyway....and the full auto/flash off setting works great.
After the shots, as I have the controls telling me what the sky/background, etc SHOULD look like, I can tell how much of what I see is the air glowing from the beam dispersing, and how much was ambient light, and how much of what I see in each shot is from the FLASHLIGHT, etc.
Where I live, there's a ton of crap in the air...so the beam itself typically looks like a dowel of light going down range, and, There's a glowing haze that is visible around it...it makes the sky look brighter in the shots and in real life.
Examples from the other night - A small tight thrower vs a floody behemouth:
Crelant 7G5 V2 (Stock/Non-Aspheric) at ~ 400+ Yards
Lambda Light Varapower Turbo V2, De-Domed at ~ 400+ Yards
Nitecore Tiny Monster TM11
Deerelight, Aspheric
Note the light on the round tree at that range...and how the Crelant lights it up better than the $300+ VPT, De-domed light could.
Notice the 2,000 L beam on the Tiny Monster didn't show even half way to the tree, but did flood a large area nontheless?
Notice the Deerelight Aspheric put an even MORE concentrated beam on the tree, and NOTHING else?
😀
The above shots look like what I saw that night.
Notice the close up items on the VPT shot are brighter, and on the Crelant 7G5 V2, closer items are dimmer or dark. You can clearly see the light rain crossing the beam in the VPT shot, and the proximal telephone pole/fence lighting is brighter in the VPT shot...but that the round tree way off in the distance is more brightly illuminated by the Crelant than with the VPT.
So the light from the small thrower is shown as hitting the distant target with a concerntrated stream of lumens, and the light from the large floodier VPT, despite being dedomed, is spread out on more nearby targets, so the light finally reaching the distant tree is far more diluted....but covering more terrain.
I see the tree itself better with the Crelant..but the VPT also shows me the telephone poles and path to the side of the tree, etc....and the VPT is like the TM11 on steroids, but having a visible hot spot.
So, with these settings, I can compare the beams pretty well, and make out the nuances of each beam's properties, and advantages and disadvantages.
On my old point and shoot, a Nikon S630, it didn't HAVE any manual over ride options...and the auto setting had a hard time taking clear shots even with a tripod. On my new P&S, a Canon S100, the faster lens and full manual over ride options open up a lot of better solutions.
Ironically, I found that the new camera didn't NEED to go manual, as the auto pics were sharp and clear compared to the best the fuzzy Nikon could typically muster under low light conditions.
To make comparisons easier, I shoot some control shots with the flash, and of the dark...to see what the camera "sees" without the lights blazing.
As I might be beam shooting a ZL600 and an Olight SR90 on the same night, I would not be able to use the same manual exposures anyway....and the full auto/flash off setting works great.
After the shots, as I have the controls telling me what the sky/background, etc SHOULD look like, I can tell how much of what I see is the air glowing from the beam dispersing, and how much was ambient light, and how much of what I see in each shot is from the FLASHLIGHT, etc.
Where I live, there's a ton of crap in the air...so the beam itself typically looks like a dowel of light going down range, and, There's a glowing haze that is visible around it...it makes the sky look brighter in the shots and in real life.
Examples from the other night - A small tight thrower vs a floody behemouth:
Crelant 7G5 V2 (Stock/Non-Aspheric) at ~ 400+ Yards
Lambda Light Varapower Turbo V2, De-Domed at ~ 400+ Yards
Nitecore Tiny Monster TM11
Deerelight, Aspheric
Note the light on the round tree at that range...and how the Crelant lights it up better than the $300+ VPT, De-domed light could.
Notice the 2,000 L beam on the Tiny Monster didn't show even half way to the tree, but did flood a large area nontheless?
Notice the Deerelight Aspheric put an even MORE concentrated beam on the tree, and NOTHING else?
😀
The above shots look like what I saw that night.
Notice the close up items on the VPT shot are brighter, and on the Crelant 7G5 V2, closer items are dimmer or dark. You can clearly see the light rain crossing the beam in the VPT shot, and the proximal telephone pole/fence lighting is brighter in the VPT shot...but that the round tree way off in the distance is more brightly illuminated by the Crelant than with the VPT.
So the light from the small thrower is shown as hitting the distant target with a concerntrated stream of lumens, and the light from the large floodier VPT, despite being dedomed, is spread out on more nearby targets, so the light finally reaching the distant tree is far more diluted....but covering more terrain.
I see the tree itself better with the Crelant..but the VPT also shows me the telephone poles and path to the side of the tree, etc....and the VPT is like the TM11 on steroids, but having a visible hot spot.
So, with these settings, I can compare the beams pretty well, and make out the nuances of each beam's properties, and advantages and disadvantages.
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madecov
Flashlight Enthusiast
I'm going to try and do some beam shot stills and a few video shots using my Nikon D7000 this weekend. I have another board member who is going to present to help.
Hopefully I won't have too many issues.
BTW TEEJ,
Flickr strips the exif data from the image so I couldn't even get a base line from your photo's
Hopefully I won't have too many issues.
BTW TEEJ,
Flickr strips the exif data from the image so I couldn't even get a base line from your photo's
EV_007
Enlightened
Nice beamshots. Gotta love that Derelight.
I find that the real world outdoor beamshots very helpful when determining light ouput, especially when shown alongside known lights.
I find that the real world outdoor beamshots very helpful when determining light ouput, especially when shown alongside known lights.
BVH
Flashaholic
I typically use F3.5 and between 5 & 6 seconds. When I get the shots back on my pc in Photoshoppe in full resolution/size, they look representative of what I saw. But then they are reduced to 800 x 600 for insertion into CPF and they no longer look correct. Very underwhelming. I have not experimented yet to find out how much more exposure is needed to make up for the size reduction.
EV_007
Enlightened
I haven't noticed overall exposure loss when resizing down an image. Maybe some fine detail is lost, thus appearing to lose overall brightness?
Walterk
Enlightened
Depends what you are after. Jose Miguel did some photographing for Ledlenser.
Look at the stars, must have been quite some exposuretime, say 15 minutes? Busted.
Look at the stars, must have been quite some exposuretime, say 15 minutes? Busted.
