Rocket Launch Photography with Magic Lantern

Started by NeonHeatDisease, August 17, 2018, 05:57:46 AM

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NeonHeatDisease

Hey all,

I've used Magic Lantern for years and years for the intervalometer and a variety of other features. When I started shooting rocket launches as media, I was pleasently surprised to learn that Magic Lantern had an audio remote trigger that worked nearly perfectly for just such a thing.

Typically for rocket photography you place the cameras 24 hours before hand. You cant be as close to the rocket as they are during launch because it would kill you, so you kind of just have to set them and cross your fingers.

Some people use timer-tiggers. Some people use expensive audio triggers set to a high treshold. I use a variety of methods including Magic Lantern with some tape over my cameras to minimize false positives.

Here's two photos of rockets that I've been able to capture thanks to Magic Lantern. Bare with me, still figuring out posting images here.









reddeercity

Nice job ! One of the best example of using magic lantern for photography on a 60D yet  8)

Kharak

Very nice. Motion Detect is also a great feature for a variety of situations.
once you go raw you never go back

CliffBel

Insanely good looking photos. You must have spent a lot of time on those, Neon. Great work!

NeonHeatDisease

Thanks everyone. Here's some of my latest shots using this setup. The last Delta II rocket launching ICESat-2 into orbit.









Would it be non-trivial to change the maximum number in shooting preferences to a number more than 9? This camera caught ignition, which none of my others did, but only fired the maximum of 9 shots. If it had fired say, 20-30, I'd have gotten even better photos. For whatever reason, ignition is enough to set off the camera, but sustained firing of the rocket does not appear to be enough to trigger it. Thoughts?

a1ex

It's trivial; might even work if you edit the config file directly.

"ignition is enough to set off the camera, but sustained firing of the rocket does not appear to be enough to trigger it."

Guess: ML might consider it "backround noise"; the audio trigger is looking for sharp peaks above the average over last few seconds.