HDR Timelapse - Advanced Bracket and Intervalometer Skipping Exposures

Started by 17barski, May 07, 2018, 12:55:25 PM

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17barski

I've searched everywhere but still can't figure out where I've went wrong, I'd greatly appreciate any help.

I went out and shot a HDR timelapse of my car in the sunset. Manual mode with everything fixed. Advanced bracket feature set to 5 frames at 2 EV increments with the sequence 0-+--++ (1/50,1/200,1/13,1/800,1/3) and Intervalometer feature set to 10 secs. All seemed fine until I got home and realized the frames don't follow the exposure order.

Essentially I have a folder with 500 pics which in my head means I should have 100 pics at 1/50, 100 at 1/200 and so on. But for some reason I have 179 pics at 1/50 and only 10 at 1/200s, the other shutter speed are more or less around the 100 pics mark.

I'm dying trying to figure this out, pls help, ty

Walter Schulz

Cam type? Build version?
Zip contents of ML\Settings directory. Upload it somewhere and link file here.


Walter Schulz

Build #167. Outdated.
Use latest nightly build (#216) for your cam and retry.

17barski

Thanks, I'll update. It's just strange because it used to work fine before and it drives me a little crazy about what may have caused it.

Walter Schulz

Issue won't go away after update. Your settings won't work together. Will reply soon with details.

17barski


Walter Schulz

Check your pics first. Are there any pics where exposure time is near or above 1s?

17barski

The pictures that get closest to 1 sec are at shutter speed of 1/3. No pictures are above 1 sec. I've attached a snapshot of the folder with the images and their exif settings. The highlighted first 5 pics follow the order 0 - + -- ++ and after that it's just a mess.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13hj6XeGYayun9dMiSJUJ-2Y5cLVlQZlC/view?usp=sharing

Walter Schulz

It's up to a1ex or dmilligan to have a word about "safe distance" within intervalometer.
I suppose you already know "Take a pic every" does not refer to the duration between shutter closed/mirror down and beginning of next picture. It's like pressing shutter button every x seconds. I supposed an issue here first but not so sure now. EDIT: You haven't been in Liveview mode and AF was disabled, right?

Would you mind trying to use same settings again (with latest build) and - if issue occurs again - retrying with "Take a pic every = 2 sec"?

Because there are issues with shutter button and intervalometer (+ FRSP/bracketing) I try not to use Start Trigger "Take a pic". Most the time I use "Leave Menu" or Half Shutter (working with tripod and MF and remote trigger).

Additional 2 cents: 4 EV is not my cup of tea. I go with lower steppings. YMMV

17barski

Thanks for your help. Yeah sure I'll update my camera to latest build and re-run it with the same settings and report out.

Just to confirm, so the issue was the intervalometer timer increment I've set? The 10 secs was too short and did not allow my camera to take 5 bracketed exposures in that period which resulted in skipped frames, correct?

Also if that is the case, I just did a quick test with 5 bracketed images and the intervalometer timer of 1 sec for a total of 3 shutter presses and it all worked fine (15 pics with correct exposure stops). This goes against the logic, because taking 5 bracketed images takes more than 1 sec.

The only explanation I can think of is the camera was "busy" and ML was attempting to press the shutter button and had to wait for camera to finish, but then the same should have happened when I did my timelapse (unless maybe ML managed to squeeze through between the "busy" stages which caused skipped frames).