Sunrise / Sunset Magic Lantern Settings (taking photos / NO VIDEO)

[McTell]

Hey,

I want to do a time lapse with ML using Photos (because I wanna have camera motion in post). Does anyone of you know what settings are best for that?

Shutter = variable (according to light)
ISO = 100?
Time between shots?

etc?

Are there any additional functions within ML that should be used?

So far,
McTell

[Francis]

For a fast changing, cloudy sunset, somewhere around 10s intervals should work fine. Try to get your shutter speed longer than 1s, either by stopping down your aperture or using a ND filter.

[McTell]

Okay,

This is what I did:

----Camera Settings----
- shoting in Raw
- ISO 100
- f12

-------ML Settings-------
Intervalometer:
o Take a pic every: 20 s
o Start after: 5 s
o Stop after 400 shots

Bulb/Focus Ramping:
o Auto ExpoRamp: Sunrise
o MAX. RampSpeed: 0.010 EV/shot
o MAN. ExporRamp: OFF
o Man. FocusRamp: Off

When working with Bulb Ramping, I need to choose "a well-exposed photo and tonal range to meter for." etc... So when I'm in the middle of the night I just shoot a long exposre picture of something that looks good to me and I take that as a reference?

Do you understand me? Are my settings fine? I wanna start when it's dark and wanna go through blue hour and 30 mins after sunrise... is my rampspeed fine for that?

Thank you guys!
McTell


EDIT:
I wondering:

Quick start:
1. Take a picture of your scene. You will use it to say: "I want my timelapse to be exposed like this picture".
2. Enable Bulb Ramping and Intervalometer.
3. Leave the camera still while ML runs a calibration step:
Make sure you have a static and well-lit scene (any static scene which does not require long exposure should be fine).
After calibration, you should get a nice S-curve on the screen.
4. Now you will have to say what tone range to meter for (i.e. highlights, midtones...). Follow the wizard:
Use arrow keys to select your reference picture (which you just took).
Use the main dial to select the tone range to meter for. You can't perfectly match two images just by varying one parameter (exposure), so you have to choose what's important for you in this picture.
For lowest flicker, meter for midtones (choose the 50th percentile, i.e. median). Leave some headroom for highlights (underexpose a bit).
If highlights are important, meter for them (choose 80th percentile for example). You will get more flicker; shoot RAW to remove it easier in post.
The algorithm works best when brightness is close to 50% (try not to choose extreme values for it).
When you are ready to start, press SET.
5. Sit back and relax

Step 1. Clear
Step 2. Clear
Step 3. Make sure you have static and well-lit scence? But I'm shooting in the dark? So I'm ignoring that point, right?
Step 4. What I did the last time was taking the picture of Step 1, that look good to me (A very dark scence, before the sun was even rose! I got the s-curve?

Rest is clear I think...

[Francis]

How did it turn out?

[a1ex]

3. calibrate it at home, or bring a flashlight.

4. choose a normally exposed picture, not a black one.

[McTell]

How did it turn out?

It was a super foggy day. Was hoping the sun would be able to kill the fog... but that was note the case... ended up with 5 m see distance fog ...

3. calibrate it at home, or bring a flashlight.

4. choose a normally exposed picture, not a black one.

3. But issn't the calibration step for let the camera see how much the exp. will change during a cerain amount of time? I cannot flash that entire area, its a big square...

4. Thats what I did ; )

[a1ex]

3. no, it's only for translating brightness to EV (it's reverse engineering the picture style on the fly).

[McTell]

Weird,

I actually shot in M, fixed the apature and unscrew the lens (EF-S) so that apature remains same, but I got some massive flickering this time... already applied MSU Deflicker on VirtualDub.

See the first result here:
http://youtu.be/yd1bdtMUL8g

Right now im sorting out - manually - the picture that have the biggest exp. difference... maybe that will help...

Are the any values in MSU Deflicker that I should edit? I used the default settings...

[a1ex]

You had shutter speeds faster than 1 second.

[McTell]

You had shutter speeds faster than 1 second.

fuck thats true... i was at aperture 16... but was not safe enough... i really need to get an nd filter... is there anything i can do in post,else?

[a1ex]

If you have shot RAW, you can deflicker; if not... not.

[McTell]

If you have shot RAW, you can deflicker; if not... not.

I shot in Raw... there are tons of deflicker methods ... which one you mean?

thanks!

btw... Should I've taken a picture of the sunrise one day before the time lapse shoting as a reference picture? I'm still confused with the bulb ramp settings....

EDIT: Removing pictures manually was shit... still flicker ...

[John-Jo]

For de-flickering time-lapse I highly recommend LR Timelapse. Need light room of course, but awesome. http://lrtimelapse.com/