GH2 Can the GH2 do Night Sky Timelapses like this?

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It can hold 2 batteries (in A & B slot), and it can display battery level, but you need to use 1 original Panasonic battery first in order to make it display battery level. Should be available on ebay soon.
 
whats that little cable running from the the gh2 (audio in?) to the battery grip. Does it have xlr's on the other side? That would be sick.

That looks awesome, been wanting a grip for the gh2 forever. great find. Can you post a pic of the other sides we cant see?
 
MalfunctioningHuman said:
Everybody has seen by now the 12800 ISO footage from the hacked GH2. It looks like the sensor is very capable in low light.

That's very impressive, but can the GH2 actually produce good night sky (stars, milky way, planets) photography? Something near the quality that the Canons can produce?

In the legendary words of Cuba Gooding Jr., "Show me the money!"
Click to expand...

I haven't tried wide angle dark sky stuff yet. However, the GH2 has been exceptional for moon and Jupiter shots for me so far. This is a $500 telescope and the camera was attached directly to it with no glass in-between them. I think it is referred to as prime focus.


 
When ever I did my night timelapses ISO was about 1000 and exposure was 30sec per frame .. continuous shooting... (meaning as one 30sec shot ends the next begins... no gaps)... you need at least a 2.8 lens...

Also it's important to mark the lens where it has infinity ... as you'll not be able to focus at night... so you need a lens that has a infinity point .. not an electronic lens.. at 2.8 you've got very little latitude and just slightly off perfect infinity will give you soft images...

And you need at least 300 frames to get a decent animation... that's still only about 12sec worth...

300 x 30sec = 2.5 hrs hours leaving the camera running...

So a 30sec animation will take 6.25 hrs...

Cheers

PS - I'm in PAL so we run 25fps...
 
CHeers Lez... I'm really kind of inspired by this thread and what I've been seeing on the skyscapes project. I"M going to be in Northern NH over Christmas so I"m hoping to get some of this kind of nighttime photography with the new 12mm 1.6 lens.


Can anyone explain the process with the GH2. SPecificially what ISO to use and also what setttings/approach with the camera? Would this be with a bulb type operation? I do already have an intervelometer that I've used and I believe it can trigger lenghts of exposures as well as frequency and amount.


Take care.... thanks
 
I've done most of my timelapses with a 7D... but I can't see why you could not replicate it on a GH1 or GH2...

I recommended you start with ISO 1000 and set to to expose for 30sec per frame...

I use a cheap intervelometer and just lock it so it's set to take one picture after the other...

I find you do not want any time in between exposures... so we're not using any function with the intervelometer just using it as a trigger...

Also I find weighing down the tripod with sand bags can help... rocks can work well in remote locations...

I then use After Effects to import all the still pictures and create a image sequence out of it.. ( I like a little zooming and panning as still pics are way bigger than the 1920 x 1080 HD frame size) ..

At night fogging can be an issue ... but there are so many factors that can effect the end result.. sometimes it can be a bit hit and miss... especially with star shoots... Personally I like the clouds when they pass through...

Also I've fallen asleep and left the 7d out all night and it rained... luckily it's weather sealed...

Cheers
 
Hello Lez!
Normally I use to do TL but never tried night TL. Is not heavy noisy ISO 1000? It is a good aproach and you keep lowering ISO or you are stick with ISO 1000.
I was thinking about the Noise. First I thought: batch procesing in photshop or Camera Raw and make a Topaz de noise treatment and then go to AE.
Or, second thought:
Start in AE and make a Neat Video noise in AE or premier.
What do you think? Did you try? How you aproach to eliminate noise?
 
@mpgxsvcd,

Sorry I lost track of this thread and didn't see your post earlier. That stuff is amazing. the detail in the moon video is incredible!
 
frankoi said:
Hello Lez!
Normally I use to do TL but never tried night TL. Is not heavy noisy ISO 1000? It is a good aproach and you keep lowering ISO or you are stick with ISO 1000.
I was thinking about the Noise. First I thought: batch procesing in photshop or Camera Raw and make a Topaz de noise treatment and then go to AE.
Or, second thought:
Start in AE and make a Neat Video noise in AE or premier.
What do you think? Did you try? How you aproach to eliminate noise?
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Hey man,

While Lez replies to you, just to say that I think denoise is dangerous when you take night sky timelapses. I think the Nikons have been traditionally bad for night sky photography because of the algorithm they used to remove noise interfering with starry skies (it might have been a different manufacturer, not sure about that.)

Since timelapses are basically a stream of pictures, you can experiment easier and more rapidly than with video.

I think Ben Bunch is a member of the forum, but he has some really good images in Flickr that he took with the GH1, including some low light.

Take a look at this:

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This is a shot with 15 second, 3200 ISO, at f/1.7. It doesn't look bad at all!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benbunch/4889554768/

I think there is a setting in the GH1 to remove noise in long term exposures.

Another thing I noticed is that if you start using longer exposure times (over 15/20 seconds) then the stars are not spherical anymore and are deformed.
 
MalfunctioningHuman said:
@mpgxsvcd,

Sorry I lost track of this thread and didn't see your post earlier. That stuff is amazing. the detail in the moon video is incredible!
Click to expand...

Thanks wait till you see the new stuff I am going to post soon. I have been saving all of my space footage up for about 6 months. I am trying to make a tutorial video for Astro Photography with the GH2 and a full spectrum GF1. It was a lot harder than I thought originally to do it right. I should be able to make the video soon though.
 
mpgxsvcd , great vids and the kids reactions are a treat to hear. I did some checking up on that telescope you used but have a question. The scope sells for $299 - you said it was about $500. Do you need a special adapter to hook it up to the GH2 and/or a special stand instead of attaching it to a tripod? Looking forward to see what your next space stuff looks like.
 
dannyjl said:
mpgxsvcd , great vids and the kids reactions are a treat to hear. I did some checking up on that telescope you used but have a question. The scope sells for $299 - you said it was about $500. Do you need a special adapter to hook it up to the GH2 and/or a special stand instead of attaching it to a tripod? Looking forward to see what your next space stuff looks like.
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The original scope that I bought was $500 for both the 4 inch telescope and the ultra-light weight tripod mount. I believe the telescope alone without the mount was just below $300.

That telescope was fantastic for the moon and the larger planets. However, it just wasn’t suited for deep space objects. I needed a faster lens telescope for that. Therefore, I bought an 800mm F4.0 Astro Tech Telescope and a Celestron CG-5 auto tracking mount. That allows me to take up to 4 minute and 16 second images with my fully modified GF1.

This newer telescope and mount are what I am going to base most of my demonstration on. At $1500 the entire is really considered the base price for entry level deep space objects. Most amateur astro photographers spend $1500 or more on their mount alone and they typically have more than $5000 worth of equipment .

I am trying to show how you can get about 80% of the way there for less than 1/3[SUP]rd[/SUP] of the cost.
 
Thanks MFH! Yes it is, there is a setting on GH1 to reduce long exposures noise. I turn it on always. What I think is to denoise a bit, but I´m not sure of do it in the pictures before make the movie in AE or when I make the movie just in AE or premier. I´m not sure wich is the better space to do it! Any idea?
 
mpgxsvcd said:
Thanks wait till you see the new stuff I am going to post soon. I have been saving all of my space footage up for about 6 months. I am trying to make a tutorial video for Astro Photography with the GH2 and a full spectrum GF1. It was a lot harder than I thought originally to do it right. I should be able to make the video soon though.
Click to expand...
Can't wait for this! :)
 
Hola frankoi,

I think that in theory video noise reduction would be better, since the algorithm would have more information (multiple frames) to decide whether something is either a star or just noise. Whereas if you just apply noise reduction frame by frame you might get inconsistent results in the timeline (flickering, etc.) I think experimenting might be your only way to figure out which way is best.

I personally have been impressed with some long exposure stills shot with the GH1 that I saw in Flickr (light painting and that sort of thing) and I am thinking of finding some time to do this myself shortly, which should be fun.

Pues nada, a experimentar! :)
 
Jeje! Buen uso del castellano amigo! Thanks a lot, I want to experiment as soon as posible too. Now I got GH1 and GH2 to experiment. Hope to put something soon on internet!
Thnks for your help Saludos
 
I've been shooting TL with my hacked GH2 for about a year now and I've managed to get some pretty good star shots. In fact, I just posted this thread about my latest TL in the GH13 Footy/Grabs subforum:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?289086-Time-Lapse-Shot-with-GH2-Flow-Motion-v2-02

I use a combination of video and stills depending on the light level and cloud movement. If it's daytime and the clouds are moving fast then I use video. This is because the GH2 takes ~2 seconds to shoot & write a full frame RAW photo. That means the quickest I can shoot photos is about once every 3 seconds. If I try to shoot a photo every 2 seconds then my buffer gets full and the camera starts skipping shots. This only matters if the clouds are moving very fast (as they are in my most recent TL).

For night time TL I've been shooting at 3200 ISO with shutter speeds between 1sec to 15sec depending on the available light (moon, city, cars, etc.). I have the Long Shutter Noise Reduction enabled so after every shot the camera takes an identical shot with the shutter closed and then subtracts the noise from the second shot from the first shot to give a cleaner image. This means that if I have a 15 second shutter speed then after the second black shot is taken it's been ~30seconds since the first shot started. Then the GH2 takes ~1sec to record the full frame RAW photo. So with 15 second shutters the quickest interval between shots is ~32 seconds. This is fine with a wide lens because the star movement is minimal but with a long lens the star movement between shots would be too much for a smooth TL effect.

Here's a short TL I did with 15sec exposures and a ~32sec interval using the Olympus 12mm f2.0 (at 3200 ISO for the stars at the end). These were RAW photos processed in Photoshop to reduce noise:


I didn't mean to say so much in this post. I really just wanted to say shooting a TL with a GH2 is entirely possible. You just have to experiment a little... which means a lot of time spent listening to the car radio while the camera is outside doing its thing all night :)
 
Thank you for sharing this, Benjobe! That timelapse is great. I guess it's all stills and not video because the clouds weren't moving too fast as you mentioned.

I got to say that the starry sky at the end looks really nice, considering that you must have been in a location with a little light pollution.

Also, I wasn't aware that 15 second exposures with long exposure noise reduction equates to roughly 1 exposure every 32 seconds because I didn't know of the mechanics of that process (namely, that it requires a shot with the shutter closed with the same exposure in order to subtract the noise.)

Listening to the car radio while the camera is performing its magic doesn't sound too bad at all! Kind of like driving to Lovers' Lane with your GH2. ;)
 
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