I have been trying to figure out how to do some time lapse stuff with my D90 and it has been a little bit of a challenge.  The D90 is not really set up to do time lapse without some form of external device and, because of Nikon’s unique accessory hook up it really narrows the options in terms of external devices as well.  So far I have discovered three ways to do time lapse with my D90:

- External intervalometer to time and trigger the shutter release.  Looks like a normal cable release and plugs into the unique GPS plug on the side of the camera.  Pros: portable, probably easy to use if you get a decent model, knockoffs are readily available for some reasonable prices on eBay (though the quality may be questionable).  Cons: at this time I am unaware of an official Nikon model (which would be overpriced anyways), the D90′s rare input jack for the GPS makes it difficult to use models for other cameras (there are some sites out there that will help you with a somewhat hardware hack, but you need a device with the right jack on it already that you can cannibalize for the jack), and it is external, the method using the camera’s firmware is VERY limiting.  For other cameras people have created intervalometers using a TI-83 scientific calculator.  This may work for the D90, but again you would need the appropriate cable.

- Manipulating the camera’s firmware.  Pros: on camera, no need to carry around extras.  Cons:  very limited in what you can do.  In the ‘Shooting/Display’ you can set the ‘CL mode shooting speed’ to 1 second and if the shutter is held down (preferably with a cable release) the camera will take one frame a second until 99 photos have been taken.  If the shutter speed is longer than 1 second it will take intervals longer than 1 second, but otherwise that is the longest delay, which is not very good.  Also, 99 photos is not nearly pictures enough for most time lapse situations.

- Camera Control Pro is the Nikon software for tethered shooting.  This not-so-polished and overly expensive software allows you to control many aspects of your camera, can provide a live view, and acts as a remote trigger.  In the ‘Camera’ menu there is an option for ‘Time Lapse Photography’ that lets you set the intervals and number of shots (or ‘until stopped’).  I wish I knew the USB interface as I would love to have an app for my android phone that could act as an intervalometer.  Pros: works well as an intervalometer, has some cool other features like live view and exposure control from your computer, and saves photos directly to your computer so no worries about filling your card or transferring tonnes of photos later.  Cons: Tethered to a laptop so it is bulky, proprietary and expensive.

In the end I used Nikon’s Camera Control Pro to control the time lapse on my D90 while tethered to my laptop by USB, though if I like doing time lapse I will have to find a better way in the future.

My initial experiments with time lapse are nothing special.  One serious issue is camera shake which is very noticeable in both.  The D90 does not allow you to lock up the mirror while shooting (at least I can’t figure it out, just for cleaning and you can’t shoot using that setting) so when the mirror snaps up it shakes the camera (I have it on a Gorillapod) and causes noticeable movement in the videos.  A sturdier tripod and head may alleviate this problem.

The first is of me shoveling the driveway.  The angle isn’t great, but it was my first attempt.  The photos are either 1 second apart and played back at 1 frame ever 0.15 seconds (about 6.6 frames per second).  There were 365 photos used.

The second is just of some clouds moving away from the sun.  Taken at 1 photo per second and played back at 1 photo every 0.05 seconds (20 frames per second).  In this one there were 1300 pictures used.  In the future for clouds I will use a longer interval and hopefully the clouds will be a little more dynamic.  I was also hoping for more traffic on the path.

I assembled these using Windows Live Movie Maker 2011.  I just browsed for all of the photos, under ‘Video Tools”, “Edit” I set the duration to the desired time per frame (experimented until I got what I liked) and in the ‘Home’ menu I saved the movie (I used some custom settings to get it to a reasonable size for the web) and that was it.  The 1300 pictures did slow my computer down quite a bit, but I have an older laptop.

I will play with this technique a little bit more in the future.  There is a lot of cool time lapse stuff out there already, but it is kinda fun, but a little bit time consuming.

This one goes back to assignment 2.  We were out for a walk in the Stony Swamp area of the Ottawa greenbelt and about 5 minutes in we came across two deer munching on some bird feed.  I wasn’t really ready for it, but I did get a few shots.  I wish I was at a higher ISO so I could have shot at a faster shutter speed and eliminated some of the motion blur.  It was a fairly overcast day on top of being in a densely wooded area.

ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/160 sec.

This is the largest aperture for my 18-200 mm lens at this zoom level (200 mm).  I wish it was faster, but don’t we all.  The reason for using the largest aperture is twofold.  One reason is that it was not a well lit shot so using the widest available aperture permits a faster shutter shutter speed and the other has to do with the topic of assignment 2, it provides shallow depth of field.  I a densely wooded area there is a lot going on in the background and foreground and using a wide open aperture to get a shallow depth of field helps to isolate the main subject from the background trees and brush.

The new bridge at the Hoover Dam.  Opened to traffic the day we were there.  I really wish we had a chance to walk out onto the bridge.  I bet the view from there is amazing.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/200 sec.

The bridge and canyon here are so large that everything is essentially at an infinite focal distance and a who cares aperture applies.  An aperture of f/8 provided for a fast enough shutter speed on a gloomy day, but gives just enough depth of field.

We went to Vegas for our honeymoon, but I didn’t take a lot of pictures.  It was a very interesting place and there are plenty of photos to be had, but I really just took a lot of tourist type shots.

This one is of of the New York New York hotel and casino.

ISO 200, f/11, 1/640 sec.

This shot was taken with a focal length of 60 mm and though the statue of liberty and the empire state building replicas are not that close together, they were both far enough away from me that they might as well be at infinity.  I used f/11 so that i was leaning to the deeper depth of field side and they would both be in sharp focus, but for all intents and purposes this is a who cares aperture.

The first two assignments dealt with deep depth of field and shallow depth of field.  Small apertures (f/16 and smaller) create a deep depth of field and allow the picture to tell a story relating things that are close by to objects in the distant background.  Wide apertures (around f/5.6 and wider) isolate objects at a certain distance from the lens and blur everything else, giving the photo a singular theme.  But what should you do if everything in the frame is about the same distance away, say something (maybe a leaf) lying on the ground, or a landscape where everything is way off in the distance (everything is essentially an infinite distance from the lens)?  What aperture do you use?

In Understanding Exposure Bryan Peterson calls these “Who Cares?” apertures.  It doesn’t really matter from a depth of field point of view which aperture you use (from a depth of field point of view) when everything is the same distance away, but there are other considerations as well.  The main consideration when depth of field no longer matters is sharpness.  Lenses have a sweet spot when it comes to aperture and it is usually around f/8 or f/11.  Wider apertures tend to scatter light and thus reduce sharpness.

Another way sharpness is affected by wide apertures is actually influenced by the depth of field.  As discussed in the shallow depth of field assignment the margin for error on your focus distance right is quite small so if you don’t focus just right for the photo where everything is the same distance away, your entire photo will be blurry, or at least not as sharp as it could be.  Going the other way, a very narrow aperture (with a deep depth of field) will give you a lot of leeway with the focus but it often reduces the amount of light getting in to the point where you now need a slow shutter speed.  It may get to the point that you can no longer use a tripod.  So, the solution to these two problems is to use an aperture somewhere in the middle, say f/8 or f/11.

You would need to experiment to determine the actually sweet spot for your lens, but it usually somewhere around f/8 or f/11.  Some examples of situations where these “Who cares?” apertures are used are things like portraits against a wall, something on the ground or hanging on a wall, a sign, a landscape with no foreground, etc.

The Assignment

The assignment for this one should be obvious.  Take some pictures using a middle of the road aperture where the depth of field doesn’t really matter and the intent is for the entire photo to be sharp.  Make sure it makes creative sense to do so.

I know I have some photos the meet this criteria already so I may look for some examples from my previous work as well as going out to get some new shots.

Click here to see all of the assignments.

Click here for the results so far from this assignment.

For anyone who stops by, The lack of posts lately comes from preparations for my wedding this weekend.  We are off to Vegas for a few days afterwards and I hope to have my camera out there, at least for a little bit.  Hopefully I can get some good shots.

Every now and then I find an article related to the current assignment and I feel like I should link to it, just for fun.

An article posted on istockphoto.com called minimizing greatness discusses wide open apertures and shallow depths of field.  It mentions that sometimes you want to blur the background to obscurity and isolate your subject and at other times you may want to blur the background and/or foreground a little bit so that the subject is in sharp focus but the fore and background are still recognizable enough to provide some context for the main subject.

There are plenty of articles out there on the subject of different aperture sizes and the corresponding depths of field, but this one came up at a relevant time.

A few more pictures from the farm to wrap up that set.

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/1250 sec.  Just another with an extreme aperture that completely blurs the background and isolates the main subject while giving no information about the location.  In this case the shallow depth of field is great for minimizing the distractions.  This is really a singular theme photo made using a singular theme aperture.

ISO 200, f/3.5, 1/125 sec.  A slightly smaller, yet still an isolation aperture isolates the main apple from the background leaves and apples.  The highlights in the background take on the polygon shape of the aperture mechanism in the lens.  With a slightly deeper depth of field it is easier get the main subject in focus.

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/500 sec.  Another extreme aperture was used to isolate the main flower.  The other flowers and buds are close enough that they are recognizable but don’t distract from the main subject.  The ground in the background is really out focus and not too distracting.

Continuing around the country house I came across this birdhouse on a post.  I decided to try out a couple different apertures and I wish I had kept going and taken it to the extreme small apertures for a full comparison, but these two give a good comparison of two somewhat different apertures.  I should have bumped up the ISO and taken one with a story telling aperture (my 50 mm prime goes down to f/22 which would have made the background much clearer).

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/3200 sec.

ISO 200, f/11, 1/80 sec.

The first photo has a very narrow depth of field and almost completely isolates the birdhouse.  The DOF is in fact so shallow that even parts of the birdhouse are noticeably out of focus.  The background is so blurred that it is unrecognizable and the birdhouse could really be anywhere.  At this large aperture the spot highlights in the trees (often called bokeh) take on some interesting characteristics (a topic for another time).

the smaller aperture of the second photo leads to a much deeper depth of field and though the background is still blurred it is much more recognizable (and some may say more distracting from the birdhouse).

It is not always necessary to go to the extreme of f/1.8 to isolate the subject, especially if you want the entire subject to be in sharp focus.  Perhaps f/2.8 or f/4 would have been a good alternative that significantly blurred the background but kept the entire birdhouse in focus.  If the desire of this photo is to show off the rustic birdhouse then the first photo here is a good aperture to use.  If the birdhouse was in a unique or interesting setting then the smaller aperture (wider or deeper depth of field) would be more suitable to show off the birdhouse and its surroundings.

In this case i feel that the background isn’t very interesting and distracts from the main subject.  I like the first photo better.  I actually feel that the blurring of the extremities of the birdhouse due to the extreme aperture setting adds some interesting depth to the photo.

Another from the country house.  This is rusty.

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/1600 sec.

The results of this one are slightly different than the last one because even though the same aperture (the fastest my 50 mm prime will go) was used, the background isn’t as blurred as it was with the birdhouse.  This is because my subject, rusty, is further away from the camera than the birdhouse was and the ratio of the distance to the subject to the distance to the background is not as extreme.  This means that you won’t get the same extreme blurring of the background and you can still make out what the background is.  If I wanted to blur the background beyond recognition I would need to move closer to the subject, and therefore see less of it (with the same focal length).

The shallow depth of field works here because the focus of this photo is the horse sculpture, not the house.  The blurred house gives a hint as to the sculpture’s environment, but if it were in clear focus the horse would not stand out as much.