Long Exposure Day Time Photography

While planning for a Long Exposure Daylight Photography workshop I found remote triggering to be artificially difficult.

Using "WiFi remote" app on your phone, completely takes over the phone, preventing the use of a timer, and disabled ISO64 on my D850.

As a result, I decided to use Exposure stacking.

The setup to take the photo is super easy:

Set camera on a tripod, in aperture mode with appropriate depth of focus.  Use ISO for fine adjustment of Exposure time.

Camera must have long exposure NR turned off

Long exposure target exposure time between 1 and 8 seconds.  

If your target is 5 min, that's 300 photos at 1 second.

Target between 4 and 8 seconds per photo.  

Its best to use a N1000 (i.e. 3 stop ND filter) alone.  (multiple filters cause vignetting).

8 seconds Exposure time should be:

1/125 for ND1000

1/1000 for ND1000+ND8

Camera should be on tripod, AF on, VS off

Take the photo and check histogram.

Put the ND filter(s) on, turn off AF

Take another shot and check histogram and vignetting.

Start interval intervalometer.

Nikon 850d has minimum time for internal intervalometer delay of .5 seconds. (750d is 1 sec).

With a remote shutter you can just leave it down, and it will take photo after photo.

For Processing:

download imagemagick

https://imagemagick.org/index.php

put each series in a directory, pay attention to only include 8sec shots.

run imagemagick on the command line

"C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.1.0-Q16-HDRI/magick.exe" *.NEF -evaluate-sequence mean OUT_mean.TIF

"C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.1.0-Q16-HDRI/magick.exe" *.NEF -evaluate-sequence median OUT_median.TIF

"C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.1.0-Q16-HDRI/magick.exe" -resize 25% -delay 20 -loop 0 *.JPG OUT_gif.gif

 

Cheap Filament problems and advantages

When I started 3d printing (Prusa i3 m3), I bought a lot of cheap filament.

I printed a roll of cheap black ABS ($10/roll on amazon), and found my printer didn't work anymore.  The cause was a significantly expanded nozzle.

New Rule...Have lots of spare cheap brass nozzles.  Use a new nozzle every time you change nozzle size.

The dull grey is Amazon basics PLA, the shiny grey is Ebay cheap grey.  The Ebay stuff has poor adhesion (for PLA), is super fragile (filament breaks every time i weigh it), but looks great.

Both cheap filaments have horrible bridging.  The cheap grey is so bad I had to add extra layers on top.

Solar System Two

Trying to meet CPAP requirements:

http://www.healthyresources.com/sleep/magazines/psnews/power03.html

    here are the three parts:
the panels, order now on ebay ($160)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mono-Poly-PV-Solar-Panel-160W-100W-90W-40W-25W-10W-5W-12V-24V-RV-Boat-Camping/361878817780?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

    Costco batteries:
    best is 140wh (2 70wh deep cycle costco batteries)

charge controller:

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-10-15-20-30A-PWM-Solar-Panel-Battery-Regulator-Charge-Controller-CE-12V-24VMS-/272672199604?var=&hash=item3f7c8793b4

extension cables:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Pair-TEMCo-10ft-MC4-Solar-Panel-Extension-Connector-12-AWG-PV-Cable-Wire/281368913995?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Inexpensive Solar system

Solar panel Notes:

Optimum angle for solar

              Fixed--~30 Degrees

Two season

              Summer (march 30-september 12^th)- ~8 degrees

              Winter (rest of year ~45 degrees).

Sites:

http://www.solarpaneltilt.com/

http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-sunlight/solar-radiation-tilted-surface

Note, angle for grid-tie is very different than off-grid.  (because you are watching for optimal energy generation the whole day.

For the mini off-grid installations, current position is good for winter (until march 30), lay on top during summer.

Batteries for mini-grid

System works for either 12 or 24 volt battery systems (however, you need different output systems for 24v)  For simplicity, I recommend all small systems stay at 12v.

You can use 2 6v batteries in series to get 12v, but they must be very very similar.

Checkout of Battery

Battery checkout is the most dangerous step.  It is a little safer to do battery checkout with a smart charger (from 110), but it can be tricky in other ways.  (I had fully discharged batteries take days to recover on a charger, but I think the charge controller would have quickly worked).

Do not attach a battery directly to an array of batteries.  (Even a good battery could rapidly charge, generating hydrogen, and explode, spraying sulfuric acid.)  Battery testing should be done outside.  Batteries should always be on a thermal insulator (like a piece of wood).  Lead-acid Batteries are not really a fire risk.  (all types of lithium batteries are a fire risk because they have ~10x energy density).

The Charge controller to battery hookup has clips for this reason.

#1 measure new battery voltage (should be between 9 and 12 volts, but not necessary).

#2 remove clips from existing batteries and attach to new battery (battery should be at least 30#s).

#3 measure new battery voltage (do this during the day).  Within 10 min battery should be between 9 and 12 volts.  If battery is not quickly moving to 9 volts you may have a problem.

#4 Everything should work right away, but avoid placing heavy loads, and night use

#5 Every evening and morning check the battery voltage to get a feel for self-discharge and capacity.

Loads

The charge controller is a 42v 30A device.

That means that if any circuit goes over 42v and/or 30A, at least that part and likely everything fails.

So voltage open circuit (VOC) of the solar panels should be less than 42 volts.

More Windows 10

Removing OneDrive from windows 10

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_files/how-to-uninstall-onedrive-completely-in-windows-10/e735a3b8-09f1-40e2-89c3-b93cf7fe6994?auth=1

Remember to clean up the registry afterwards.

Windows 10

I've been updating my computers to windows 10.

Good:  generally works.  Particularly, on the slowest machine, seemed to work better.

Bad:  some driver issues.   bluetooth confused (thought it was USB, had to uninstall and reinstall a few time).

Bad: lots of advertising.

to get rid of stupid metro aps:

http://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them

used the following commands

Get-AppxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *windowscommunicationsapps* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *officehub* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *skypeapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *getstarted* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *zunemusic* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *solitairecollection* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *bingfinance* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *zunevideo* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *bingnews* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *onenote* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *people* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *windowsphone* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *photos* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *bingsports* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *soundrecorder* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *bingweather* | Remove-AppxPackage
 Get-AppxPackage *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *travel* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *reading* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *camera* | Remove-AppxPackage

Bash script for Cygwin to read in camera images from SD card

#this script does a nice job of reading in DCIM cards
#run with ./get_picts title
#it creates a folder with a date if the name is defaulted, appends drive name, then title.


#!/bin/bash
thisTitle=$*
getlabel() {
$(cygpath --sysdir)/cmd /c dir ${1}:\\ | \
    tr \\r \\n | \
    sed -n -e '1s/^ Volume in drive . is //p'
}

cd /cygdrive/c/DCIM
cd ~/DCIM
for i in e f g h i j k l m
#
#DIRS=`ls -d /media/matt/*/DCIM`
#echo $DIRS
#for thisTarget in $DIRS
do

    thisTarget="/cygdrive/${i}/DCIM"
    if [ -d "$thisTarget" ]; then
        driveName=`getlabel ${i}`
        echo  $driveName
        thisDate=$(date +%y%m%d)
        #echo $thisDate
        #echo $thisTitle
        thisDate=$thisDate"_"$driveName"_"$thisTitle
        echo $thisDate
        #read -p "Press [Enter] key to start copy..."

        if [ -d "$thisTarget/101ND610" ]; then
            mv "$thisTarget/101ND610" "$thisTarget/$thisDate"
        fi
        if [ -d "$thisTarget/101D3200" ]; then
            mv "$thisTarget/101D3200" "$thisTarget/$thisDate"
        fi
        if [ -d "$thisTarget/100D3200" ]; then
            mv "$thisTarget/100D3200" "$thisTarget/$thisDate"
        fi
        mv -f $thisTarget/1* .
        for jj in $(ls -d $thisTarget/* | xargs -n1 basename)
        do
            for kk in _1 _2 _3 _4 _5 _6 _7 _8
            do
                if [ -d $jj$kk ]; then
                    echo $jj$kk
                else
                    mv -f $thisTarget/$jj  $jj$kk   
                    break
                fi
            done
        done
        rmdir $thisTarget
    fi
done
find . -type d -exec rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty -p {} \;
find . -name "DSC*.JPG" -ls -exec exifautotran {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.JPG" -ls -exec exifautotran {} \;
find . -name "DSC*.JPG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name "DSC*.NEF" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.PEF" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.PEF" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%f%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.CR2" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.DNG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.DNG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%f%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.JPG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name "IMG*.JPG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%f%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate.%e' {} \;
find . -name   "P*.JPG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate-$filenumber.%e' {} \;
find . -name   "P*.JPG" -ls -exec exiftool  -d %Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S%%f%%-c '-filename<$CreateDate.%e' {} \;