Can anyone help me with what the heck is going on in this pic?
I recently was trying to capture drops on a water fountain, and this was the clearest shot I got. Problem is, it has these weird shards, like it has caught several freezes of action. Im totally stumped. Could there be something wrong with my camera? I just got a Nikon 5000 this Christmas.
Exposure 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 55 mm
ISO Speed 200
@sdpace ok, so maybe I am crazy.... oh well I see like this trail with bubbles in it. and it looked to me kinda clear. @do11face Thank you both for taking the time.
Hi, A slow shutter speed would have just blurred, this is doing something quite different. It's the way the camera captures the image, not because of a particularly slow shutter speed. Cameras take photos in a scanning motion, so they start at the top left say and record the information as it goes down 1 pixel at a time, what looks to have happened is that your camera has captured at the exact moment the drop is falling and at a similar speed, rather rare, and is causing this illusion. It happens quite a lot and there are some quite famous photos where it has happened. (theres one with a baby in a mirror and their eyes closed in one and open in the other)
@staciehighland
I'm thinking it looks like what happens sometimes with image stabilization. I know my canon lenses themselves have a switch to turn the stabilization off entirely or for just specific directions of movement. If your camera has the ability to turn stabilization off and you're near the same fountain rephotograph the same shot matching shutter speed and see if it still happens. Might also try slower and faster SS and see if you get the same result.
Neat effect even if it's not what you wanted!
@Scrivna re:scanning motion I did not know that about digitials! any chance you have a link to that baby photo?
I agree with @Scrivna- what you are seeing isn't just the result of a slow shutter speed which as Ross mentioned would simply blur the drops (you can test this by trying to photograph water dropping from your kitchin sink). However it happened it certainly looks cool. In the future if you are trying to capture water drops you will need a much faster shutter speed (I'd say at least 1/200).
@Scrivna It appears that way, along with the slow shutter speed - it may be that the scanning process is set up to pass over the time the shutter's open or a certain number of times.
Yup, something else going on besides a slow shutter, which would have resulted in smooth (but blurry!) drops. Did you use flash by chance? Maybe the flash sync was set incorrectly. Weird. ...but kinda cool effect anyway!
@Scrivna I thought it was too crisp to be a shutter speed issue, would love to see that picture of the baby. Thanks for the input. @neda@vikdaddy@aikiuser Thanks for your input! I thought it was weird too, thats why I posted it
whew, I guess im not crazy! LOL!
I have 2 thoughts about this:
1) Does your camera have an auto HDR setting? In low light, my camera will take a series of images and combine them to eliminate noisy images. But you get strange results if something moves during the shot.
2) I think this is what Ross Scrivener is talking about above (or maybe not?) It's called rolling shutter. It has to do with how an image is recorded on the sensor. Here's a video on youtube that shows it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVwmtwZLG88
The Exif shows your flash was on. The durration of the flash is probably around 1/5,000 - 1/10,000 second where your shutter speed is 1/60 second. So The drops have light blurs because of the slower shutter speed, but you can see the sharp drop inside the blur because of the flash. Try dropping the aperture to f8 - f11 to eliminate the ambient light which causes the streaks, and just let the fast flash duration stop the action.
@rebcastillo77 - You don't necessarily need a fast shutter speed to catch crisp water drop photos. I took this one with a point and shoot camera with a 3 second shutter speed. (Check the EXIF) http://365project.org/sudweeks/365/2009-02-06
I stopped the action with an SB800 flash set to 1/64 power, so flash durration was 1/32,000 second. (much shorter than the fastest shutter speed on any DSLR)
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
I'm thinking it looks like what happens sometimes with image stabilization. I know my canon lenses themselves have a switch to turn the stabilization off entirely or for just specific directions of movement. If your camera has the ability to turn stabilization off and you're near the same fountain rephotograph the same shot matching shutter speed and see if it still happens. Might also try slower and faster SS and see if you get the same result.
Neat effect even if it's not what you wanted!
@Scrivna re:scanning motion I did not know that about digitials! any chance you have a link to that baby photo?
@neda @vikdaddy @aikiuser Thanks for your input! I thought it was weird too, thats why I posted it
whew, I guess im not crazy! LOL!
PS - I like crazy!
1) Does your camera have an auto HDR setting? In low light, my camera will take a series of images and combine them to eliminate noisy images. But you get strange results if something moves during the shot.
2) I think this is what Ross Scrivener is talking about above (or maybe not?) It's called rolling shutter. It has to do with how an image is recorded on the sensor. Here's a video on youtube that shows it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVwmtwZLG88
I stopped the action with an SB800 flash set to 1/64 power, so flash durration was 1/32,000 second. (much shorter than the fastest shutter speed on any DSLR)