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Posted: 3/25/2009 4:45:25 AM EDT
Like many here, I've been interested in trying to capture an image through a night optic. I was experimenting this morning (4:04 AM, Sunrise is at 6:37 AM) since it was moonless, with clear skies, I and was encouraged by my first results. Here's my best of about 6 shots I took.
I live on a golf course in Las Vegas part of the year, and this shot is through my back glass slider to the Northeast. The mountains are about 5 miles away, and the homes are across a fairway, so they're 300-500 yards away. Notice on the mountains that you can actually see the different strata running diagonally. The optic is a ITT 6010 I bought on Ebay a while back for $1,500. It has been posted here before in trying to ID it, and so if you are interested, look up my previous posts. The camera that made this possible is my Casio FH 20, a SLR style digital with quite a few features besides the one that took this image. It has a setting that is an "Anti Shake" feature that stores a series of images, then combines them all into one sharper shot. This picture was made with the camera set for 1600 ISO, F 3.9, 100mm zoom, and a 1/15th sec. exposure. I was just holding the NV up to the front of the lens and using the display to center and frame the image. I would think that this capacity could be enhanced quite measurably with a mount to center and steady both camera and optic. I will be experimenting with that project in the near future. I think a simple piece of bar stock with a few holes and bolts should work for a start. I imagine anyone who is doing surveillance work would find this setup very serviceable. I'll take a few more photos soon to show the high quality images that are possible for closer subjects if anyone is interested. I welcome any comments, questions, or suggestions. |
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Vic,
I suspect that at these light levels, the AUTO setting would try and give me about a 2 second exposure, and I would get a lot of motion blur. The advantage this system seems to have is, I have about 5 or 6 1/15th sec. photos stacked to produce one final image. Believe me, I was quite encouraged by this first test, and expect that with a fixed mount for NV and camera the results should be much better. It was VERY dark for this image, and yet the mid range and distance brightness were close to what I actually see. That seems to be one of the recurring problems with night photograpy. We can't get the camera to record the images WE see through the optics. |
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Quoted:
Vic, I suspect that at these light levels, the AUTO setting would try and give me about a 2 second exposure, and I would get a lot of motion blur. The advantage this system seems to have is, I have about 5 or 6 1/15th sec. photos stacked to produce one final image. Believe me, I was quite encouraged by this first test, and expect that with a fixed mount for NV and camera the results should be much better. It was VERY dark for this image, and yet the mid range and distance brightness were close to what I actually see. That seems to be one of the recurring problems with night photograpy. We can't get the camera to record the images WE see through the optics. +1000 to this! We always get folks telling us our pics in no way show them how good the image really looks through a Gen 3 device. |
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