Little Bramper User Manual v1.4.1
Contents
1. T Terminator plug 10 Time lapse factor 8 38 Troubleshooting 35 36 Twisted lens technique 13 X X time 12 17 28 by camera model 37 422. infinite shots X Exit CHAPTER 5 THE MENU SYSTEM amp KEYPAD 17 5 5 Buffer The Buffer time menu allows you to enter the time measured in milliseconds that is re served for your camera to save an image to your memory card and display a review image A typical value is about 2000ms but depends on image size MB and speeds of DIGIC pro cessor and CF card Note Little Bramper strictly enforces the requirement that the Inter val is larger than Bulb exposure time Buffer p XXXXX MS Write display image x Exit Enter time see Chapter 8 2 Enter enables the change Exit returns you to the Status screen without making any changes 5 6 X time The X time is the only parameter that de pends on camera model X times for various models of Canon camera are shown in Table X In order to estimate the X time for a model not listed follow the instructions in Chapter X Enter 74 enables the change Exit re turns you to the Status screen without making any changes 5 B step The Bulb step menu When you press keys C D whilst in the Status screen the Bulb exposure time will increase decrease by an amount B step This is useful when perform ing operations like ISO stepping described in Chapter X Enter 4 enables the change Exit returns you to the Status screen with out making any changes XTime X XXXXX MS 5D2 33 7D 42 4YOD 4 x Ex1t Enter X XXXX stops Filter IsS0 steppi
3. 1 Under constant lighting take a shot using Little Bramper with B 200ms and without ND filter attached If necessary change ISO to get a sensibly exposed image This will be your reference image 30 CHAPTER 10 NEUTRAL DENSITY FILTERS AND APERTURE STEPPING 31 2 Attach ND filter 3 In Menu system set B step appropriately e g set B step 3 0000 if using a 3 stop filter 4 Press C to increase Bulb exposure time by number of stops given by B step Take photo 5 Compare this image with reference image from step 1 6 Press D to restore B 200ms Change B step i e try Bstep 3 10000 or 2 9000 and go to Step 4 7 Calibration is completed once image is indistinguishable from reference image B step is the true optical density of your ND filter Write this down Chapter 11 Interval ramping Imagine you are time lapsing a sunset You know you need short intervals of about 6s 6000ms to properly capture the dynamic sunset but you also want to end the time lapse with images of a star filled sky Deep shots of the night sky typically require much longer exposures perhaps over 20s 20000ms Obviously your 6s intervals cannot accommodate 20s exposures What do you do Little Bramper allows you to smoothly ramp the Interval time There are two ways of doing this Manual and Automatic Changing the Interval will cause the time lapse clip to speed up or slow down giving a sort of time warp effect Sometimes this may be desirable but
4. With practise this can be done in less than 2seconds even in the dark For night to day situations you will increase Bulb exposure and decrease ISO Personally step the ISO by 1 stop each time this means must set B step 1 000 Smaller ISO steps mean you will have to repeat the above process more frequently Bear in mind that the ISO can only be changed in steps of 1 3 or 1 2 or multiples of these Tip when shooting a day to night time lapse do not leave ISO stepping too late You can only change the ISO after the camera has finished an exposure leaving you little time before the next exposure starts 9 1 Estimating your X time To estimate the X time for you camera you will first take a reference image in Manual M mode and then try different X time values until an equivalent exposure using Little Bramper looks identical The exposure should be about 100ms i e 1 10s 1 In Manual mode take a regular photograph with an exposure of 1 10s 2 In Bulb mode same aperture and ISO use Little Bramper to take a B 100ms i e 1 10s exposure CHAPTER 9 EXTENDING YOUR BRAMP ISO STEPPING 29 3 If image is overexposed relative to reference image increase X time If image is un derexposed relative to reference image decrease X time 4 Repeat Step 3 until the two images look similar You have found your X time Write it down or save it in a Preset Chapter 10 Neutral density filters and Aperture stepping In principle the
5. You change the bramp strength by pressing A and B keys e Interval time interval remaining interval time e Frame counter F number of frames taken remaining The T indicates that pho tographs will be taken without end A indicates that you have specified the number of frames to take and the following value indicates the number of frames remaining The number in parentheses 0 0 is the duration of the resulting time lapse clip expressed in seconds for 30fps playback 3 2 Advanced Mode You can change to Advanced Mode by going into the Menu System gt More gt Display gt toggle to Advanced Mode gt Press Enter You now have access to manual Interval ramping and Bulb stepping functions see Chapter 8 Beyond the basic bramp Your X Time will also be shown this needs to be properly set when Bulb ISO stepping e In the top right corner is the X time in this case X033 indicates that the camera s X time is 33ms this is correct for the 5D Mark II You set this in the Menu system e To the right of Interval is your Interval ramp I ramp Analogous to Bramping you can smoothly change your Interval time Press 3 and 6 keys to increase or decrease I ramp Arrows will indicate whether your Interval is increasing 7 or decreasing This is discussed in Chapter 11 e In the lower right corner is the Bulb step B step Pressing C D keys will in crease decrease your Bulb exposure time by a number
6. as aperture priority Av mode which chooses an appropriate shutter speed based upon the light levels Although internally the camera has access to a finer set of exposure settings these modes will still produce noticeably abrupt exposure changes often imprecisely described as flicker Furthermore the photographer has little artistic control over the exposure in these automatic modes Av Tv P Enthusiasts eventually concluded that the only way to gain access a continuous range of exposure is to use Bulb mode In this mode the photographer holds the shutter open only releasing it when he or she wants the exposure to end Simply stated this is what Little Bramper does It smoothly ramps the exposure in Bulb mode It bulb ramps We call it bramping 1 1 Video tutorials There are videos showing the operation and features of the Little Bramper at the website www thewhippersnapper com Note however that the User Manual this document will always be the most up to date reference CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 8 1 2 Some definitions e Bulb mode the camera mode B in which the exposure duration is determined by how long the shutter button is pressed In all the other camera modes the exposure time is known in advance either the photographer explicitly programs the exposure time e g in Manual M and Shutter Priority Tv modes or the camera computes it e g in Aperture Priority Av mode e Ramping the act of varying a quantity
7. events that occurs when you take a photograph 3 Buffer time writing displaying image Shutter lag waiting for shutter to open Fire Camera 2 Bulb exposure 4 Idle time waiting time for next shot MMMM Interval Fire Camera Figure 1 2 Anatomy of an individual frame in a time lapse sequence Recall that the Interval is defined as the time between the start of one image and the start of the next 1 When you fire the camera there is a short delay the shutter lag during which the camera does a number of things before opening the shutter You need not worry about this Little Bramper is able to detect when the shutter actually opens 2 The exposure commences once the shutter has opened We shall refer to this stage as the Bulb exposure time because the camera will be in Bulb mode Little Bramper precisely times the bulb exposure and you control how it changes from shot to shot 3 The Buffer time is the time required for the camera to process the image write it to your memory card and display the review image If you try to start the next exposure during the Buffer period the camera may not fire To safeguard against this you can tell Little Bramper the approximate duration of the Buffer time and Little Bramper will ensure that the next photograph is not attempted during this period If necessary Little Bramper will even increase Interval in order to accommodate Stag
8. if done clumsily it can look quite odd 11 1 Manual Interval ramping Interval ramping is always defined in stops per 100 frames by stops we really mean factors of two since your Interval has nothing Little Bramper X033 to do with exposure For example if Interval p 150 150ms 0 00 ramp 1 00 then after 100 shots your Inter T 100 4000ms 0 00 val will have doubled Provided you are in Ad Eh 0 0 1 00 vanced mode you can use keys 3 and 6 to increase decrease the Interval ramp by 0 01 Make small changes in order to avoid a sudden surge in speed of the final time lapse footage Frequent consultation of the Colli sion prediction screen will help Figure 11 1 Interval ramping is controlled with 3 and 6 keys but only if in Advanced mode Section 3 2 32 CHAPTER 11 INTERVAL RAMPING 33 11 2 Automatic Interval ramping Little Bramper offers you a simpler way to Interval ramp If you know what the final Interval needs to be and how long the Interval ramping should last you can use the Autol function To use this go into the Autol option in the Menu system see Section 5 10 Enter the Target Interval setting 00000 will disable Autol Use the A and B keys to select the period over which the Interval ramp should occur A small A will appear over the Interval ramp strength on the Status screen when Autol is enabled Little Bramper will use a custom algorithm to smoothly adjust your Interval r
9. 0 200 400 800 1600 3200 Unfortunately we cannot ramp the ISO smoothly so we need a way to incorporate 21 ISO stepping Day to Night Night to Day Is Bulb getting too short Bulb must be greater than Is Bulb getting too long Bulb Buffer must be less than Interval Figure 9 1 The process of ISO stepping CHAPTER 9 EXTENDING YOUR BRAMP ISO STEPPING 28 these discrete ISO values into our workflow Solution Use reciprocity between Bulb exposure time and ISO value Decrease Bulb expo sure by X stops and increase ISO by X stops Result you have the same total exposure but your Bulb exposure time is now X stops shorter allowing you to continue bramping Little Bramper offers a reasonably simple way to do ISO stepping by using the B step function Pressing the keys C D will in crease decrease your Bulb exposure time by a number of stops given by B step This is the value in the lower right hand corner of your Status screen You will need to change both the ISO and Bulb in one shot cycle c f Figure 1 2 suggest doing it in the following order Little Bramper X033 B 150 150ms 0 00 I 100 4000msx 0 00 F 10 0 0 1 As soon as a new exposure begins press D on Little Bramper to reduce the Bulb exposure time This will not affect the current exposure 2 Go to your camera As soon as the camera allows carefully press the ISO button and increase the ISO value
10. Connectors Camera Bulb mode B Bramper Manual focus MF Composition level Resetthold B C or D Aperture locked to load a preset or use 150 menu system to set White balance VWB Buffer Time Format card Bulb Batteries interval Image review on X Time Test shot press key Checklist Press 7 key Start time lapse Press key Fresh batteries Composition level Iip cocus errs Bulb Mode set Aperture locked ISO set White Balance WB ND filter Image RAW JPEG XTime correct Tripodthead secure Format ard Figure 6 1 The flow chart for setting up a bramping time lapse Many of the items are the same as setting up a conventional time lapse session From the Status screen you can access a Checklist When establishing a start exposure adjust ISO and or aperture on camera or Bulb exposure time on Little Bramper Remember the Bulb exposure time is your most valuable commodity CHAPTER 6 BASIC BRAMPING PROCEDURE 22 Little Bramper X033 150 150ms 0 00 100 4000ms 0 00 F TO 0 0 1 00 Figure 6 2 Bramp strength is controlled with A and B keys Basic bramping Study image amp luminosity RGB histograms Decrease Increase bulb ramp bulb ramp Press B key Press A key RE RAW FS 614KB 198 1288 Wrong exposure Is histogram shifting ta C4 undesirably Figure 6 3 The correct bramp strength results from th
11. Little Bramper User Manual v1 4 1 www thewhippersnapper com June 22 2011 Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 Video tutorials 1 2 Some definitions 2 20808 2 eae 1 3 The anatomy of a shot 2 Camera Connections 3 The Status screen 3 1 Basic Mode 3 2 Advanced Mode 4 The First Bramp 5 The menu system amp keypad 5 1 Keypad 52 5 3 Interval 5 4 Frames 4 4 5 5 Buffer 5 6 X time 5 B step sc baw See bw eA eS ee a we 5 8 Save O own oO 10 11 11 12 13 15 15 16 16 16 1 1 1 18 CONTENTS 10 11 12 13 5 9 Ramp Definition RampDef 5 10 Automatic Interval ramping Auto 1 Silk Display sd DL ee ee Basic bramping procedure Saving presets 7 1 Custom presets A BandC 2 Emergency preset D Beyond the basic bramp 8 1 Bramp per 100 shots and per 10 minutes 8 2 Collisions 8 3 Collision prediction Extending your bramp ISO stepping 9 1 Estimating your X time Neutral density filters and Aperture stepping 10 1 Calibrating and using ND filters Interval ramping 11 1 Man
12. P 25 8 2 Collisions Your Bulb exposure time is subject to two limits a maximum value determined by your Interval and Buffer time and a minimum value determined by the shortest Bulb exposure your camera is capable of the X time When either of these limits are reached we refer to this as a collision 1 Maximum Bulb time Interval Buffer time 2 Minimum Bulb time X time These two scenarios are shown graphically in Figure 8 1 The Bulb exposure time is the red segment it is shown being bramped up and down the arrows The green segment is your Buffer time and does not change it is simply stuck on the end of your bulb exposure Little Bramper is commited to executing whatever exposure time you want It also strictly respects the Buffer time If these stages cannot be accommodated within the Interval then Little Bramper will automatically increase the Interval This will increase your time lapse factor causing your end footage to accelerate Whenever this occur s a small BC will appear over the Interval time on the Status screen At the other extreme if you reduce your Bulb exposure you may experience a collision with the X time Little Bramper will not allow you to bramp below your X time If you reduce the X time your camera will start producing inaccurate exposures X time values by Canon models are shown in Table 13 1 Running out of Idle time Headings towards collision Bulb exposure steadily increa
13. Prediction screens Basic Mode Advanced Mode Little Bramper Little Bramper X time B 150 150ms 0 00 B 150 150ms y Bramp I 100 4000ms s l ramp F 10 0 0 B step I 100 4000ms F 10 0 0 Figure 3 1 The Status screen in Basic Mode left and Advanced Mode right These screens provide an overview of your settings B is the Bulb exposure time I is the Interval time F is the Frame counter Bulb and Interval ramping X time and B step quantites are shown on the right side of the screen The little T refers to the stops per 10 minutes Bulb ramp definition Section 8 1 The little A refers to Automatic Interval ramping Section 11 2 3 1 Basic Mode When you start Little Bramper for the very first time your Status Screen will be in Basic Mode In this mode some of the advanced features are disabled you are left with only the basics required for bramping This facilitates the learning process and prevents the accidental invocation of advanced functions 11 CHAPTER 3 THE STATUS SCREEN 12 e Bulb exposure time B exposure remaining total exposure time e To the right of Bulb is your Bramp strength shown in left panel of Figure 3 1 as 0 00 Arrows will indicate whether your bramp is increasing 7 or decreasing the bulb exposure time The bramp strength can be defined in two ways a small T will appear when using the stops per 10 minutes definition most suitable for sunsets etc See Chapter 8 1
14. Table 13 2 Conversion of shutter speed from conventional photographic notation to milliseconds Somewhat awkwardly photographers have traditionally described exposure times as fractions e g 1 60s Use this Table if you want to convert common shutter speeds into milliseconds Bulb exposures shorter than 100ms may start to generate flicker Asterisks denote values rounded to nearest ms CHAPTER 13 TIPS EXAMPLES TROUBLESHOOTING AND DATA 38 13 6 Time lapse factor The time lapse factor frr is simply the factor by which time is sped up in your final time lapse movie If your playback is at 30 frames per second fps then frg 301 where I is your interval in seconds For example if you shot the image sequence with intervals of I 3s your final time lapse movie will portray the subject sped up by a factor of frr 90 Playback 24fps Playback 30fps 1800 Table 13 3 Time lapse factor frz for various intervals and playback frame rates CHAPTER 13 TIPS EXAMPLES TROUBLESHOOTING AND DATA 39 13 7 Angle of view in terms of sensor and lens focal length Full Frame APS C APS H_ 3 4 5 2 Table 13 4 Angle of view vertical horizontal in degrees for various focal lengths and sensor sizes Fully Frame APS C and APS H See http en wikipedia org wiki Angle of view for equations CHAPTER 13 TIPS EXAMPLES TROUBLESHOOTING AND DATA 40 _ Interval ramp Manual interval ramping is only available in Adv
15. amp Note that collisions between Bulb exposure and Interval can still occur and will over ride the Autol function Autiol can ramp your Interval in either direction and so is suitable for both day to night and night to day time lapses Chapter 12 Little Bramper as a conventional intervalometer Little Bramper can be used like a conventional interval ometer i e it can be used to simply fire the camera Use the terminator plug instead of the PC cable The exposure is set in the camera we are no longer talk ing about bramping and will not be using Bulb mode Little Bramper offers arbitrary intervals not sim ply mulitples of 1s Interval ramping is also possible Many high end Canon cameras can shoot RAW images continously at rates faster than one per second In Fig ure 12 1 an interval of 0 8s is being used Little Bramper is shipped with this setup saved as Preset C e Bulb exposure time B 20ms Long enough to fire camera X time Is not applicable and should be set to Oms e Buffer Oms This allows us to access any Inter val recall rule that Interval must be longer than Bulb Buffer e Interval 800ms Change as desired this is about as fast as a 5D Mark II will shoot with my CF cards 34 a a Little Bramper U 20ms 0 00 100 400ms F TO 0 0 Figure 12 1 Using Little Bramper like a regular intervalometer Chapter 13 Tips examples troubleshooting and data When planning a bramp ma
16. anced mode Keys without functions take you into Menu _ Bulb ramping A bramp strength system adjust rate at which exposure changes Checklist Bulb step User during setup Used for ISO stepping Only available in Ad d mode _ Start and Stop EJES timer current exposure will finish before Feedback for Test fire timer stops planning a single shot Use strategy during setup Index A Anatomy of a shot 9 Angle of view chart 39 Aperture stepping 30 B Basic bramping procedure 20 Bramp strength 12 Bramping 7 Buffer time 9 17 Bulb 16 exposure time 9 12 mode 8 ramping 6 stepping 12 Bulb step 17 C Camera connections 10 Checklist 21 Collision prediction 26 Collisions 25 D Day to night 35 Display Mode advanced 12 19 basic 11 19 E Examples 35 F Frame counter 12 Frames 16 H Holy Grail 7 Idle time 9 Interval 8 16 automatic ramping 19 33 manual ramping 32 ramping 12 Target 19 Intervalometer use as conventional 10 34 Interval ramping 32 ISO stepping 27 K Keypad 15 L LightRails 6 M Manual Interval ramping 32 Menu system 15 N Neutral density filters 30 Night to day 36 INDEX P PC Prontor Compur 10 Presets 23 emergency 23 loading 18 saving 18 R Ramp Definition RampDef 18 Reciprocity 8 S Shutter lag 9 Statistics 19 Status Screen 11 Stop 8
17. down the camera s Depth of Field DOF preview button whilst twisting the lens slightly The aperture is now stuck in the desired stopped down position 13 CHAPTER 4 THE FIRST BRAMP 14 8 Press the Start Stop key to start time lapse The red light will flash on and off and a photograph will be taken every 4seconds 4000ms 9 After about 10 minutes assemble the photographs into a time lapse or simply use your scroll wheel to observe them on the camera LCD Note how the exposure increases You will also notice that over the course of 10 minutes your Bulb exposure time will have increased from B 150ms to about B 600ms i e 2 stops Chapter 5 The menu system amp keypad 5 1 Keypad Some of the keys have special functions when in the Status screen In Basic dis play mode the I ramp and B step keys 3 6 C and D are disabled these are associated with advanced functions The Start Stop key controls the timer The Test Fire key 7 will fire a single shot The Collision Prediction key 0 provides feedback regarding your future val ues The online Checklist 7 is useful dur Ing set up Interval 2 Bulb Frames 4 Buffer X time b B Step Save Bsmore RamplDef e Auto I Display 4 Stats ittle Bramper vl 4 2010 15 Little Bramper has a two page Menu sys tem that can be accessed from the Status screen Many of the underlying parameters can be changed here Typically the Menu sys
18. e continual monitoring of the review image histograms Chapter 7 Saving presets 7 1 Custom presets B and C Little Bramper allows you to save three custom presets A B and C These can be invoked by holding down the appropriate key while pressing the RESET button Little Bramper automatically loads preset A whenever the device is RESET or power is connected so put your most used settings in preset A 1 2 Emergency preset D After each shot is successfully completed Little Bramper immediately saves the current settings in preset D This is for emergency restarts For example if your batteries die you will probably not be able to remember your precise settings immediately before the problem occurred As soon as the problem is resolved hold down D on the keypad and press the RESET button Not only will your most recent settings be restored but the timer will automatically start and you will back in action immediately 23 Chapter 8 Beyond the basic bramp 8 1 Bramp per 100 shots and per 10 minutes You can define your bramp strength in two ways allowing you to choose the most natural definition for your application For example twilight light levels usually drop by about 2 stops every 10 minutes this is a useful rule of thumb Notice that the exposure depends upon the passage of time In this case we want to choose the stops per 10 minutes definition for our bramp strength This is selected by going to the RampD
19. ef menu option Section 5 9 The popularity of time lapsing sunsets means that this definition is the most used and is the factory default You can also define your bramp strength in stops per 100 shots When would you use this Imagine your camera is panning from a dimly lit scene to a brightly lit one that requires a shorter exposure time The light may be constant in time so the stops per 10 minutes definition is not necessarily the most appropriate If the pan is executed over a known number of shots then it makes more sense to use the stops per 100 shots definition The difference between these definitions may seem rather subtle One states that the final change in exposure depends on the total time elapsed and the other on the number of shots taken If your Interval is constant then the two are simply related since Time elapsed Number shots x Interval The necessity for two separate definitions becomes apparent when your Interval is not constant The above relation is no longer true and the two definitions produce very different behaviours For example you may eventually want to perform Interval ramping when shooting day to night sequences Chapter 11 in which case you will definitely want to use the stops per 10 minutes definition This definition ensures that regardless of your current Interval time or how it changes your Bulb exposure will ramp steadily with time 24 CHAPTER 8 BEYOND THE BASIC BRAM
20. ers There is only one model specific parameter you need to set it s called the X Time For basic usage you don t need to worry about it but you will need to set this correctly once you start employing advanced techniques like ISO stepping this will be described later By default it is set correctly for the 5D Mark ll am collecting values for other models see Table 13 1 Little Bramper measures time in milliseconds ms Do not be alarmed There are 1000 milliseconds in 1 second for example ls 1000ms 1 2s 0 5s 500ms 1 10s 0 1s 100ms Chapter 1 Introduction Bramp v intr To bulb ramp To smoothly change the exposure during a time lapse by using the camera s Bulb mode Little Bramper is a time lapse intervalometer developed on the timescapes org forum probably the largest on line forum for time lapse enthusiasts Little Bramper is not the first bulb ramping intervalometer one can T find other examples of DIY gadgets that have this func tionality The open source LightRails project was such an example that used an external light meter to con trol the exposure during the time lapse This particu lar proof of concept gadget provided some of the mo tivation for developing Little Bramper All these gad gets address the same central problem how to vary the exposure smoothly during a time lapse without intro ducing unpleasant artifacts such as flicker or abrupt ex posure changes Example time la
21. es 1 2 and 3 4 Idle time is simply the time remaining until the next exposure Clearly there are limits to how long your exposure can be discussed in Chapter 8 Little Bramper strictly enforces the rule that states the Interval must be longer than the Bulb exposure time Buffer time If necessary it will change the Interval time by the smallest amount that satisfies the rule Chapter 2 Camera Connections Remember to use four AA size 1 2v NiMH batteries 1 The cable with the N3 plug goes into the remote socket on your camera The other end male 3 5mm stereo miniphone goes intothe REMOTE socket on Little Bramper 2 The second cable goes into the PC Prontor Compur socket on your camera The other end plugs into the jack labeled PC on Little Bramper 3 Connect the battery pack taking care to get the polarity correct If you wish to use Little Bramper like a conventional intervalometer i e use it to fire your camera but not control exposure use the terminator plug Figure 2 1 Left image the camera s PC and N3 sockets Centre image standard Little Bramper setup Right image Little Bramper used like a conventional intervalometer 10 Chapter 3 The Status screen Whenever you power up or restart Little Bramper you will be shown the Status Screen This is where you will spend most of your time monitoring your various parameters adjusting your bramping strength and accessing the Checklist and Collision
22. gradually Little Bramper is able to ramp both the Bulb exposure time and the Interval e Stop in photography a stop refers to a change in the exposure such that the light reaching the sensor is changed by a factor of two One can achieve this effect by chang ing various camera settings the shutter speed the lens aperture the ISO and by using filters It is explained in every good photography book and on numerous websites e g http en wikipedia org wiki F number e Reciprocity if you increase the exposure time by one stop i e doubling it and decrease the aperture by one stop i e halving its light collecting area you get the same exposure the two things cancel out This is an example of reciprocity Reciprocity failure refers to occasions when this concept fails in practise e Interval the time between photographs Determines the time lapse effect It is defined as the time between the start of one photograph and the start of the next e Time lapse factor the factor by which time is sped up in the final time lapse footage It is simply the Interval time multiplied by your playback framerate e g taking shots with an interval of 2s and playing them back at 30fps will result in footage that is 2x30 60 times faster than real time If you gradually change i e ramp the interval your final footage will appear to accelerate CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 9 1 3 The anatomy of a shot We need to briefly discuss the sequence of
23. ke sure you consider a the number of stops you require between start and end plan whether to ISO step or use ND filters and plan start settings accordingly b the actual light levels involved in EV Bulb exposures will be 100ms 1 10s or longer you may need ND filters for sunsets etc For best results try and avoid very short Bulb exposure times Bulb exposures have 1ms error which will result in noticeable flicker when using Bulb exposure times below 100ms histograms Use both the review image and histograms Judging exposure changes is easier using e Use RGB histograms Keep an eye on the Red channel during sunsets it can easily become badly saturated e Do not obsess over normally exposing images You will probably want to let the image underexpose as you transition from day to night 13 1 Day to Night tips ISO 50 L is not a true ISO 50 and if used in ISO stepping will result in reciprocity failure 1 Starting values B 150ms 1 5000ms Buffer 2000ms On camera use a low ISO e g 100 35 CHAPTER 13 TIPS EXAMPLES TROUBLESHOOTING AND DATA 36 Starting with rather long exposure times B 150ms means that you may need to use a neutral density filter if you want the Sun in the frame Using a ND filter is preferrable to a small aperture e g f 16 or smaller small apertures will cause sensor dust to show Also a neutral density filter can be removed as part of the bramping pr
24. ng x Exit Enter CHAPTER 5 THE MENU SYSTEM amp KEYPAD 18 5 8 Save The Save option allows you to save your cur rent setup as a preset You can save up to three presets Simply choose from A Bor C Save as preset Preset A is automatically loaded whenever Lit A B C tle Bramper is started To load preset B or L or C simply hold down that key on the keypad ICAT loads on reset while RESETting Little bamper Preset D is reserved for emergency restarts Press to Exit this menu option without saving a preset Presets are discussed in detail in Section 7 1 DJ is previous shot 5 9 Ramp Definition RampDef The RampDef menu allows you to choose how bramping is defined either as definition e stops per 100 shots or 100 shots e stops per 10 minutes The stops per 10 minutes definition is Enter the most natural choice for time lapsing sun sets sunrises since the light changes occur definition over time When this definition is selected 10 mins a small T will be seen above the bramp strength value on the Status screen The stops per 100 shots definition is most ap Enter propriate when light levels are more closely tied to the number of frames taken e g panning from a dark scene to a brightly lit one or mak ing stop motion animations See Chapter 8 for a more detailed discussion Press any key to toggle between the two options Enter 4 enables the option Exit returns you to the Stat
25. ocess Chapter 10 Sunsets may undergo a flare during which the image brightens suddenly Allow enough exposure headroom to accommodate this brightening otherwise you may find yourself bramping frantically Rule of thumb twilight light levels drop by about 2 stops every 10 minutes Be sure to use the stops per 10 minutes bramp definition Chapter 8 1 If ISO stepping do not leave it too late use Bstep 1 000 For 5000ms consider Bulb stepping 2000ms 1000ms Use the first signs of light pollution as an indicator when to reduce your bramping strength 13 2 Night to day tips 1 Ze Night to day time lapses can be considered the exact reverse of day to night Starting values B 8000ms I 10000ms Buffer 2000ms On the camera use a high ISO value e g 3200 ISO stepping is less problematic than day to night Typically will Bulb step 1000ms 2000ms until my ISO gets down to 100 13 3 Troubleshooting Camera is not fired try fresh batteries Exposure starts but does not stop 1s curtain sync Custom function fire flash enabled CHAPTER 13 TIPS EXAMPLES TROUBLESHOOTING AND DATA 37 13 4 X times by camera model 40D 47 sr Table 13 1 X times These values are subject to change You should confirm these values with a quick test see Section 9 1 13 5 Conversion to milliseconds Shutter speed Duration in milliseconds ms 10000 1000 1 4 250 1 3 50
26. of stops given by B step This is used for ISO stepping and adding removing neutral density filters Chapter 8 Beyond the basic bramp B step can be changed in the Menu system Chapter 4 The First Bramp By default Little Bramper loads preset A which is suitable for a short sunset session It is perhaps best to first perform a simple test indoors under constant lighting just to appreciate the effects of bramping 1 Connect Little Bramper and turn on camera 2 Set camera to Bulb mode B 3 Turn off autofocus auto white balance and anything else that might cause unwanted frame to frame variations i e flicker 4 If using a Canon EF lens use the widest aperture e g f 1 4 rather than f 16 or use the twisted lens technique These are standard time lapse techniques for avoiding flicker due to inaccuracies in the lens diaphragm actuations 5 Ensure your camera is set to display a review image along with the RGB histograms 6 Test your exposure by pressing Test Fire key 4 The camera should fire once Adjust camera settings ISO or lens aperture until image is normally exposed For now leave the Bulb exposure time set at B 150ms 7 Press A repeatedly until bramp strength is roughly 72 00 There will be a little T above the 2 00 your exposure will be ramped steadily by 2 00 stops every 10 minutes see Chapter 8 Twisted lens technique applies mainly to Canon EF lenses and involves choosing an f stop holding
27. pses can be seen at www thewhippersnapper com Using Little Bramper is an interactive experience and therefore quite different from using a conventional intervalometer By monitoring the images on the camera s LCD screen you manually introduce smooth exposure adjustments in response to the changing light levels CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION T It s a remarkable fact that digital single lens re flex cameras dSLRs can deal with light levels that vary by over a factor of a million in bright ness In some time lapse circles the Holy Grail is considered to be the technique that produces beautifully smooth sequences that spans this exposure range from day Sun in the frame to night stars in the sky In photographic Figure 1 1 Time lapse image sequences involv terms this exposure range is about 20 stops ing large light levels changes sunrise sunsets Modern digital SLRs and lenses can handle this passing storms etc Modern cameras can com exposure range Sadly major camera manu fortably handle these exposures the problem is facturers only provide the photographer with a how to vary the exposure smoothly discrete set of exposure settings e g shutter speeds of 1 and 1 3 but nothing in between In the past this has forced digital SLR time lapsers to commit to a particular exposure setting using Manual mode or risk introducing abrupt ex posure changes in their time lapse footage Cameras do possess automatic exposure modes such
28. s of any collisions As such these values may actually be impossible to achieve use them only as a planning guide Chapter 9 Extending your bramp ISO stepping We shall now discuss a very useful technique that allows you to expand your bramping range ISO stepping It is considered an advanced function so make sure you are in Advanced Mode Chapter In the previous chapter we discussed the limitations of basic bramping your maximum Bulb exposure is limited by your Interval time and you minimum Bulb exposure is limited by your camera s X time its shortest possible Bulb exposure The concept that will buy us more room to bramp is reciprocity Reciprocity is briefly described in Chapter 1 2 every decent photography book and the Wikipedia entries for Reciprocity and Exposure Let us use a day to night time lapse as an example If we start with B 125ms 1 8s and bramp all the way to B 8000ms 8 sec onds then we have bramped the exposure by 6 stops since 1 85x2x2x2x2x2x2 8s Quite impressive but to accommodate even longer exposures we would need very large In terval times which might be undesirable Al though this exposure range might be sufficient for cityscapes if we want time lapse sequences spanning very large exposure ranges perhaps 15 stops we will need to do more than ba sic bramping High end cameras e g 5D Mark 11 offer useful ISO settings ranging from 100 to 3200 providing us with an additional 5 stops 10
29. same application of reciprocity described in Chapter 8 can be used with both neutral density filters and the aperture setting Unlike ISO stepping which can be very accurate the removal adding of filters or the changing of apertures is likely to suffer a larger degree of reciprocity failure In order for reciprocity to be deemed successful we require the before and after image levels to be within 2 of one another The reciprocity failure will appear as a slight exposure glitch in the final time lapse The addition or removal of ND filters may additionally introduce a glitch in the colour balance due to the filter s intrinisic colour cast this can only be fixed in post processing Stepping the lens aperture may introduce a glitch in the vignetting and depth of field characteristics of the image If aperture stepping avoid the largest apertures where vignetting is most obvious e g f1 4 step in small amounts and avoid applying to compositions with a strong foreground background differentiation 10 1 Calibrating and using ND filters Despite the potential pitfalls a high quality neutral density ND filter e g Lee 3 stop Pro Glass can be useful for extending your bramp It s unlikely that your 3 stop NDO 9 filter has an optical density of exactly 3 0000 stops Little bramper can help you calibrate your ND Calibrating your ND filter is simply a process of applying reciprocity to a pair of images one with filter and another without
30. sing Shortest possible bulb exposure X time Headings towards collision Bulb exposure steadily decreasing Interval Figure 8 1 Two scenarios A and B that represent the limits of the basic bramp Bramping up or down will eventually lead to collisions CHAPTER 8 BEYOND THE BASIC BRAMP 8 3 Collision prediction When in Status Screen pressing 0 will in voke a sequence of two screens The first screen is the Collision Prediction screen This is a very useful feature and should be consulted frequently Little Bramper will tell yOu e The type of collision B I col lision between Bulb and Interval B X collision between Bulb and X time e How many shots and time until colli SION occurs e The values of Interval and Bulb exposure when collision occurs Due to the complexity of the underlying mathe 26 Collision BL UN xxxx shots x xhrs I will be x xxs B will be x xxs In 100 300 1K shots I xxxiXXX1XXX S B xxx1XXX4XXX S t xxxm xxxma2a2 xxxh Figure 8 2 Collision prediction and future ex trapolation screens matics collision prediction may not always be possible specifically when Interval is being ramped Pressing any key will take you to a second screen which will extrapolate your values into the future by 100 300 and 1000 1K shots Note these future predictions extrapolate your current settings independently and do not respect the effect
31. tem is used during set up Once the time lapse is started one makes various adjustment in the Status screen display Pressing a key without a special function will send you into the Menu system personally just use the 1 key You can exit the Menu system by pressing the Exit key CHAPTER 5 THE MENU SYSTEM amp KEYPAD 16 5 2 Bulb The Bulb exposure time menu allows you to change this quantity measured in millisec onds It is most relevant when initializing the time lapse session During the time lapse ses sion you will typically make changes to the Bulb exposure time from the Status screen Enter 74 enables the change Exit re turns you to the Status screen without making any changes 5 3 Interval The Interval menu allows you to specify the time between frames measured in millisec onds Note Little Bramper strictly enforces the requirement that the Interval is larger than Bulb exposure time Buffer time see Chap ter 8 2 Enter 4 enables the change Exit returns you to the Status screen without making any changes 5 4 Frames The Frames menu allows you to specify the number of frames to be taken Setting F 0 will cause Little Bramper to run indefinitely Enter 74 enables the change Exit re turns you to the Status screen without making any changes XXXXX MS Current shutter time x Exit Enter Interval T XXXXX MS Time between shots Exit Enter Frames F xxxxx O
32. ual Interval ramping 2 11 2 Automatic Interval ramping Little Bramper as a conventional intervalometer Tips examples troubleshooting and data 13 1 Day to Night tips 13 2 Night to day tips 18 19 19 19 20 23 23 20 24 24 25 26 21 28 30 30 32 32 33 34 35 35 30 CONTENTS 13 3 Troubleshooting 13 4 X times by camera model 13 5 Conversion to milliseconds 13 6 Time lapse factor 13 7 Angle of view in terms of sensor and lens focal length 30 37 37 38 39 CONTENTS 5 Congratulations you re reading the User Manual 1 Little Bramper uses four AA size Nickel metal Hydride NiMH batteries These are widely available rechargeable 1 2v batteries Do not use 1 5v alkaline batteries the voltage will be too high The current generation of low self discharge NiMH batteries e g Eneloop have a shelf life of over a year and may actually out perform alkalines In the long run NiMH are both more economical and environmentally friendly Straight out of the box Little Bramper will fire Canon cameras with the proprietary N3 remote socket and Prontor Compur PC flash socket This is essentially every mid to high end Canon digital SLR This does not include the digital Rebels and 60D both of these can be used but require appropriate connectors adapt
33. us screen without making any changes CHAPTER 5 THE MENU SYSTEM amp KEYPAD 19 5 10 Automatic Interval ramping Auto The Automatic Interval ramping menu autol allows you to specify a Target Inter 0 val which Little Bramper will ramp towards Tar get Interval over a specified period of time Use numeric T xxxxx ms in xxm keys to specify the Target Interval a value of I 0 will disable Automatic Interval ramp U Manualw else Auto ing Press A B keys to select a time period x PFy jt Enter from 15 to 360 minutes in 15 minute incre ments Enter 4 enables the option Exit returns you to the Status Screen without making any changes 5 11 Display The Display menu allows you to toggle be tween Basic Mode and Advanced Mode see Chapter 8 These modes determine ac gt Advanced cess to advanced functions as well as the level of detail displayed on the Status screen Ad vanced mode is required for performing ISO stepping and Interval ramping Pressing any key will toggle between the two options En ter 4 enables the option 5 12 Stats The Statistics option shows you information about your bramper s history how many times z z it has been reset how many frames it has Statistics taken and the total run time in hours Re Resets xx sets include power ons and presses of the RE SET button Frame counter does not include Frames xxxx Test Firings This non essential data serves Run time
34. x x hrs only to satisfy your curiosity and cannot be changed Chapter 6 Basic bramping procedure Here is the standard procedure for basic bramping The basic setup steps Figure 6 1 are similar to those you would normally take for a time lapse Press 7 in Status screen to display an on screen checklist You need to choose an appropriate Bulb exposure time If time lapsing a sunset then a short exposure time of B 150ms may be appropriate Conversely a sunrise time lapse would require a long exposure maybe several seconds see discussion about Collisions in Chapter 8 Set ISO lens aperture and add filters as desired Use Test Fire to find the settings for a correctly exposed image Ensure lens aperture is locked if using Canon lens Ensure Buffer time is long enough to allow camera to write image to card and display review image use approximately 1800ms for the 5D Mark II Set Interval time Remember that Interval must be larger than Bulb exposure time Buffer time Consider saving these settings as a preset for future use Chapter 7 Press Start Stop to start time lapse Study the review image and RGB histograms If image is becoming underexposed increase bramp strength by pressing A If image is over exposed reduce bramp strength by pressing B key This is the central step in bramping 20 CHAPTER 6 BASIC BRAMPING PROCEDURE 21 Little Bramper setting up Power on
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