Travelog: Summer season

Hi folks
Long time no talk… Only because since some month I'm really busy and have not much time to devote to OPF…
Sorry for that, but I'm sure you'll understand: Below is my summer program (started last Monday in Denmark) till August 15…
In no special order…

Talking about the last shoot in Denmark, we were waiting for hours at the helicopter garage for the boat we were supposed to shoot, so we had quite a lot of time to chat with the pilot (that was a reaaaaaaaally remote place), became a discussion about strange (weird?) digicam unwanted effects the pilot showed me this image of his own plane, assuring that the prop shouldn't have this moustache look! And that I can understand LoL!


To his surprised I was not that much amazed and then showed him a photo of me shot by one of our client during a photoshoot:


So dear techies, who can explain what is this strange behavior? How can you explain this?

Nice week-end to everyone

My dear friend Nicolas,

Such a wonderful visit. You're globe-trotting and busy and that's so great! Still, this must be a major enterprise getting though all the security with your cameras. Do you send you gear ahead? Is Romain filming with you too? His work is magic!

This same distortion occurs with a scanning back when waves get distorted or curled as the scanning back approaches the movement of the wave from the opposite direction. Jim Collum's work shows this. The shutter allows parts of the image to be built successively while the aircraft prop is rotating and the prop gradually get's built with the leading edge advancing all the time. The ends of the prop move more than the centers and so this causes a successive bending of a straight prop.

The cure is not spiking the oil with increased potency additives, LOL but a faster shutter speed!

Thanks for sharing.

Asher

Hi, Nicolas,

Nicolas Claris said:

Hi folks
Long time no talk… Only because since some month I'm really busy and have not much time to devote to OPF…

Click to expand...

Nice indeed to hear from you.

Talking about the last shoot in Denmark, we were waiting for hours at the helicopter garage for the boat we were supposed to shoot, so we had quite a lot of time to chat with the pilot (that was a reaaaaaaaally remote place), became a discussion about strange (weird?) digicam unwanted effects the pilot showed me this image of his own plane, assuring that the prop shouldn't have this moustache look! And that I can understand LoL!

And yes, the prop were running​

To his surprised I was not that much amazed and then showed him a photo of me shot by one of our client during a photoshoot:

Click to expand...

The opening in a focal plane shutter (such as we generally have in our dSLRs) is a horizontal "slit" which travels vertically across the frame (usually, top-to-bottom, which means bottom-to-top on the erect image) . Especially for the faster shutter speeds, it is quite small compared to the frame height.

Thus the image is "scanned" throughout the duration of the shutter stroke (which for high shutter speeds is perhaps 1/350 sec in duration, regardless of the shutter speed setting - that only varies the width of the slit).

Consider the shot of the helicopter (it makes an easier story). The moving slit first exposes the tip of the far side blade (lowest in our frame). Just a little later, it exposes the portion of the blade just inboard of the tip. By then the blade has rotated slightly; thus that poortion of teh blade is captured a little to the right of what would be in line with teh tip. And so forth.

A while later, the slit just exposes the port of the near blade nearest the hub. A little later, it exposes a part that is farther from the hub. Bu that time, the blade has rotated some more, so the near blade is left of where it was a bit ago. Thus the new section of the blade is captured father to the left than what would put it in line with the earlier section (near the hub). And so forth.

I'm sure that if we apply the same outlook we can construct a detailed story of why the propeller on the airplane looks as it does. (I have never seen that before - it is wild!)

The very same thing would have happened with a film camera with a focal plane shutter.

I hope that helps.

Best regards,

Doug

Dear Asher
thanks for the quick reply and the explanation, I knew (and the following post by Dough is even more "in depth") that there should be an explanation, but still, this quite strange to look at!
I'm so used to get the gear thru the police controls!
I manage to have everything I need for at least one day of shoot with me in the plane… One time 2 years ago we thought that for once we'll send by fast courrier (DHL) a flying case with all gear (except camera bodies (still and video) and some lenses). The gear arrived 48 hours late despite being sent a week in advance!
The only thing I can't bring in the cabin is the tripod… so it goes in plane trunck, this is why I have 3 spare of them now as they sometimes arrive late because they where lost between corresponding flights! I had to buy new ones in local shops to be able to achieve my jobs! lol!

Yes Romain is doing all these trips with me…
I wish every father could have the same experience with their sons or daughters! Unbelievable!

Such a pleasure to travel and work side by side. What an experience! I love it! and I tend to think he does too

He recently finished the filming of a huge project for which I joined him for one day in Rüsselscheim near Frankfurt in Germany, filming for him. He was the boss! and directed me… Awesome!

Below are some details of the project:

Company
United Dance Company

Art Director
Alexander Hoffmann

Costume*
Thomas Bagackas

Maître de ballet*
Sergej Upkin

Dancers:
Aliaksandr Buber
Ovidiu Chitanu
Yulia Dziatko
Mai Komori
Konstantin Kusnetsov
Ovidiu Lancu
Ville Mäki
Maria Madalina Stoica
Cristian Tarcea
Cristina Tipirig
Sergej Upkin
Miki Watanabe

Hi Doug
I knew this could only comes from you! you're so detailed and have a so precious knowledge!

I'm still not sure I understand all… I understand the shutter time lag, but I can't imagine and understand why props are simply not blurred…

I'll have to dig your post, word by word… ;-)
The peasant that leaves inside me is not prepared enough to this kind of conceptual thinking ;-)

Thank you!

Mes hommages à Carla

Howdy stranger.

Lovely to hear from you.

I hope the season rewards you well.

Regards to yourself and family.

Hi, Nicolas,

Nicolas Claris said:

Hi Doug
I knew this could only comes from you! you're so detailed and have a so precious knowledge!

I'm still not sure I understand all… I understand the shutter time lag, but I can't imagine and understand why props are simply not blurred…

Click to expand...

Any particular spot on the blade is only exposed for a very tiny time (whatever the shutter speed setting is). So no spot will be blurred.

But the different parts are exposed (very briefly) at significantly different instants (when the whole blade is in different parts of its rotation cycle).

It is the same reason that if we take a shot of a rapidly moving motorcycle with a very short shutter speed using a focal plane shutter, we will get a sharp image but it is skewed (the wheels will look like ovals, leaning with their tops in the direction of the motion of the motorcycle).

In fact, that is why the slit on the focal plane shutter moves down rather than up. If it moved the other way, then the top of the vehicle would be skewed back.

But having the top skewed forward is a long-time cartoonist's convention for the motion of a vehicle. So the camera is made to replicate that (not the opposite, which would seem peculiar to viewers familiar with the cartoonist's convention).

Interestingly enough, it is thought that perhaps that convention was adopted by cartoonists after seen the results in a camera with an FP shutter! So again we have, perhaps, art imitating art!

Mes hommages à Carla

Click to expand...

Merci. We are just about to leave for the Ms. Senior Parker County Pageant, in which she is a contestant!

Best regards,

Doug

Nicolas Claris said:

Hi Doug
I knew this could only comes from you! you're so detailed and have a so precious knowledge!

I'm still not sure I understand all… I understand the shutter time lag, but I can't imagine and understand why props are simply not blurred…

I'll have to dig your post, word by word… ;-)
The peasant that leaves inside me is not prepared enough to this kind of conceptual thinking ;-)

Click to expand...

Hi Nicolas,

Good you are keeping yourself busy travelling ;-)

The curtain shutters only expose a narrow strip of the entire sensor at exposure speeds shorter than the flash sync speed (1/250 or 1/320 sec. in your case).

The shutter curtains move at a fixed speed, but the delay between the first curtain and the second one varies with exposure time. When the 'shutter speed' (= actually exposure time) is set high enough, only a narrow strip is exposed at any time, and it travels at a relatively slow(er) speed than the set speed. The set speed refers to the time each part of the sensor is exposed so, with a slowly traveling curtain, the slit needs to be narrower and narrower as the exposure time (and not the actual shutter speed, which is constant) is shortened.

With only a narrow strip on the sensor uncovered, a moving subject will be displaced as the slit progresses to the next part of the sensor. So you are actually making an image of motion in time. This results in the great examples you've shown when propellors are involved, and it will produce elliptical wheels (usually the bottom of the wheel is exposed first, and the top last, but it has moved across the image) on cars/bikes that speed from left to right or vice versa. Rotating the camera by 90 degrees will shorten or elongate the vehicle that moves, but it's not as effective on the angular movement of propellor blades.

Cheers,
Bart

fahim mohammed said:

Howdy stranger.

Lovely to hear from you.

I hope the season rewards you well.

Regards to yourself and family.

Click to expand...

Hi Fahim
Thanks for the kind words and congrats for your numerous posts and great pictures!
Have great tim too and same to your family

Thanks Doug and Bart
now it starts to make sense to me
Great and clear explanations, as usual from both of you…

Nicolas Claris said:

Yes Romain is doing all these trips with me…
I wish every father could have the same experience with their sons or daughters! Unbelievable!

Such a pleasure to travel and work side by side. What an experience! I love it! and I tend to think he does too

Click to expand...

Exactly my wish too! This is the good life! So many children want distance between them and their old-fashioned parents, LOL!

Nicolas Claris said:

He recently finished the filming of a huge project for which I joined him for one day in Rüsselscheim near Frankfurt in Germany, filming for him. He was the boss! and directed me… Awesome!

Below are some details of the project:

Company
United Dance Company

Art Director
Alexander Hoffmann

Costume*
Thomas Bagackas

Maître de ballet*
Sergej Upkin

Dancers:
Aliaksandr Buber
Ovidiu Chitanu
Yulia Dziatko
Mai Komori
Konstantin Kusnetsov
Ovidiu Lancu
Ville Mäki
Maria Madalina Stoica
Cristian Tarcea
Cristina Tipirig
Sergej Upkin
Miki Watanabe

- A 90-minute film on the representation of the show by the United Dance Company in Rüsselscheim Wednesday, May 4, 2011.

- A documentary film on the week of preparation and creation of the ballet and the life of the party during the ten-day performance.

For the film on the representation of the show at Rüsselscheim (2 x 45 min), a multi-camera high définition will be set-up.
4 cameras will record the show, two in the center (one large sets, the second following the dancers), both other cameras placed on either side of the room (Jacques Dubuisson and Nicolas Claris) will also follow the dancers, seeking for close-ups and portraits.
A rich editing with alternate angles and viewes will then be possible.


The documentary film will be both a portrait of Alexander Hoffmann, who will naturally conduct us to the technicians and the dancers, but also a film about the lives of dancers who come together to create a ballet. Aesthetics without being aesthetisising, the camera finds a place and a distance to translate the singular adventure of the encounter between different dancers and various dances. The documentary will also use images from the film representation. The editing will be alternated with interviews of dancers.

​

Click to expand...

So what will t take to get a copy of the films?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

So what will t take to get a copy of the films?

Asher

Click to expand...

to be patient and have a PAL video system.
Due to rights for the music it won't be viewable online…

Very nice to hear from you. You sure have a busy schedule, but it will fun working with your son.

Take care of yourself.

Thank you Ron
Good to see you're still around!

Nicolas Claris said:

to be patient and have a PAL video system.
Due to rights for the music it won't be viewable online…

Click to expand...

For a pal like you and Romain's blissful flowing filming, translation is a worthwhile investment!


It's a special joy to see the capabilities of parents re-formualated in offspring. Romain's work is somethng I look forward to.

Asher

Nicolas,

I mentioned the Better Light Scanning back. Here's a magnificent panorama by Jim Collum, showing the accentuation and peaking of incoming waves at the beach by virtue of the slow moving sensor, meeting the waves.




This can be intentionally misused for creative effects as shown here

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Nicolas,

I mentioned the Better Light Scanning back. Here's a magnificent panorama by Jim Collum, showing the accentuation and peaking of incoming waves at the beach by virtue of the slow moving sensor, meeting the waves.

© 2009 Jim Collum:Waves with Better light Scanning Back​

This can be intentionally misused for creative effects as shown here

Asher

Click to expand...

Asher, Jim
this is wonderfull !
Beside the effect, I love the subtle colors

Nicolas,

No one here has done so much with photography over water and by beaches and rocks! No one else here knows water as you do! So your impression really seals my impression that Jim's work is so exceptional. I think this and his other work are worthy of our attention and even collecting!

Asher