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Registered Member #79
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 11:35AM
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 673
Try putting most of it behind shielding? My little 80W SGTC used to drive digital stuff crazy too, but ironically, I've never had any trouble with my big coils.
When you "touch" the shutter button on the camera, "you" might be a giant high voltage "antenna" picking up all kinds of nasty stuff from the coil and transfering it to the camera's electronics....
Try using the shutter timer thing so you do not touch the camera when it takes the picture.
The camera should not be grounded to metal or anything. Just "floating" out there...
If the camera is on and you touch it. A few thousand volts running around on the ICs in it might not "compute" well... The program might be scrambled long before the picture is taken.
Easy just to move it further away and use the zoom
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Whenever it comes round to spark photography, I always like to post this pic I think it's the best spark pic I ever managed.
I used a fancy digital SLR camera set to manual exposure, on a tripod. The shutter speed was about 5 seconds, the aperture was the widest the lens had (about f/3.5) and the camera was probably set to ISO 200 or 400. I find 400 is about right, the higher sensitivities result in a shutter speed that's too fast to capture a decent sized mess of streamers.
The lighting is the yellow sodium street lights filtering in from outside.
To avoid RFI, I press the shutter button and let go the camera before firing the coil.
Registered Member #397
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125
Most normal film SLRs usually have a threaded hole on the shutter release to attach a remote shutter control for taking pictures remotely or using the Bulb function for infinite shutter variability as long as it is depressed (ie astronomy shots). I do not know if they have this feature on digital SLRs but it would definitely be handy if you can find it.
I'd personally suggest shooting with the largest apeture (smallest f-stop number) possible so you can lower your ISO to reduce graininess to a reasonable level (400ISO or lower) and adjust shutter speed as necessary to capture spark density to your liking. I don't think depth-of-field is too big a concern when it comes to trying to capture sparks but you definitely want to maximize what little illumination is available from the streamers.
I have a cheap digital camera because I haven't bothered investing in a digital SLR yet, but I find if you get too close (2 feet or closer), it will go haywire and not do what it is supposed to do. I get an increase in artifacts showing up in images as well, but there are no long term effects as far as I can tell (or care about with this camera).
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
With SLRs and lenses of wide aperture (f/2.8 for example), depth of field becomes a real issue, especially for larger coils.
Although, i still shoot most of my stuff (small coils) at f/2.8, for larger coils, i always push to at least f/4 or higher, otherwise, you'll get some arcs in focus and some not.
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Taking pictures of DRSSTC's
I think it's the best spark pic I ever managed.
