PF Photography: Tips, Tricks, & Photo Sharing

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>
My sister sent me this, and she got me.

Clever image- very creative!

 

[drizzle]

Clever image- very creative!

Thanks Andy, good to hear that from a professional ;)

She is creative, talented, and a potential photographer.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Patting myself on the back for this one- successful decapsulation of a MEMS device (old laptop). This device costs less than $0.01 to manufacture- I found an iPhone bill of materials with this device listed. Three axis accelerometer plus tilt- STMicroelectronics CSL05E, similar to the CSL10B. The lower image is about 400X magnification.

http://imageshack.us/a/img534/6023/dsc02306zk.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img692/3649/dsc02312xpfo.jpg

My understanding is that this works by capacitance sensing- movements of the masses (suspended polysilicon) changes the spacings, leading to a signal.

We should be *astounded* by our ability to mass-produce this technology. We probably throw away millions of these every year.

 

[Maui]

Jet blast from a B767 taking off in St Maarten(the airport beach) - Jan 2013

 

[dlgoff]

Jet blast from a B767 taking off in St Maarten(the airport beach) - Jan 2013

Outstanding photo. :!)



If it were the 787, you probably could have smelled these:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/components/display_image.php?id=525289?123

 

[Maui]

Outstanding photo. :!)
If it were the 787, you probably could have smelled these:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/components/display_image.php?id=525289?123

Ha ha, so true :)

Having spent nearly 3 years on PF, I've just found about this wonderful subforum. Will take a very active role, i am a photography geek and I've been to a lot of beautiful spots around the world. Stay tuned :)

 

[Maui]

Shanghai from the highest observation deck in the world:

 

[dlgoff]

Having spent nearly 3 years on PF, I've just found about this wonderful subforum. ...

Says a lot about the depth of PF. There are many subforums I've yet to visit after nearly 10 years.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Latest batch of MEMS images- the first one was from a broken laptop, the other from a broken Wii controller. The second one was damaged during cleaning- the suspended membranes are little more than solid smoke- a puff of air is enough to smash them to bits:

http://imageshack.us/a/img221/6650/dsc02306o.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img198/8981/dsc023111.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img546/3788/dsc02317c.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img854/2199/dsc02389i.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img541/6866/dsc02404ao.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img4/5730/dsc02435pd.jpg

Full-sized images (and additional images) are on my lab's website. Enjoy!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Jet blast from a B767 taking off in St Maarten(the airport beach) - Jan 2013

Excellent (both photos)!

 

[lisab]

Shanghai from the highest observation deck in the world:

Maui, that shot made me dizzy!

 

[Maui]

Maui, that shot made me dizzy!

Hold on, there's higher!

120x, hand shot

The moons of Jupiter(hand shot, no tripod):

 

[Kinase]

here's a photo from the jersey shore after sandy tore it up.

 

[Maui]

 

[Andy Resnick]

Finally- the first clear night in (what seems like) months. First image: 15/4, 8s @ ISO 800, background subtraction post-processing. Second image: 1:1 crop of 800/5.6, composite of 1/100s ISO100 and 1/4s ISO400.

http://imageshack.us/a/img191/6586/resultofdsc02785filtere.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img826/7623/dsc027793.jpg

 

[fluidistic]

Nice photos Andy! I'm curious, can you take such photos from a big city? I ask this because I'd think it's hard to see that many stars in the sky in a big city due to "light pollution".
Also for the second photo, you made a composite of "1/100s ISO100 and 1/4s ISO400". I am curious... shouldn't 1/100s ISO 100 be almost a fully dark photo?!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Nice photos Andy! I'm curious, can you take such photos from a big city? I ask this because I'd think it's hard to see that many stars in the sky in a big city due to "light pollution".
Also for the second photo, you made a composite of "1/100s ISO100 and 1/4s ISO400". I am curious... shouldn't 1/100s ISO 100 be almost a fully dark photo?!

Thanks!

To the first question (light pollution): it's all about increasing the signal to noise ratio. What I did here was simply subtract the background- the slowly-varying intensity. Any location with a rapidly-varying intensity (starts, tree branches, etc) is left alone. It's easy to do- duplicate the image, blur one of them (I used a Gaussian blur radius of 100 pixels), and then subtract the blurred image from the original. Another method is 'image stacking', where multiple images are added together. There are lots of subtle details that go into optimizing a particular strategy, and there are folks here with a lot of experience who can help you.

As a point of reference, I have been able to consistently pull out magnitude +15 objects from the background. I think I can do even better once the weather warms up and I can spend more time outside.

To the second question, the answer is that I am using a lens with a large aperture; the lens is a 400/2.8 (with an optional 2x extension tube) which means for astrophotography it's a 6" refractor. This let's me use short shutter speeds, but more practically it let's me aim the camera by eye; I can 'star hop' to a particular faint object fairly quickly.

 

[Drakkith]

To the first question (light pollution): it's all about increasing the signal to noise ratio. What I did here was simply subtract the background- the slowly-varying intensity. Any location with a rapidly-varying intensity (starts, tree branches, etc) is left alone. It's easy to do- duplicate the image, blur one of them (I used a Gaussian blur radius of 100 pixels), and then subtract the blurred image from the original. Another method is 'image stacking', where multiple images are added together. There are lots of subtle details that go into optimizing a particular strategy, and there are folks here with a lot of experience who can help you.

I'm assuming that the background subtraction doesn't actually increase the SN ratio, it just removes the background light from the sky without affecting the abrupt changes where something blocks out the background light, such as the tree limbs you mentioned, along with the sudden increase in signal from stars? That way you can still see the tree limbs and such, thanks to the "glow" around them, and at the same time you can see the stars as well.

 

[fluidistic]

Thanks Andy for the explanation.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I'm assuming that the background subtraction doesn't actually increase the SN ratio, it just removes the background light from the sky without affecting the abrupt changes where something blocks out the background light, such as the tree limbs you mentioned, along with the sudden increase in signal from stars? That way you can still see the tree limbs and such, thanks to the "glow" around them, and at the same time you can see the stars as well.

That's a good point. My intention was to describe ways to stretch the contrast between star and sky.

 

[Drakkith]

That's a good point. My intention was to describe ways to stretch the contrast between star and sky.

Got it.

 

[Borek]

Spring is in my backyard. Definitely.

 

[fluidistic]

Have you seen this video borek?

By the way, nice photo. Do you know whether it's a toad or a frog? Probably the former...

 

[Borek]

Have you seen this video borek?

Sigh. I thought I already know what it is about and then... Now I have coffee everywhere.

By the way, nice photo. Do you know whether it's a toad or a frog? Probably the former...

Check the file name.

 

[fluidistic]

Sigh. I thought I already know what it is about and then... Now I have coffee everywhere.

lol.

Check the file name.

Ah, I didn't know that was possible. Nice... According to wiki:

When alarmed, it emits a very loud call (alarm call) and it can exude a noxious secretion which smells like garlic, hence the common name "garlic toad".

. So your specimen was around 6 to 8 cm?!

 

[Borek]

So your specimen was around 6 to 8 cm?!

Perhaps even larger.

 

[fluidistic]

Perhaps even larger.

Nice :)

 

[Andre]

Wow, that must be Touchwood from Catweazle

http://www.nostalgie.webpark.cz/wp-content/gallery/caryfuk/cf9.jpg

http://www.nostalgie.webpark.cz/caryfuk-1970-catweazle

 

[Andy Resnick]

This is a chip from the paleolithic era: a circa-1968 RCA CD4012 (dual 4-input NAND gate) device.

http://imageshack.us/a/img835/803/dsc05788i.jpg

I've found a stash of TTL devices (and a lot more) dating from 1962 (!), I will be posting images of these on my lab blog as they become available.

 

[Andy Resnick]

M57, the Ring Nebula, is currently in the small patch of sky visible from my backyard:


A 1:1 crop


technical: stack of 800/5.6, 20s, ISO 2000 frames