Eclipse mode

Knud · February 20th, 2024, 3:35 am

Hi Oliver,

I would love to see an eclipse mode for the unleashed. The challenge with a solar eclipse is the rapid sequence of necessary exposure times in a much too short time while the brain is flashed by all the impressions. In principle, you would need three freely programmable exposure sequences that are started by pressing a button 1, 2 or 3 and continued until another number is pressed or the mode is terminated:

1) Partial phase:
one exposure every x minutes using an ND filter (e.g. ND4 / f2.8 / 1/8000s /Iso 100).
2) Transition (Baily's Breads, Chromosphere, Prominences):
Maximum shooting speed as a loop of e.g. 1/8000s, 1/4000s and 1/2000s. This phase only lasts a few seconds, but produces fantastic results
3) Totality:
To capture the sun's corona and the moon's surface, you need an extreme HDR of 7 to 10 different exposure times from e.g. 1/500s to 10s @ maximum speed.

The most flexible solution might be an "Add Sequence" Button which creates one within someone can than add/clone+modify line after line of different shutter speed/ ISO / f-numbers and specify how often that line is repeated and the Sequence is repeted.

There are good solutions availiable for Canon, but hardly anything for the other brands. So a manual eclipse mode for the unleashed could be a gread value add. The next total solar eclipse in the USA is on April 8th.

Thanks,
Knud

kirkkeyes · February 20th, 2024, 4:31 am

This would be amazing!

I would suggest starting to shoot for Baily's Beads about 20-25 sec before and about 15 sec after C2. Reversed order for C3.

For totality, shooting a bracket of 11 or 13 stops would be good as well. A bracket step of 1 EV should work well. Smaller EV steps shouldn't be needed with modern sensors.

And perhaps most important - there's no need to send images to the Unleashed, as all these exposures are predetermined. Just shoot, send a new exposure - shoot, send a new exposure - shoot, and on until C3 approaches.

February 20th, 2024, 11:52 pm

Very interesting suggestion!
Though I can already tell you that there is no way we can implement this until April 8th.
Our todo list is pretty full, and pausing everything else to work on such a feature, which, as great as it might be, will sure only interest a handfull of our customers, would not be a smart move...

Also, I'd be worried that this handful of customers that are interested, would be very, very disappointed and angry if it didn't work flawlessly. Without being able to properly test such an extensive feature, we wouldn't be able to promise a flawless function...

However, at least with the Unleashed app changing bracketing settings is really quick, so even if you have to make changes from one phase to the next, it should be quite doable!
Do some practise runs in advance to optimise your changes!

Knud · February 23rd, 2024, 2:16 am

Hi Oliver,

photographing the solar eclipse is a kind of lucky HDR imaging. You never know beforehand how the light will refract in which lunar crater, so you take hundreds of series shots and select the best scenes. I understand that it will be a niche application and it makes little sense to program your own Eclipse mode. This is where the bracketing function could actually be a suitable workaround. I tried it out today a 10-stop HDR in TV mode starting @ 1/8000s takes less than seven seconds. Unfortunately, there are no loop functions, as with the Timelapse or Holy Grail mode. This means you have to press the button again and again. Perhaps it would be possible to implement a kind of long press function to restart the bracketing over and over again. An Easter Egg is warmly welcome😊. Something like:

import time

class Camera:
def __init__(self):
self.is_taking_pictures = False

def press_button(self, duration):
if duration < 3: # Short Press
if self.is_taking_pictures:
self.is_taking_pictures = False
print("Bracketing-End")
else:
self.is_taking_pictures = True
self.take_bracketing_pictures()
self.is_taking_pictures = False
elif duration >= 3: # Long Press
self.is_taking_pictures = True
while self.is_taking_pictures:
self.take_bracketing_pictures()

def take_bracketing_pictures(self):
# however the bracketing is defined
print("Bracketing...")
time.sleep(0) # Time before Bracketing starts again

This code performs the recording series once when the release button is pressed briefly (like today) and repeats the bracketing series continuously when the release button is pressed and held for >3 seconds. Another short press of the release button ends the continuous bracketing series. Just as an Idea how it could be implemented. The attachment is easier to read as tabstops doesn't seem to work in the chat.

BR,
Knud

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