Foolography Community

Hello & thanks for an amazing product. I am running my N2 on my Z6 & Z7 for creating holy-grail time lapses.
Unfortunately I am puzzled your publicity specifically states that -
'The Unleashed even supports carefully controlled exposure ramping for smooth day to night transitions timelapses – the “holy grail”

Unfortunately, nowhere do you state a secondary software program such as LRTimelapse is then required in post-production to actually smooth out & interpolate the minimum 1/3 stop exposure jumps that the Unleashed naturally causes as it ramps the exposures to compensate for changing illumination. Unless I'm mistaken, I feel this is misrepresenting the product's capabilities.
I have tested both the LRTimelapse & Unleashed EV smoothing algorithms.
This is the same exposure stepping methodology as found in QDSLR Dashboard & Timelapse+ View app/devices. All create exposure stepping that requires post smoothing in LRTimelapse.

(In fact, the only truly non stepping/flickering method is found within the Nikon Z6/7 & Lumix S1 cameras itself- when using auto-ISO & the exposure-smoothing settings. This feature is amazing & extremely accurate, changing the exposure in tiny sub-ISO & shutter speed steps- I don't need to use LRTimelapse at all!)

Can you please advise if Unleashed can actually create truly smooth exposure changes or not?
Also- I think the addition of interval ramping should be mandatory- as found in the LRTimelapse ProTimer & Timelapse+ View devices.
Thanks for reading

Hi Mark,
I'm glad you like the Unleashed, despite the shortcomings you describe ;-)

You're right, the third stop steps are still visible, but I'm sure we do write somewhere that we make changes in the smallest stepsize possible, which is 1/3rd of a stop, which logically must be visbible. I understand that our wording might not tell the whole story for everyone - but after 1.5 years of availablilty and thousands of Unleasheds sold, you're the first one to even comment on this. Nonetheless, I'll have another look at the wording on our website to see if we can include this information somewhere.

That said, we have had plans to include a method where perfectly smooth transitions would be possible, by implementing a mix of real camera settings changes and bulb ramping. Unfortuntely, we're limited to exposure times of 1/90th of a second and slower, so probably not fast enough for your typical daytime start, but would only start working nicely as it gets darker. Also, since no-one has asked about this until today, we never gave it a high priority, as it would require a lot of work on our side! If enough people would be interested, we'll move this up the priority list.
We've also thought about a method to go down to 1/6th stop steps, by changing ISO to 1/2 stop steps, and Aperture/shutterspeed to 1/3rd stop steps, then alternating back and forth between two ISO settings while changing shutterspeed/aperture. But this will still result in stepping, even if a little better than 1/3rd stop steps, so again, we could not justify giving it a priority.

About your interval ramping. What exactly are you imagining? a simple linear ramp? being able to set the formula for ramping the interval? a choice of 3 formulae?
Of course we have thought about this, but not being able to come with a simple, intuitive UI for such a potentially complex setting has hindered us from implementing it. The only idea we're thinking of implementing which goes in this direction is to have a "back to back" interval setting. Since we know when the exposure ends, we could start the next one as soon as possible after that (of course also after the time we need to make the autoramp settings changes). That would of course ramp the interval in a way.


Tell me more about your requirements, and we'll see how we could make those possible. We're currently planning to overhaul the timelapse/autoramp screens in the app, so this might be a good time to introduce something new like this if it's feasible.

Hi Oliver,
thanks for your prompt & detailed reply.
The Unleashed (N2) worked perfectly this morning when testing on a sunrise- keeping the exposure range hovering about mid-way. The post processing de/flickering (minor) in LR Timelapse was subsequently very easy.
It's good to know that the 1/3 stop changes are as expected- I know how to deal with that of course, but yes I would explain the need for post-processing on your website for new buyers.

For interval ramping it's more about the choice of time over which the changes will occur & being able to dial that in just like the other exposure options. ie- interval ramping over say 1 minute through to several hours. I cannot advise as to the U.I. as I am not an expert on how you design the app! But I suggest looking at the iOS app interface controls for devices such as Edelkrone's various sliders. These use both numerical input & also simple graphical displays that can be adjusted. They are very clean, simple & easy to understand.
Usually the rate of change would be either linear, or ease-in-ease-out so as to slowly change at the start & end.
Look forward to seeing what you can do.
Thanks

I'm glad it's working well for you! That's what it's supposed to do! ;-)

I'll have a look at the Edelkrone UI if they have solved it well.
And Linear Ramping (with or without Ease-in/Ease-out) would be easy to implement. I'll see what we can do.