Tim

Pluto Trigger Time Lapse Tutorial

The Pluto Trigger  includes a time lapse mode which is not all that different from the star trail mode but it does have enough differences to warrant it’s own review. The time lapse mode has several presets included which will automatically set the values to what are predetermined to be the “best” suited settings for the given presets. The presets include: custom, standard, miniature, sunrise, sunset, nightscn, night sky, and cloud sky. Personally I would suggest doing some sample time lapses using the presets to test them out and see what kind of results are given. This is the best way to learn and see what works best for your needs. Compiling the images into a software and getting a time-lapse output is really beyond the scope of this tutorial. I do show you how to do it using Photoshop in the video below but there are so many programs out there that are capable of compiling the images that it would be impossible for me to show all of the options.

There are some things to keep in mind though, standard video is 24 frames per second, which means that to get one second of video you will need to fire 24 shots for your time lapse. If you are using an interval of 10 seconds this can get extremely lengthy. To get just 10 seconds of video you will need 240 frames, with a 10 second interval between frames this will require 40 minutes of shooting to accomplish. My suggestion here is to get in mind what you want to capture and plan ahead. Make sure your batteries are charged and everything is ready to go. Have the scene that you want in mind and allow plenty of time to get to the spot and get set up. Time lapses can be very rewarding when done right but an ample amount of planning is required.

Pluto Trigger Star Trails Tutorial

The Pluto Trigger includes a wonderful star trail mode that allows you to take star trail photos with ease. The app allows you to set the number of shots, the exposure, the time between the shots and the delay between shots. The tricky part of this is the processing of the images to actually show star trails. I show how to do all of this in the video below but just in case you are unable to watch, I will give a brief written description. The easiest way that I know to do this is to edit all of the photos to your liking either using Adobe Camera Raw or whatever program you are comfortable using. Then go into Photoshop, File>Scripts>Load Files Into Stack. This will bring up a dialogue allowing you to import the files that you wish to use for your star trails. Using this dialog will load all of the selected files into one Photoshop file, each one will be a different layer. Once they are here select all of the layers except the bottom one and change the blending mode to “lighter color.” This will show each of the stars and merge them together giving you the appearance of star trails. I have included a gallery of photos showing this process.

 

Pluto Trigger Shutter Release Function

The Pluto Trigger Shutter Release function allows you to perform a myriad of shutter release functions.

 

It includes functionality to remotely release the shutter using your phone, a built in physical button on the Pluto itself which can be used when connected to the camera via cable or with the infrared transmitter if your camera has the capability to be triggered with infrared. It has a setting to allow you to focus the lens.

“Hold” mode, this one allows you to push the button down on the phone app to open the shutter, when the button is released it will close the shutter.

“Lock” mode allows you to push the button once to open the shutter, it then keeps it open until the button is pressed again.

“Bulb” modeallows you to set a timer from 1 second all the way to 99 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds, once the timer is set you can press play and forget it, the shutter will stay open until the timer runs out.

“Burst” mode allows you to set an interval between shots. When you press play the shots will fire infinitely at the set interval until you press stop.

“Timer” mode allows you to set the camera to fire after a set amount of time. This too allows you to set a time from 1 second all the way to 99 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds. Once the timer expires a shot will be taken, the timer will reset and continue taking shots at the set time until stop is pressed.

It’s worth noting that all of these features will run indefinitely until stopped, when applicable.

 

Pluto Trigger Testing

I have put together a series of videos showing all of the functions of the Pluto Trigger in action! You can check those out by going to the YouTube Playlist below.

Beginning Photography: Choosing a Camera

Choosing a camera is often an overwhelming endeavor. There are many levels of camera’s starting with basic point and shoots and moving all the way up through the levels to professional DSLR’s. Since you’re here, reading this article I have to assume you have decided that the capabilities of your smart phone camera are no longer suiting your needs so you’re ready to move up to a dedicated device made with the sole purpose of picture taking.

The first thing you need to consider is how serious you are about this endeavor. You can spend anywhere from $200 on up to tens of thousands of dollars for a camera. You’ll also need to consider what you plan to take photos of. If all you want is something to take photos of your kids and the occasional family get together a point and shoot will likely be all the camera that you need. Point and shoots are great and take care of most of the hard stuff for you. They have automatic modes with built in flash and a built in lens that will allow you to get decent images without much thought. As the name implies, just point, and shoot.

If you want a little more functionality then you may want to look into a DSLR. This is where things start getting complicated. DSLR cameras have come down in price considerably in the past few years and they are now affordable for almost everyone. They also provide a fantastic image quality. Canon’s Rebel series of cameras is a fantastic place to jump into the world of DSLR’s, they are affordable, produce great images and can be used to learn the art of photography.

Before I go any further I would like to say I am partial to Canon, my kit is canon, I have only owned Canon DSLR’s and it’s what I like to use. I am not endorsed by them in anyway it’s just what I started with and what I have stuck with. There are plenty of alternatives out there that will produce excellent quality but I do not keep up with other brands or really have any knowledge of their products. For the most part if a Canon Rebel sells for $500 then the other brands will have something that is an equivalent price with a similar quality.

Ok back to helping you find a camera. An entry level DSLR is a great place to start if you’re serious about photography but still not 100% sure if it’s something you’re going to love or want to make a career out of. Entry level DSLR’s will typically come with a kit lens, have a built in flash and the automatic green box mode that will still allow you to shoot automatic which will be very similar to a point and shoot. An entry level DSLR has the advantage of allowing you to use manual focus, switch lenses and they have a manual mode that will allow you to really explore photography on a deeper level.

As you move up from the entry level DSLR there will be mid range DSLR’s. These will be more robust than the entry level, have a few more features but will still fall short of the pro level. Some of these will have built in flash, some of them will not, those without will require a hot shoe flash to add light to a scene. Once you are at the pro end of things you will lose all of your automatic modes and you will have no choice but to use a hot shoe flash if you want to use flash.

With cameras, when buying new, you absolutely get what you pay for. A lot of times in life when making a purchase you can get a cheaper equivalent that is just as good as the name brand, if not better. That is not the case with cameras. My recommendation is to figure out which category you will be in, point and shoot, entry level DSLR, mid range DSLR or pro DSLR, then buy the most expensive model you can afford. Keep in mind though, with a DSLR purchase lenses are the deciding factor in how your images turn out so be sure to leave some money for those. That is a topic for a different post but also something to keep in mind when you’re going out to purchase your camera.

I often recommend people just starting out to look into used or refurbished gear. It’s often far cheaper than the new stuff and if you’re just starting out it may be good to not have the huge financial investment of buying new gear. Keep in mind, the used stuff was top of the line when it was released, just because there is better now it doesn’t mean that the older stuff isn’t still good. Keep your needs in mind and see if an older model will fit them.

Preparing to Photograph the 2024 Eclipse

Lot’s of eclipse images coming from me on my social sites and lots of talk about the eclipse here, it’s fresh in my mind, it was life altering and while it’s still fresh I want to talk about how to prepare for the 2024 eclipse. Remember, I’ve done this once, having said that I have a game plan and a lot of things that I learned from this one experience. Without further ado, here goes.

Unlike the 2017 eclipse totality for the 2024 eclipse is going to pass within about 50 miles of where I live. Today I talked with a lady about our excursion to see the eclipse and she said “well they say we will have like 99.9% here.” This brings me to my first point:

Drive as far as you have to, do whatever is necessary, take off work, rent a hotel room years in advance, whatever it takes, get on the center line of totality. If you aren’t on the center line totality won’t last as long, you’re going to want it to last as long as possible. Also worth noting, a partial eclipse will leave you miserably disappointed. Now that we have that out of the way.

If you are planning to photograph the eclipse, proceed. (see my results here)

I waited until the last minute this year, I didn’t get what the big deal was. The more I researched the more I realized that I probably needed to make an effort to not only see this but also photograph it. You have 7 years, get a game plan now.

With my limited 3 weeks for planning I had one shot that I wanted to get, that was my sole focus. I wanted a close up of the corona radiating out behind the moon. That is what I spent my money to capture, that is what I spent my time researching. My secondary plan was a wide angle time lapse, which mostly failed because I didn’t study how to do that. What I studied, what I set out to get, I got, nothing more, nothing less.

The issue with waiting until 3 weeks before the event is that most of the stuff I wanted, and discovered I needed, was well past sold out. Getting a solar filter was near impossible, getting a telephoto lens was near impossible, getting a tracking mount to counter the earths rotation, was impossible. So I had to make due with what I could get. I ended up lucking out and getting a proper solar filter from the camera shop that was in the town where we stayed to see the eclipse, don’t plan on this, buy a solar filter now. My back up plan was an ND filter with a major risk of frying my gear.

Telephoto shots are fun and challenging, if it’s telephoto shots you’re after then start planning your rental or purchase of that telephoto lens, now. Get the solar filter for it, probably a year in advance, if not sooner. The other option is to get a wide angle time lapse photo, or just a wide angle photo of totality in general. The principles are essentially the same for this, the difference is you should have no issues securing a wide angle lens. It may however be wise to get the filter as soon as possible. My personal game plan for 2024 is to do both. I now know the basis for shooting the time lapse and shooting the telephoto, the plan is to get the tracking mounts for both to counter balance the earths rotation and trigger both remotely.

The biggest thing I can suggest is to practice. Go out with your lens and your solar filter as soon as you get it, the sun moves fast across the sky due to the earths rotation, if you don’t have a mount to counter balance this you need to practice. The longer your focal length the faster it will move. Run through the settings, make your game plan and just practice, practice, practice.

I cannot emphasize to study and practice enough. There were two guys behind me who were VERY cocky about being professional photographers, the were very confident and very full of themselves. After totality I heard them both talking about how they didn’t get the shots. They missed the diamond ring, they didn’t bracket enough. Know what you’re getting into and practice. Run through the setting changes, run through all of it.

If you’re not shooting telephoto shots remember that totality is dark, super dark. It’s like shooting under a full moon. If you’re zoomed in with a telephoto on the eclipse itself this isn’t much of a concern. You’ll be able to rock shutter speeds of 1/100 and still get great results. If you’re trying to capture the landscape around you you’re going to have to slow it down, open the aperture or bump the iso. Know what you want to capture and plan accordingly.

Last but not least, consider not shooting the eclipse. It’s an insane, unbelievably beautiful, incredible, experience. Soak it up, enjoy it, and don’t worry about the camera. Photographing things is my joy in life, going to see something like this and not trying to photograph it would be a let down to my internal being. If photography isn’t important to you, maybe it’s a hobby that isn’t ingrained within your being, pass on the photos and just soak it up. Plenty of other people will take photos of it.

Photographing the Solar Eclipse

What was it like to photograph the solar eclipse? In one word,  exhilarating. I studied relentlessly for 3 weeks leading up to the eclipse. There are plenty of resources out there from people who have been chasing and photographing eclipses for far longer than I have been taking photography seriously. These people are a wealth of knowledge.

I armed myself with a Canon 400mm f:5.6 and a proper solar filter. The solar filter was a bit tricky. I decided I was going to go for this way late in the game so I was stuck with a 16 stop ND filter from Format Hitech. It had a severe ghosting issue. By the time I contacted them and got it sorted out all they had was 13 stop, but they overnighted me one for free. This worked, it was ok but not ideal. I also have a 10 stop B+W filter that I had planned on using if the 13 stop produced ghosting… it did.

We drove to Casper, Wyoming for the eclipse, this was the best chance for no clouds, and ironically we ended up with some cirrus clouds for most of the event but it did not spoil it at all. In Casper there was a camera shop with an abundance of proper solar filters, I bought one. This was the best decision I could have made. It allowed me to look at the sun through the viewfinder without having to use live view and also alleviated all concerns of frying my retinas and my camera.

Shooting the partial phases was easy, super straight forward with no stress. Just point the camera at the sun, adjust every so often and take the photos. This was a cake walk. Totality was another beast entirely. Totality was fast, really fast. I naturally had a shot list and had rehearsed and practiced the shutter speeds, taking the filter off, all of the critical stuff dozens of times before hand. The kicker being there was only one shot at this, I was nervous. I wanted to get the diamond ring, and baileys beads and the entire bracketed set of shots from totality itself. This was a tall order but I am happy, and proud to say, I nailed it.

You can see the shots here.

So how did I nail it? Practice.

Lot’s and lot’s of practice. I had an exposure chart. That I found here. I ran through it over and over again before the big day. I practiced with a remote and without. I ran through all of the bracketed images while my wife timed me. I had it down to 55 seconds. Ultimately I must’ve been able to do it much faster than that because I have 3 full bracketed sets of images and still had time to enjoy the eclipse while not staring through the camera view finder.

It wasn’t a complete success, I had my sights set on the bracketed shot, that was my goal, that’s why I drove 2400 miles in 3 days to ensure my best chance at no clouds, I wanted that shot bad so that was my focus. I also set up a 40D with a 16-35 in hopes of getting a sweet time lapse. That was a failure. I did absolutely no research on how to properly do that, and it failed. Obviously I should’ve just set it to AV and let it properly expose on it’s own, that’s not what I did. I set it in manual and just miserably failed. That’s ok, that wasn’t my goal and in theory I have another chance at this in 7 years.

I plan on shooting it again in 2024. Obviously there is a lot that can happen in 7 years but I’d like to talk about my plan now. My plan is to have 3-5 cameras rolling for that one. I want one shooting a wide angle video, preferably a full frame with something super wide like the 11-24. Just to capture the entire environment. I also want to get the time lapse right this time. I know how to do it, I know how to get it in camera, this should not be an issue at all. Then I want a longer lens focussed in on the sun, 400mm was perfect for getting all of the rays coming off of the sun but I’d like a tighter shot, maybe 800, or 800+ a 1.4 extender giving me 1120mm, along with the 400mm. I have 7 years, which should be ample time to put together a solid plan, acquire the necessary gear and lots of time to practice. I also plan on getting a tracking motor for the telephotos. Tracking the sun across the sky is easy enough but it would be far less stress during totality if the camera just auto tracked the sun.

Anyways, it was a ridiculous experience, there is no words to describe it, it was beautiful and wonderful and exciting all at the same time. Photographing it was amazing. I heard several photographers around me talk about not getting the shots though, if you aren’t confident and if you don’t do your practice and research I suggest ignoring taking photos and just enjoying it because it is truly a surreal experience.

Pluto Trigger Review

I have had an intermittent fascination with water drop photography. Every couple of years or so I get really into it and focus a lot of energy into making water drops then the joy fades and I forget about it for a while. My first water drop experiments were with a single drop which I controlled with a home made dropper that I made out of PVC parts that fed into a small brass nozzle. I controlled the flow with a simple ball valve. Without using any electronics I had to time it by hand and the hit rate was very low. At the time I didn’t want to shell out several hundred dollars for the electronic ideas on the market so I tucked the project away and sort of forgot about it.

Recently I was scrolling Facebook and came across the Pluto Trigger ad. I ignored it for months but it kept popping up, my curiosity got the best of me. The Pluto Trigger is a small, inexpensive trigger that hosts a ton of features. When looking into it I discovered the Pluto Valve for making water drop collisions. The valve is a very inexpensive $40. The trigger and the valve together come to around $150 which I thought was very affordable considering all of the things the trigger is capable of and how much competing water drop valves run.

Despite the large number of features contained within the Pluto Trigger I have only used it for water drops. I have plans to experiment more with it but my main objective was water drop collisions so that is where I have spent all of my time.

There are a couple of ways to set this up. I plug the trigger into the valve and into my camera. The other option is to plug the trigger into the valve and directly into your flashes. The delay is less when plugged directly into the flashes however I don’t have enough cables to do this so I run it into the camera and wirelessly trigger my flashes from the camera.

Edit May 16, 2017: The valve has a weak point where the reservoir tube connects to the valve. Mine became severed and in an attempt to fix it ended up breaking the piece entirely. I contacted Pluto via Facebook and they sent out replacement parts immediately. To my surprise when the parts arrived the package included 2 new plastic connectors, a brass connector and a brass spout for the bottom of the valve. I was very impressed with the customer service and the fact that they upgraded the parts. They did not charge me anything for the parts.

Overall I am extremely happy with my experience with Pluto as well as my experience with the valve. The valve is super easy to set up and use. It does take some trial and error but overall it is an absolute joy to use.

end edit.

Click here to see some shots taken with the Pluto Trigger/Valve set up, here are 5 tips to help you on your Pluto Valve water drop collision journey:

1: Add something to the water to make it thicker. Plain water will work fine but it is more temperamental. I have used borax, corn syrup and paint all with great success. My favorite mixture is 4 teaspoons of borax per cup of water. To get it a little thicker I sometimes add a teaspoon of paint or corn syrup to that mix. – when using additives in the water make sure you clean your valve thoroughly after each use.

2: Build a stand so that the valve is at a consistent height every time you shoot. I keep mine about 12 inches off of the top of the water.

3: Be patient. Even with electronics you are not going to get an awesome collision 100% of the time. There are many factors that contribute to a perfect collision. To get things dialed in I usually start with a drop size of 8 for both drops, a delay between drops of 95 and a flash delay of 195. I then tinker with the delay from there until I am getting consistent collisions. After that I start adjusting drop size. Once you have a baseline dialed in drop size adjustment just becomes a matter of some simple math.

4: Have fun! It’s easy to get frustrated when things aren’t working out but remember to have fun. Play around with different colors, flash arrangements, water additives, water temperatures, bowl shapes, height and any other factors you can think of.

5: Make sure you have a catch basin. I typically have a bowl to catch the water placed inside of a pan. I fill the bowl all the way to the brim, this is where the magic happens, then naturally every time a drop falls into it there is overflow. Make sure you have a second pan to catch this or you’re in for a mess.

Thanks for reading, click here to see some sample shots, if you want to buy your own Pluto Trigger click here!

Here is a video review showing how to create Water Droplets with the trigger and the valve.