• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

mirror lock-up

Dan Cook

EF5
Joined
Dec 12, 2003
Messages
1,946
Location
Lombard, IL
Is it worthwhile to do shoot storm stills with this activated? Since you have to hit the shutter button twice it seems like an unnecessary step to me.
 
Not so much for daylight, twilight storms. However, lightning it may be worth while. I've used it more for Meteor showers or something where I had some lighted by a flash in the foreground and long exposure to minimize the shake.

Night time storms, and evening exposures over 1/30 of a second, your going to get the storm moving anyway, so motion blur is a given.

It's really for very long exposures where you don't want ANY motion shake or blur at all and usuallu used on still subjects

John Diel
 
Is it worthwhile to do shoot storm stills with this activated? Since you have to hit the shutter button twice it seems like an unnecessary step to me.

Mirror lockup is for longer exposure images when the camera is tripoded (and also usually cable released.) The idea is the minimize the small amount of camera vibration caused by the mirror slapping into the up position to give the sensor a line of sight through the lens. If you're handholding, mirror lockup makes little sense, since the vibration of the mirror slap will be almost nothing compared to the the vibration caused by the muscles in your hands and arms shaking. :)
 
I've actually read that MLU is most beneficial for tripoded exposures that are between, say, ~1/30 sec. and 2 sec., and this makes sense to me. If you're doing a truly long exposure (> 10 sec.) in the dark, the effects of any mirror vibration should only be a factor for the first couple seconds of the exposure, proving negligible in the big picture. On the other hand, low-light exposures that are long enough to require a tripod, but not more than a couple seconds, could be detrimentally affected for their entire duration.

Needless to say, though, it can't hurt to use it on longer/nighttime exposures just for comfort.

Personally, I use MLU only occasionally, but primarily for stuff like sunsets, storms in waning light, or tripoded long telephoto shots with marginal exposure times.
 
I've actually read that MLU is most beneficial for tripoded exposures that are between, say, ~1/30 sec. and 2 sec., and this makes sense to me. If you're doing a truly long exposure (> 10 sec.) in the dark, the effects of any mirror vibration should only be a factor for the first couple seconds of the exposure, proving negligible in the big picture. On the other hand, low-light exposures that are long enough to require a tripod, but not more than a couple seconds, could be detrimentally affected for their entire duration.

Exactly! MLU for night time lightning shots, which are most often done with a wide angle, is going to have virtually zero effect either way.

The most common use for MLU is when shooting telephoto. Even when using a tripod collar with a 300mm f/2.8 or 400mm f/5.6, I can see physical movement across the lens just from the mirror slap alone. This is especially evident when using one or two teleconverters. MLU is extremely beneficial in this scenario.

But again, for night time photography with wide angle lenses, it is typically unnecessary.

Scott
 
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