RE: To All and Photographing Tesla Coils

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>




The best way to photography your coil is through the use of a tripod, your
camera, and multiple exposures.
Digital (and film) cameras have a very limited dynamic range therefore you
can have a picture which shows
the streamers very well while the rest of the picture will be severely
underexposed, or the background can be
properly exposed while the streamers appear very dull.  You could compensate
by just using a very long exposure, but
in my opinion, this tends to look very sloppy and unrealistic.

The best way is to first take a shot (using a tripod) under a normal
exposure of your tesla coil.  It can be slightly
underexposed.  Using the exact same tripod/camera position, take shots of
the streamers.  These shots should be metered so the only thing really
visible in the pictures are the streamers.

Next, you can either manually stack these images in Photoshop or can use an
automated Photoshop action, such as Fred
Miranda's (www.fredmiranda-dot-com) DRI (Dynamic Range Increase) Photoshop
action.

The result will be very impressive.

Dan




I missed seeing the url for these. Would you mind posting it please?
       It is true that video often enhances the appearance of sparks as
the aperture widens to allow for the overall reduction in light
level. The first time I saw a coil running on video I wondered what I
was doing wrong until I cottoned on to what was happening. The haze
around the sparks is very real but is often undetected by eye since
the spark channel is orders of magnitude brighter. A lot of still
cameras in particular don't adjust for this and make the effect
visible, especially with long exposure times.

Regards,
Malcolm