Ever seen THIS before? (photography related, 56K warning maybe).

So tonight I was at the park. Dimly lit park late at night. Don't ask me WHY I was at the park at midnight. That's not important. The point is that on my way back to my car, I decided to see what my camera could do with those conditions. I shot a scene with no regard for composition. I merely set the ISO very high (1600), opened up the lens to the widest aperture, and shot. This wasn't supposed to be a GOOD shot, it was just a test. Here's the result...Pretty much as expected. Extreme image noise. Too dark. And the lights are too bright. Furthermore, the camera meter warned of underexposure, but I got the shot with no tripod. That told me what I need to know. If I ever need to use the camera in these kinds of conditions, that's what to expect. Here's the thing...just for the hell of it, I then tried taking the SAME shot with the flash ON. I thought, ''hey, the tree is close to me. Maybe if I turn the flash on, the TREE will look better. So I turned on the flash and HERE is what happened...WHAT? THE? ****?I was like, what the HELL is this? Then I realized that this picture was taken in heavy FOG. And I formed the hypothesis that the WEIRD ASS **** that's going on here was due to a combination of fog and flash. With no flash, this crap didn't happen. But as soon as I turned on the flash, all of the water droplets near the camera started doing some WEIRD ASS ****. They took the light from my camera's flash and directed that **** right back at my camera before it ever got a chance to travel ten feet.Just to confirm that this wasn't a fluke, I took a no-flash picture in my driveway after I got home from the park. Here's that picture... Again, not much to say. Poor image quality, and underexposed, but I got the shot. And no weird ass crap happening. I then took the driveway shot using a flash and here's what happened...No, it is not snowing. That's apparently FOG. My question is, have any of you heard about this effect? This is some weird ass crap and I would've thought that I would've heard about it. But have any of YOU heard about this? Have any of you ever heard about how using flash in heavy fog during low light can make your pictures look completely ****ed up? That's certainly new to ME.Secondly, while this kills my pictures, it's not as if my pictures were good or were ever intended to be good. They are merely tests. And as we can see just by the two messed-up pictures, the effect is still there but still is DIFFERENT. The park picture is SATURATED with the aberations. Meanwhile the driveway picture has fewer of these aberations, but they are more well-defined. The SAME thing is clearly going on, but the EFFECT is somewhat different. And this makes me wonder if I can actually use this to my ADVANTAGE in the future. The fog in the park was thicker than the fog in the driveway, and I suspect that plays a role in the difference between the two pictures. The non-flash light may also play a role, as well as possibly apertures or focal lengths. What would happen if I used flash during heavy fog during DAYLIGHT? Beats the hell out of me, but that's something to try out. Maybe it would still be weird as ****, and maybe it'd enhance the emotional impact of some of my pictures in CERTAIN situations if the overal effect ends up being not so ugly in certain situations. Certainly something to look into further. Thirdly, let this be a WARNING. Using your flash at night during heavy fog may completely **** your pictures up. Just to make sure there was nothing wrong with my flash, I took a flash picture once I got inside my home and was no longer in the fog. That picture turned out fine, even with flash. So apparently, this stuff is caused by the combination of flash, fog, and low-light. Next time you're at the bar on a foggy night and you use your camera's flash to take a snapshot of your friends, be aware that THIS might happen.Ever seen THIS before? (photography related, 56K warning maybe).
They all look pretty cool in their own way. Ever seen THIS before? (photography related, 56K warning maybe).
That is awesome. You have now captured footage of fog composition.
[QUOTE=''hokies1313'']That is awesome. You have now captured footage of fog composition.[/QUOTE]Indeed, you made a great discovery ( no joke, that is atually cool ).
itz a gost :o
L...l..l-l-l-li-lightsaber!
High iso on even the very good cameras are pretty terrible. 30 second exposures are always cool. You should have did one. Yes, I know, they were tests. But still.
Yeah night photography is fun, but you don't need such a high ISO, unless your really going for that grainy look... plus having a flash doesn't help much. Try slowing the shutter speed for a greater effect. Heres some of my night stuff:
Thanks for sharing your art with us.
I believe you captured ghost orbs or whatever they are called on camera.
[QUOTE=''dmc333'']High iso on even the very good cameras are pretty terrible. 30 second exposures are always cool. You should have did one. Yes, I know, they were tests. But still. [/QUOTE]High ISOs can look MODERATELY good. It's really a combination of factors. Apparently, there's some physics rule dictating that the amount of image noise for a given photosite is equal to the square root of the total number of photons detected at that photosite. So...for a photosite that capures 100 photons, you end up with a luminosity deviation of 10% photons, or 10% noise. Reduce the the lighting and suppose that you now only have 25 photons hitting that photosite in a given period of time. The square root rule now states that you have a 20% deviation from luminosity, and image noise gets worse. And since raising the ISO simply raises the electronic gain obtained from the sensor, higher ISOs are fundamentally a LOT more noisy and grainy. Raising the gain amplifies the image, but it also fundamentally amplifies the NOISE too.
Or like, something like that. I'm not an expert or anything. But one important thing to gain from that is that increased megapixels can be BAD. Camera manufacturers always like to say how their new cameras have more megapixels, becuase in their eyes the general public think that more megapixels equals better image quality. They use megapixel counts as a marketing tool, and rely on the fact that many consumers don't realize that more megapixels might make their pictures WORSE. All cameras have an image sensor of a certain size. In order to cram MORE megapixels onto a sensor of the same size, they have to make each photosite SMALLER. Make these photosites small enough, and eventually image noise becomes a BIG problem.Case in point, my 15 megapixel Canon Powershot G10. It really IS a good camera, and is one of the closest things one can get to DSLR functionality in a compact body. But really, FIFTEEN megapixels? Back in the days of film, 35 mm was the standard. There are 35mm digital cameras today, but MOST digital cameras have sensors smaller than 35mm. Next smaller format seems to be the 1.6x crop factor APS format sensors used in a lot of mid-grade DSLRs. Then a step down from that are the even SMALLER sensors used in compact cameras such as my Powershot G10. Small sensor plus INSANE megapixel counts equal the kinds of shots I showed you. My older Canon 40D has less image noise at ISO 3200. And the 40D is only a TEN megapixel camera. The 50% megapixel ''advatage'' that my G10 has over my 40D sometimes leads to WORSE pictures because the G10 is seriously pushing the physical limits of what it can do. Sure, in PERFECT light, the small-sensor G10 can take far more pleasing pictures than the 40D. But once the light drops and the ISO starts to go up, the 50% megapixel ''advantage'' soon starts to mean very little. My G10 starts showing significant noise as low as ISO 100. And I generally NEVER try to go above ISO 200 unless I can't get the shot otherwise, or am deliberately shooting for higher noise as part of a deliberate ''artistic'' effect. By conttrast, pictures from my 10 megapixel 40D often look better at ISO 800 than pictures from my 15 megapixel G10 at ISO 100.My point: don't listen to megapixel counts. These days, standard megapixel counts have gotten high enough that they cease to really mean anything. A 15 megapixel camera doesn't necessarily have better image quality than a 10 megapixel camera. In fact, you may see the OPPOSITE. When you increase megapixels on a sensor of a certain size, eventually you reach a point where there's an inherent increase in noticeable image noise, and a noticeable decrease in things such as dynamic range. These days, megapixel counts are more than anything a marketing tool. NEVER buy a new camera because of megapixels without digging deeper and seeing if that camera actually has good IMAGE QUALITY. Sometimes more megapixels can mean WORSE image quality. I LOVE my Powershot G10, but I wonder if it would have been a better camera if Canon hadn;t decided to go crazy and try to pack 15 freaking megapixels onto such a tiny sensor.
I'm sorry to say but... Silent Hill is coming for you...
this is actually quite cool. I磛e never seen fog portrayed like that before, probably because those kind of pictures are concidered flukes and gets discarded instantly. But thank you for sharing, i enjoyed it :)