What is with these hit pixels ;-)

Wow! That's lotsa lightning bugs!

liquidsquid said:

You will need to see a larger image for full effect! I was worried that the show would not be very good this year (it has declined in recent years), but the recent warm weather has been ideal, along with low winds. It is enough to get them to synchronize, and I haven't seen that in years!

Not the best shot for framing, this happens to be the most dense area on our property for fireflies. Again, look full screen on a real monitor, not a phone for best effect.


I copped a different format for appeal (too much foreground). Fireflies.

I will try to post a better image soon, but thought I would share.

Click to expand...

Very nice!

But with a G9, couldn't you try to do a short video? I think a good part of the magic is seeing them fly, at this relatively low speed, a bit like dancing, looking kind of weightless.

Maybe a bit more focal length for the video so no need for a crop?

Over here, I've seen the first one for this year just 3 days ago. And another single one last night. Temperature is o.k. here, but it's a bit too dry, I think. But that many as in your shot, hmm, last time was probably 10 years ago.

Two tiny pics of a Glühwürmchen, from 2005, taken with the 2 MP Oly C-2100 UZ, probably with the MCON-40 attached; had to have a closer look at a single one to see where the light comes from (the rear bottom end):









Liewenberger

I saw this on the Gh4 too but not on any Oly cam. Is it Panasonic specific or is it just coincidence.

Thanks! I did try the video, but it is so dang dark that you get no real context of what is going on. I don't know how to slow the frame rate to grab more light, time-lapse or otherwise?

For example this is a 60 second exposure at iso200, and I still had to increase exposure in post by about 3.0 to see the foliage. If I tried this with the old GH-2, the foliage would be overwhelmed with noise and hot pixels, and it would be a fair bit of effort to sweep them under the carpet with LR.

I suppose I could crank up the ISO into the danger zone, it may make the video noisy but maybe it would be acceptable.

liquidsquid said:

Thanks! I did try the video, but it is so dang dark that you get no real context of what is going on. I don't know how to slow the frame rate to grab more light, time-lapse or otherwise?

For example this is a 60 second exposure at iso200, and I still had to increase exposure in post by about 3.0 to see the foliage. If I tried this with the old GH-2, the foliage would be overwhelmed with noise and hot pixels, and it would be a fair bit of effort to sweep them under the carpet with LR.

I suppose I could crank up the ISO into the danger zone, it may make the video noisy but maybe it would be acceptable.

Click to expand...

Fun experiment. Try 2 shots, one higher ISO for foliage and then one for the fireflies. Composite in post. Or, you could try lightpainting the foliage in one frame and use that for the composite.

liquidsquid said:

Thanks! I did try the video, but it is so dang dark that you get no real context of what is going on. I don't know how to slow the frame rate to grab more light, time-lapse or otherwise?

For example this is a 60 second exposure at iso200, and I still had to increase exposure in post by about 3.0 to see the foliage. If I tried this with the old GH-2, the foliage would be overwhelmed with noise and hot pixels, and it would be a fair bit of effort to sweep them under the carpet with LR.

I suppose I could crank up the ISO into the danger zone, it may make the video noisy but maybe it would be acceptable.

Click to expand...

Must admit I have absolutely no idea when it comes to video, never tried anything like this. It is just that I have seen some pretty good footage on TV some time ago, so all I know is it can be done somehow.

Liewenberger

liquidsquid said:

You will need to see a larger image for full effect! I was worried that the show would not be very good this year (it has declined in recent years), but the recent warm weather has been ideal, along with low winds. It is enough to get them to synchronize, and I haven't seen that in years!

Not the best shot for framing, this happens to be the most dense area on our property for fireflies. Again, look full screen on a real monitor, not a phone for best effect.


I copped a different format for appeal (too much foreground). Fireflies.

I will try to post a better image soon, but thought I would share.

--
My pictures...
{Whoops, dead link!}

Click to expand...

Reminds me of the Grave of the Fireflies and that memory makes my eyes water. Such a sad film.

I have seen it also, but it was likely a really good camera setup and a really fast lens, like <F1.8. I know the Sony FF can pull it off pretty well as its video and high iso is acceptable enough to video the milky way with astronomers walking about.

Maybe I will give higher ISO a shot. Tired tonight though, and its chilly which knocks down their brightness.

lol. just realized my typo. I will blame it on auto-correct. Actually lack of sleep, but who's counting. It is supposed to be "Hot Pixels!"

The fireflies were on vacation last night due to the chill, so not much action.

liquidsquid said:

lol. just realized my typo. I will blame it on auto-correct. Actually lack of sleep, but who's counting. It is supposed to be "Hot Pixels!"

Click to expand...

Well, almost, lol! :-D

Since it is a question, your sentence should end with a question mark, not an exclamation mark. But I had already fixed that 'hit' pixel and missing question mark for you in my first reply! :-D

Call it pedantic, if you want to; I see it as a result of way too much proof reading during a previous life. :-D

liquidsquid said:

The fireflies were on vacation last night due to the chill, so not much action.

Click to expand...

The same here, didn't see a single one. But the reason was probably the opposite from yours; yesterday we had 33°C (91.4F) even here in the middle of the forest, combined with very low humidity. The poor B+W Schneider folks in Bad Kreuznach, about 80 miles from here, could even "enjoy" something very close to 40°C (104F) yesterday!

About 10°C less today, feels much better!! But probably still too dry for the fireflies.

Btw, in your OP you mentioned the term "synchronize" in the context of these fireflies; I had no idea what you were talking about, so I looked it up. It seems your fireflies are a different variety, compared to ours, which do not blink, so can't synchronize, means blink in unison, like yours.

Liewenberger

If we hit a high concentration of them, where they can see each other in close proximity, there will be waves of them! It is pretty amazing to see, but it isn't all that consistent. Mostly it happens with the species that shows up as a single flash as they fly, which is in the above picture.

We have three species that show up as:

1. Single flash green-yellow (most common this year).

2. Two-flash green (usually most common).

3. 7-11 flashes and slight on glow orange (about 1 per 100 of the others). Usually more common in newly fallow fields.

Western NY is a pretty good spot for firefly watching, especially away from the cities. I care for my property to promote birds and wildlife, because someone has to! The fireflies come along for the ride.

This one shows the search paths the flies take. A little light pollution made the sky tough to deal with.





--
My pictures...
{Whoops, dead link!}

Hi,

Just saw this post and hope you don't mind me jumping in with a question. Do I want LC or TL mode to shoot the gobs of fireflies we are seeing in our neighborhood recently? Many thanks for any insights- I've never tried anything like this before.

Richard

I use M mode, manual focus distant object like a tree line, open aperture to F2.2 or larger, set ISO to ~200 and then take exposures from 30 seconds or more (depending on light pollution levels).

The tough part is remembering to turn that all back to "normal" when trying to take a simple snapshot later.

liquidsquid said:

I use M mode, manual focus distant object like a tree line, open aperture to F2.2 or larger, set ISO to ~200 and then take exposures from 30 seconds or more (depending on light pollution levels).

The tough part is remembering to turn that all back to "normal" when trying to take a simple snapshot later.

Click to expand...

Thank you- I will give those settings a try.