Multiple Exposure with D90

[Jody Leonard]

I tried the multiple exposure feature of my d90 and just get ghosts of myself.
I tried taking shots of myself, using the self timer twice within 30 seconds.
I tried with Auto Gain on and off.
I read the manual and it seems so simple.
The exposures are great but the "two of me" are transparent.
What the heck am I doing wring?

 

[Jody Leonard]

Oops, typo.
I mean, what am I doing wrong?

 

[mbareetbc]

I don't have a D90 and have never taken multiple exposures.

But from what I understand the ghost thing should happen, because you are taken two exposures, the background will also be exposed not just you, if the background is exposed then the shots will blend in lighting exposure, hence making you look like a ghost.

ps, a quick question about multiple exposure, can you go back to a shot previously taken and do another exposure, or do you have to do the multiple exposures at the same time?
--
-Bo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bo_z/

 

[Billx08]

I tried the multiple exposure feature of my d90 and
just get ghosts of myself.
I tried taking shots of myself, using the self timer
twice within 30 seconds.
I tried with Auto Gain on and off.
I read the manual and it seems so simple.
The exposures are great but the "two of me" are
transparent.
What the heck am I doing wring?

You're not doing anything wrong. It's just that you don't understand the purpose for having the multiple exposure feature. See "5 Set gain" on page 122. It's really for getting higher quality images of immobile objects. Better DR I suppose, although the manual mentions superior colors. If you want to reduce the ghosts, don't reduce the gain and make sure that either you're the only object in the frame, or that the other objects are either black or dark enough so they won't noticeably bleed through your multiple body images. That's probably not what you wanted, though.

If you want the multiple exposures of your body to be seen (without ghosting) along with all of the other objects in the frame, you'll need to use a good photo editor using multiple images, not a single multiple exposure image.

 

[Gaber]

I don't have a D90 and have never taken multiple exposures.

But from what I understand the ghost thing should happen, because you
are taken two exposures, the background will also be exposed not just
you, if the background is exposed then the shots will blend in
lighting exposure, hence making you look like a ghost.

ps, a quick question about multiple exposure, can you go back to a
shot previously taken and do another exposure, or do you have to do
the multiple exposures at the same time?
--
-Bo

.------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--Bo is correct about one exposure over the other. Back in film days I did many double exposures like the one I will show you now. This one was done with a digital Nikon (CP4500) that was able to do double exposures. With the camera on a tripod, you take the first picture while covering the right half of the lens. There are special dual image filters for this or you can rig one up. Then you take the second picture while covering the left half of the lens. The final picture comes out like this...



with no post processing. Unfortunately you can do the same thing with the computer now, but in the old days it was quite amazing and I fascinated my friends with pictures like these.

You can do all sorts of things with layers now and multiple exposure mode is sort of an archaic mode now.

It should be fun to experiment with though. Have fun.

Coolpix 950, 4500, P5000, D50, Canon 250D, 500D, 50mm/1.8, 105VR, 18-200VR, 70-300VR, Sigma 10-20.
CATS Member> ^..^
WSSA Member#40 ( Head Squirrel)
PAS Charter Member #5
MAA Member
Proud FCAS Member#127
http://www.pbase.com/thegaber

 

[Gaber]

.

You're not doing anything wrong. It's just that you don't understand
the purpose for having the multiple exposure feature. See "5 Set
gain" on page 122. It's really for getting higher quality images of
immobile objects. Better DR I suppose, although the manual mentions
superior colors. If you want to reduce the ghosts, don't reduce the
gain and make sure that either you're the only object in the frame,
or that the other objects are either black or dark enough so they
won't noticeably bleed through your multiple body images. That's
probably not what you wanted, though.

.

--Can you use this feature to make increased DOF exposures by taking the same [macro] shot at different apertures, higher and lower?

Coolpix 950, 4500, P5000, D50, Canon 250D, 500D, 50mm/1.8, 105VR, 18-200VR, 70-300VR, Sigma 10-20.
CATS Member> ^..^
WSSA Member#40 ( Head Squirrel)
PAS Charter Member #5
MAA Member
Proud FCAS Member#127
http://www.pbase.com/thegaber

 

[Billx08]

--Can you use this feature to make increased DOF
exposures by taking the same [macro] shot at
different apertures, higher and lower?

I don't think so. I assume that the camera is just doing a simple addition of the images, comparable to stacking several negatives in an enlarger. I don't know much about this, but I recall reading several messages in this or the D300-D100 forum discussing the use of special software to simulate increased DOF. It would probably be made much easier if the camera has a focus bracketing option.