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Live Composite Fall Fair

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Out with my kids and grandkids for our yearly family day at the fall fair. Later in the evening there was some time for me to slip off and grab some action shots of the rides with their beautiful lights. I have been doing a lot using the great feature on Olympus Cameras, called Live Composite - and wanted to try it this time, instead of my normal process of using long time exposures. The 2 processes, produce different results, but I quite like these Live Composite images as well:





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Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Robert,

Out with my kids and grandkids for our yearly family day at the fall fair. Later in the evening there was some time for me to slip off and grab some action shots of the rides with their beautiful lights. I have been doing a lot using the great feature on Olympus Cameras, called Live Composite - and wanted to try it this time, instead of my normal process of using long time exposures.

Perhaps you could tell us a little about just how it works.

The results are lovely!

Best regards,

Doug
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Hi, Robert,



Perhaps you could tell us a little about just how it works.

The results are lovely!

Best regards,

Doug

Live Comp is an Olympus only feature. Very powerful and useful for light painting, star trails, car light trails,etc. Some think of it as being the same as a time exposure. But it’s not.

Similar results can be had with a Time exposure, however the results would be more a blur and a build up of the overall light with a time exposure. Live Composite only adds new light pixels. Additional exposures are constantly being taken at the shutter speed you determine is correct.

Another cool thing about Live Composite, is that you always start with a good exposure and build on that when new light is introduced on a pixel that has not received any light yet. That means that you can leave the shutter open for very short periods of time, or very long periods without overexposing (if you have your base exposure set right) - to get a thousand different colour and shape variations from the same location. You stop the shutter when you like the effect (not always the exposure) on the LCD. With a time exposure, that would not be the result - because you are always building your exposure until it is properly exposed. The two are totally different methodologies and processes.

BTW all these fair images were shot with the same settings of f22 @ 1/2 to 2/3 second @ 200ISO.

A Tip. One thing that got a little irritating was people constantly walking right up to the front of my lens (the Fair was very busy) and it caused bright areas because there was enough light reflecting off them. Sometimes this messed up a really good shot as light areas of haze and sometimes impressions of the person would muddy areas of the image. I soon learned to trip the shutter to stop the exposure, as soon as I saw someone coming near to me. I did manage to find one secluded area where no one seemed to want to walk. That was definitely the best spot.


Because I am using Live Composite regularly - and I never use the M (manual) setting - I have a MySet assigned to M on my Olympus cameras, and it is set up exactly how I want for Live Comp.
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Here is an example of the variation that is a result of Live Comp. The different versions are not simply a change of lights and rotation speeds of the ride. A huge variable is added in when you can fire the shutter and use a variety of times before closing the shutter, while always maintains perfect exposure. The time from start to finish could be just a couple seconds, or several minutes. You watch the screen and stop the exposure when you like the pattern.




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