RamperPro 20 stops test - from sun to stars

For many the holy grain of time lapse photography is a perfect sunset or a perfect sunrise. Shoots like this are originally called bulb ramping, but we like to call it exposure ramping. The reason for this is because the RamperPro can both support normal shutter speeds of your camera or it can use the bulb mode. All supported Nikon camera's are switched to bulb automatically, on Canon camera's the RamperPro will notify you when you need to switch your camera to bulb mode. The RamperPro time lapse controller achieves the holy grail time lapse by gradually changing both the shutter speeds and ISO of your camera. The ramping speed, which determines how fast you should ramp during a sunset or sunrise, is determined by the external light sensor of the RamperPro. The unit also supports a histogram analysis mode. This mode acts as a hand break which prevents under and over exposure. This way you really have true automatic bulb or exposure ramping; just set it and forget it.

Things get more complicated when you want to ramp from day to stars. The reason for this is that the light sensor cannot measure light in, almost, complete darkness. We therefore traveled to La Palma so that we could try the latest firmware that will be released in the second half of June. This firmware will greatly help you to achieve 20 stops ramps without the need to regularly check your time lapse controller or camera. We at ElysiaVisuals see this as the first step to delivery you 24 hour time lapses that will run totally unattended.

Below you see two test sequences that were made with the RamperPro. We, of course, didn't use any deflicker software. The XMP files that come straight out of the RamperPro will give you the smoothest curve possible; especially when you use bulb mode where possible.

20 stops from Sun to stars

During this test sequence we ramped 20 stops. The initial exposure speed was 1/5000 of a second at ISO 100 and it ended at 20 seconds at ISO 2500.

RamperPro first 20 stops automatic ramping from sun to stars from ElysiaVisuals on Vimeo.

15 stops from sunset to stars

This sequence was started just after sunset, but we were still able to ramp 15 stops with an end exposure of 20 seconds at ISO 2500. Here we nailed the ramping speed because there is no black period after the sunset. This is achieved by the interval ramping mode of the RamperPro where the interval is made longer which speeds up the playback time.