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Taking pictures with the joker² light barrier system
Copyright eltima electronic 2022
Important camera settings
Autofocus
When taking pictures with light barriers, it is mostly necessary to set the au-
tofocus of the camera to "manual". If you don't, the camera will most likely
not release!
This principle applies to all operating modes of the light barrier.
Reason: In most cases, the autofocus is too slow for the objects to be photo-
graphed, despite the latest technology in the camera and lens. The light bar-
rier replaces the autofocus of the camera!
Focus the lens to a point at which you expect your subject, when the image
is taken. You must take into account the movement direction and speed of
the subject as well as the cameras shutter lag.
Depending on the speed of the subject and the shutter lag of the camera, the
image may be created only at some distance from the beam of the light bar-
rier. The optimum focus setting is determined by trying it out.
As noted earlier, the lag of the system can be reduced to almost zero if you
are shooting in a dark environment, by opening the camera shutter on ‘bulb’
and using the barrier to trigger flashes instead.
Speedlight, Flash
If you are photographing fast-moving objects, such as birds, bats or insects,
flashes (speedlights) can be a valuable way to “freeze” the movement of the
subject while still keeping a good depth of field. In most cases, the flash
should be set to manual exposure as the object may be moving too quickly
for automatic flash exposure to work properly. Setting the flash to the mini-
mum power, i.e. 1/64th or 1/128
th
, results in an exposure time around
1/20,000 second, which is fast enough to freeze most flying animals. Multiple
flashes, wirelessly synchronized, can be used to increase the overall amount
of light and improve the lighting pattern