{"id":1501,"date":"2010-04-25T12:30:01","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T03:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-04-25\/1501"},"modified":"2010-04-25T12:30:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-25T03:30:01","slug":"freaky-wavy-lines-quiz-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-04-25\/1501","title":{"rendered":"Freaky Wavy Lines Quiz Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I posted the picture above, of a spotlight<\/span> on a rock<\/span> garden in Kyoto, in\nmy ”Amorphous Wavy Lines Quiz<\/a>” post last week, asking whether\nanyone knew the reason for the wavy lines one sees at full resolution:<\/p>\n\n

\nFull-Resolution Crop<\/span>\nof one of many sections of these wavy-line tracks\n<\/div>\n\n

The answer differs depending on how honest you are with yourself. In my case<\/span>, the true answer is<\/p>\n\n

“I don't<\/span> know.<\/b>”<\/p>\n\n

Being a bit less honest with myself, I'll say<\/p>\n\n

“Likely some kind of diffraction, possibly related to the\n“discrete points” nature of the image sensor, but I'm not sure<\/b>”<\/p>\n\n

But if I want to completely fool myself into thinking I understand<\/span>\nwhat's going on here, I'll just say:<\/p>\n\n

“It's caused by grass in the foreground.<\/b>”<\/p>\n\n

It is<\/i> caused by the grass in the foreground — that's true\n— but I don't<\/span> understand why<\/i> the grass in the foreground has\nthis effect in this situation.<\/p>\n\n

In this wider, 1\/15th second ISO 12,800 shot, you can see a strip<\/span> of grass in the foreground...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>15 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 12800 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nRestaurant Rock Garden at Night<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I've seen this effect a few times. One I recall<\/span> is from shooting\nAnthony's cousins Grace\nand Luke in a boat<\/span><\/a> at my folks' place. The many layers<\/span> of cattails and\ntrees sometimes made for this freaky (diffraction?) effect:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nCattail<\/span>\nand a good dose of freakiness\n<\/div>\n\n
\nFull-Resolution Crop<\/span>\n( My brother has 6½ fingers on each hand, not 9¾ )<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

In the quiz, the focus was behind the effect, but in this case, it's in front.<\/p>\n\n

Here's another example...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1250 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nlooks like a\nTime-Travel Portal<\/span>\nis in the process of opening\n<\/div>\n\n
\n<\/div>\n\n

Yet, I take pictures<\/span> in seemingly-similar situations all the time, and\nnormally don't experience any of these effects....<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n“No Time Travel For You”<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

So if there are any physicists in the house who can explain this, I'd love to<\/span> understand it, at least enough to be able to predict whether it\nwill\/won't happen in a given<\/span> situation.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I posted the picture above, of a spotlight on a rock garden in Kyoto, in my \"Amorphous Wavy Lines Quiz\" post last week, asking whether anyone knew the reason for the wavy lines one sees at full resolution:<\/p>

The answer differs depending on how honest you are with yourself. In my case, the true answer is<\/p>

\"I don't know.<\/b>\"<\/p>

Being a bit less honest with myself, I'll say<\/p>

\"Likely some kind of diffraction, possibly related to the \"discrete points\" nature of the image sensor, but I'm not sure<\/b>\"<\/p>

But if I want to completely fool myself into thinking [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}