How Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

On March Third, exact by a dapper East Waft winter storm, I headed to the ocean to grab some wave toddle. My travels indirectly took me to Mountainous Island Commons in Contemporary Fortress, Contemporary Hampshire, where Whaleback Lighthouse is prominently featured .eight miles offshore. I changed into hoping to grab large waves crashing around the lighthouse, and Mother Nature didn’t disappoint.

Mountainous Island Frequent is a huge open park where americans reach to picnic exact by the summer season and to understand the ocean exact by the winter.

After arriving, I set up of abode up my tripod and my Canon 5D Mark IV with Sigma 100 fifty-600mm lens on a tripod and positioned myself real to the fair of a tree in present to relief minimize the pummeling Northerly winds. As a range of you understand it’s a challenge preserving 600mm stable in high winds, even on a tripod.

I set up of abode the digicam up and then waited except I noticed a wave starting up to hit the lighthouse. I then kept firing except the splash ended, no longer vivid before time the toddle of the wave. Most shots in no scheme panned out, nonetheless about three of them over the course of about forty five minutes have been pretty decent.

Once abet at dwelling I culled by the photos, and steal one to edit and add to Instagram, changing an earlier add that changed into done in haste while indifferent within the car parking affirm. When a neighborhood TV predicament shared the photo to their Facebook page (with permission) it began to receive a dapper amount of shares, comments, and likes.

Nevertheless, there changed into one commentary that talked about that I had stolen the image from one other Contemporary England photographer, Eric Gendon. After letting the commenter know that it changed into indeed my image and that I possess the fashioned RAW file, I headed over to the opposite photographers page and changed into blown away. We had what looked love the actual identical image, taken at the actual millisecond in time, from what looked love the identical precise predicament and standpoint.

With the exception of picks made in Lightroom, the photography originally take into story witness nearly connected other than water in front and among the white caps being in assorted predicament. Even then, the white caps have been connected in size and shape – and I do know those issues are with out agonize moved the expend of the clone label in Photoshop – so I changed into concerned that perchance MY image changed into stolen and altered a diminutive.

First and foremost, I easiest had salvage admission to to his shared, low-willpower, image so I wasn’t in a predicament to produce out among the very aesthetic critical aspects that indirectly helped to persuade me that we every had originals. After masking and aligning the photos in Photoshop I changed into blown away that the lighthouse and waves have been carbon copies, practically to the pixel. As talked about already, there have been many differences within the foreground water and the white caps on the horizon, and it changed into these differences that held me abet from claiming he stole my image.

It wasn’t except one other local photographer began evaluating my photo to a bigger willpower version of Eric’s image that he noticed that the iron gating around the tip of the lighthouse had fair a diminutive assorted spacing between the vertical bars when put next to my image. This would perchance show that the opposite photographer changed into seemingly standing real quite bit left of where I changed into standing.

Since the 60D makes expend of an APS-C sensor he would have also seemingly been abet quite further to catch up on the 1.6x “zoom” / carve of the sensor or the expend of a shorter focal size to compensate. This would perchance also clarify the white caps being in assorted positions.

Nevertheless, the incontrovertible truth that the lighthouse doesn’t truly showcase any rotational adjustments and the crashing wave is an precise match – makes this the total extra outstanding that these have been captured randomly from two assorted photographers.

The next morning Eric wakened to a flood of messages from me as correctly as other photographers, and without extend contacted me to fragment his EXIF data, and to agree that it changed into astonishing that we every captured the actual identical image of water toddle at the actual millisecond in time. What makes this grand extra fabulous is that this wasn’t a deliberate tournament (aka. Carrying tournament, shuttle initiate, etc.).

I also didn’t know Eric; we every chose this predicament randomly; we every shot with assorted cameras (60D and 5D Mark IV) with assorted size sensors; the 60D has a burst mode of 5.3fps, the 5DMKIV is 7fps; we every feeble a 600mm focal size; our exposures and depth-of-topic have been practically the identical as correctly (f/eight aperture, ISO Four hundred, 1/1600th shutter vs. f/eight, ISO 320, 1/a thousandth shutter); and indirectly we every chosen the identical photo from that day to advertise. Come to hunt out out we have been easiest 28 meters far off from every other. He changed into hunkered down below a picnic enclosure to relief block among the wind and I changed into up against a tree to relief minimize the wind.

I did a Google search to transfer looking out how in most cases this occurs and can easiest win one article from 2011 where two photographers filming a surf competition on Huntington Coastline ended up catching a nearly connected image of a surfer and its wave toddle.

For individuals who shoot water in burst mode you admire how assorted every publicity is even when the variation in time is candy 1/seventh of a 2nd between shots. And I have been main evening-sky photography workshops for 5 years and have had correctly over 200 photographers who are in most cases aiming at the identical topic, shooting with identical cameras and lenses, and taking pictures at the identical 2nd in time, even doing continuous shooting for time lapse, and except now I have in no scheme considered two photos that have been so shut as to be virtual clones of every other.

Whereas here’s a uncommon occurrence, I imagine that with cameras getting sooner and photographers taking extra time to arrange for their shots, I must imagine that these eventualities will happen extra continuously. It occurs each day with stationary or slack toddle objects (buildings, sun/moon upward thrust) nonetheless practically in no scheme with water toddle.

Referring to the author: Ron Risman is a timelapse photographer and owner of Timelapse Workshops. The opinions expressed in this text are entirely those of the author. It is seemingly you’ll presumably presumably also win extra of his work on Facebook and Instagram.