I'm up north and the one thing I wanted to catch are the stars. They are incredible up here, nothing like in the city.
I took 5 or 6 long exposures. From 10 to 45 mins, and none of them worked. Well, I shouldn't say that, they just wouldn't read on my card!
I would start the exposure with my remote, end it with my remote and the 'home' screen would come up and the number of photos available starts to flash. Turn off the camera and it comes up with a screen that says it's waiting to record information to the card. It will sit like that for 10 mins or more. I ended up just taking the battery out because it was obvious that nothing was going to happen. I switched it from RAW to JPeg and changed my cards and it's still doing the same thing.
I tried taking a short shot (2min) and it worked fine, and I was at the beach the other night and a 6min worked fine too.
My brother in law is up here too and he's getting some amazing shots (very long exposures) with no problem. He closes the shutter and it shows the shot right away
I have no idea what's going on and I only have one more night to figure it out before I go home.
Haven't checked google, internet is sooooo sloooow up here and it would take me hours to flip through the pages. Took 10 mins to get to this page!
If anyone has any suggestions I would be eternally grateful!!
You may have your camera set to "Reduce Noise" for longer exposures, in which case your camera will take another "picture" of the same length with the shutter closed, will compare the "noise" between the two shots, and remove grain. So if your shot was 30 minutes long, it will take another 30 minutes for the "black frame" to complete, then more time for the camera to compile the image. Overall, you will get a better image, but it takes time. Page through your menu options and see if you have that selected would be my best recommendation. http://photonaturalist.net/how-to-reduce-noise-for-long-exposures/
My camera takes the same amount of time to write to a card as it does to take the photo. So a two minute exposure may take two minutes to write to your card. I think if you are turning it off after the shot you are not letting it finish recording.
Yes! I had the same issue, if you check your camera's settings there is probably a box to check or an option to turn the slow shutter speed noise reduction off, if it's on it takes some cameras a long time to record the picture onto the card. That or wait it out without shutting your camera off, mine went on well over 45 minutes before the battery died anyway... hope this helps
Try what Aaron said....also try taking 30 second exposures for about 2 hours (1 1/2 min) and then stack them together to get your trails. There are lots of free programs out there to stack images.
I found the info in this link extremely helpful...I have been waiting till tonight to try it out.
Yep, 45 minutes exposure + 45 minutes to noise reduction. Make sure the battery is full before starting this operation. Also, turn the display off while shooting to save battery & cover the eyepiece (light leakage possible).
The other posters are correct. You have the noise cancellation option enabled on your camera (on most cameras there is an on and off setting, on many newer cameras there's also an automatic setting, where it's enabled when the camera thinks it's necessary).
It is advisable where possible to let this process complete for a very long exposure -- even at low ISO, a lot of random noise will have been generated for a 45 minute exposure, as well as noise generated from the sensor getting warm during the exposure -- this can create patterns that standard noise removal techniques will struggle to remove.
Stacking is a good alternative to this, typically this would be done by setting the camera into burst mode with a 30 second exposure time, so that there is as little gap between the exposures as possible. Each of these images can then be individually noise-processed (if necessary) and combined to make a much better-quality long exposure.
The final thing I'd suggest is to try some shots at the other end of the scale. Instead of using ISO 100 and a really long exposure (or series of exposures), try ISO 1600 or 3200 and a relatively short (e.g. 30 second) exposure. This will create a sharp image with a huge number of stars -- because the earth is rotating and ISO 100 has so little sensitivity, your long exposures will only pick up the very brightest stars (unless you have a motorised equatorial mount to allow the camera to track the stars as the earth turns). Using a short exposure with high ISO will pick up details like the Milky Way that will be totally invisible during a long exposure.
An excellent example of this is the recent 'Range of Light' timelapse video from Yosemite:
Each frame of the night timelapses was taken using extremely high ISO and short (a few seconds) shutter speeds, and as you can see, the number of stars that are picked up is remarkable. (Note also the effect of the moon, it looks like the sun is rising!)
I'd also advise looking at someone like Ben Canales' photos to see what's possible with high-ISO, short shutter star exposures:
I can't help you but I had to post to thank @abirkill for his excellent, informative reply. I'm going to try this way if we get any clear starry nights this year :-)
@abirkill Thanks so much Alexis! I'v written some of those suggestions down and I'm going to give them a go in a couple hours! That photo is gorgeous! Too bad i don't have some water to shoot!
@shadesofgrey I did the stacking concept, but with 60 second shots and amazingly when I stacked them together they were like little dashes from the 60 second writing. I have not had the opportunity to try again, but now you know why I never shared them with the group. Maybe I will see if I still have them and share them.
@shadesofgrey I sent you what I did. I think I need to find a place in the summer that has low humidity. I will try again, but living right next to downtown is challenging.
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http://photonaturalist.net/how-to-reduce-noise-for-long-exposures/
http://www.jamesvernacotola.com/Resources/How-To-Photograph-Star-Trails/12233655_V7cX4D
I found the info in this link extremely helpful...I have been waiting till tonight to try it out.
http://digital-photography-school.com/an-introduction-to-shooting-stars-trails
It is advisable where possible to let this process complete for a very long exposure -- even at low ISO, a lot of random noise will have been generated for a 45 minute exposure, as well as noise generated from the sensor getting warm during the exposure -- this can create patterns that standard noise removal techniques will struggle to remove.
Stacking is a good alternative to this, typically this would be done by setting the camera into burst mode with a 30 second exposure time, so that there is as little gap between the exposures as possible. Each of these images can then be individually noise-processed (if necessary) and combined to make a much better-quality long exposure.
The final thing I'd suggest is to try some shots at the other end of the scale. Instead of using ISO 100 and a really long exposure (or series of exposures), try ISO 1600 or 3200 and a relatively short (e.g. 30 second) exposure. This will create a sharp image with a huge number of stars -- because the earth is rotating and ISO 100 has so little sensitivity, your long exposures will only pick up the very brightest stars (unless you have a motorised equatorial mount to allow the camera to track the stars as the earth turns). Using a short exposure with high ISO will pick up details like the Milky Way that will be totally invisible during a long exposure.
An excellent example of this is the recent 'Range of Light' timelapse video from Yosemite:
Yosemite Range of Light.
Each frame of the night timelapses was taken using extremely high ISO and short (a few seconds) shutter speeds, and as you can see, the number of stars that are picked up is remarkable. (Note also the effect of the moon, it looks like the sun is rising!)
I'd also advise looking at someone like Ben Canales' photos to see what's possible with high-ISO, short shutter star exposures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bencanales/sets/72157625617667073/detail/