Best practice for long exposures

<p>Perhaps I have overlooked some advice in my manual, but I am not sure what is best practice for low noise long exposures with a Sony A7 series camera or the like? I am generally talking about one minute to 30 minute exposures and not very long time astronomy imaging. Can I manually open the shutter, and close it after some time, while perhaps light painting in between?</p>

<p>This is what Google turned up: http://briansmith.com/sony-smart-remote-control-update-4-10-bulb-shooting/</p>

<p>Thanks for the heads up! I will check again further on their site, as my first tentative tonight after joining the app site and trying a download required a PC connection (I use MAC), although Brian Smith's site mentions MAC. </p>

An old trick if the camera is on a steady base is to hold a piece of dark cardboard or whatever just in front

of the lens, open the shutter and when any vibrations die out, raise the cardboard for the duration of the

exposure and then lower the cardboard before closing the shutter.

<p>There's a huge difference between 1 minute and 30 minutes exposure time in terms of noise performance. I'd recommend shooting a few dark frames (lens cap ON) at 1,5, and 10 minutes exposure to get a sense of the camera's intrinsic noise at those exposure lengths.</p>

<p>It's generally more desirable to shoot multiple short exposures and merge (average) them in post; you can even do that with star trails by turning noise reduction OFF. </p>

 

<p>Good recommendation, Michael.</p>

<p>Perhaps I could do a short (one minute) exposer of the light painted elements of my subject, and then bring out its otherwise dim background or non lit elements through multiple similar exposures, then all blended in post.</p>

<p>I use Vello Wireless Shutterboss as an intervalometer with my a7R and a7RII for photography of meteors with the camera set on bulb. I turn off the long exposure noise reduction because it takes a long time to write the file. <br>

I would not use the built-in iPhone wireless control as it really consumes lots of battery. If you are shooting for short time frames it might be ok.</p>

<p>Thanks, Steven. No doubt a good approach. As my use is only occasional, I might not want to invest in extra equipment like the Vello (Also, I don't presently own an iphone, but I may be able to use my mini ipad in this case together with the Sony software). </p>

<p>Since you use a Mac, there is an app available from the Apple store named Starry Landscape Stacker that stacks individual images of stars and compensates for movement between frames, while using the portion of a frame that does not move as a foreground image. See https://sites.google.com/site/starrylandscapestacker/home for information. I find that it works quite well. One advantage of stacking images is that randomly generated noise is mostly eliminated if more than two or three images are stacked. Here is an example where I used five stacked images (10s exposures, Canon 5D II, ISO 3,200, Rokinon 24mm f:1.4 lens at f:1.4)</p><div></div>