Shooting Stars! Film or Digital?

[bluphoto]

Guys,

I have a night out tomorrow night shooting star trails and I'm a little worried about battery life on my 5D. Okay so I

guess I only need two or three 45-60 minute exposures (okay so maybe I only really need one, but a couple more

would be nice). I can take a load of batteries to switch between frames if need be.

 

I was wondering if I should dig out my 1V or 33 and use film (probably Velvia or Astia Slide), so that I don't have

problems with battery life. I don't think there's any way to apply external power to any of these cameras while

shooting, is there? Does anyone know if the 5D electronic cable release will fit these bodies?

 

Note that I DO have the vertical grips on all the cameras, giving me double(?) the battery life of the standalone

bodies.

 

Any additional tips I could use are, of course, more than welcome.

 

best regards,

Guy

[bluphoto]

Apologies everyone. I should know by now to search before I post! There seems to be quite a bit of information here on PN about this already.

[j_smith6]

If I were you I'd use film camera. Usually people who use digital cameras take several shots and combine them on computer in case the camera stopped working because of energy shortage. Use EOS 1V camera - I'm not sure about but I think that it was the one that didn't use any energy to rise the mirror while taking pictures so you won't have to be worried about power shortage.

[arie_vandervelden1]

I've taken 1 hour star-trail exposures with my 300D, and the camera still had some juice left. If you're concerned, switch to fresh batteries after each exposure. Noise and hot pixels are serious issues with such long digital exposures.

 

If you're going to spend three hours exposing, why not bring both film and digital gear and set them up side-by-side. More chances at a successful result.

[willhl]

This was 2.5 hours with a 300D I think, nasty noise and I got red haze down the right side (most is cropped out). I

finally got around to doing some noise reduction this morning and maxed out what photoshop can do, helped a lot,

took out the colour noise but it still needs work.<br>

<a href="http://www.willsphotography.com.au/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=1273">Star Trails</a>

[pbizarro]

I don't know about DSLR's, but with my 1V I can do 4 or 5 hour star trail exposures without any problem.

[15sunrises]

A bit late to the party, but with a battery pack, my 30D can handle around 4 exposure of 35-45 minutes, including noise reduction, which should be plenty.

[marcus_roberts]

Hi,

 

I'm really new to photography and have to ask how you can have such long exposures. My camera has a 30 second max. exposure.

[mark u]

Look in your camera manual to see if it offers "bulb mode" - this allows you to have the shutter open as long as you like - or with modern cameras that use power to hold the shutter open, at least while the battery lasts.

[matthias_meixner2]

Shoot digital: The sensitivity of film suffers on long exposures due to the Schwarzschild effect. This does not occur with digital sensors.

 

Remember that your camera will automatically perform a dark frame after the shot that takes the same amount of time, i.e. if you expose 45 minutes for you shot, it will take another 45 minutes for the dark frame. During this time your camera will not be ready for another shot.

 

45 minutes is a very long time. Depending on the ISO setting this may already be over exposed. Therefore, I would start using shorter exposure times and then increase them step by step. If you really want that long exposures be prepared to stop down. It is probably a good idea to shoot one image using the highest ISO setting and open aperture to get an idea of the exposure setting and then scale it down to the actual ISO setting and aperture you consider to use.

[marcus_roberts]

Cheers Mark.