Nikon D7000 Intervalometer - stopped working

[graham_wiffen]

<p>I have a D7000 and am taking some timelapse astro photography sequences. I setup the intervalometer to take a shot with an interval of 5 secs between shots, 1 shot per interval, and 999 shots in total.<br /> The camera is set to Manual and setting of 30secs exposure.<br /> <br /> In the middle of the night, it stopped working.<br>

I checked the info on the shots and it worked fine for 2 hours, then nothing.<br /> <br /> The battery is good, the card has plenty of room on it.<br /> <br /> Any ideas please?</p>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>If in the above you didn't mis-type the interval or the total number of shots, I'm surprised it went as long as 2 hours. Think of it: 5 seconds between shots = 12 shots per minute. 12 shots x 60 minutes = 720 shots. It should have quit (at 999 shots) less than half-way through your second hour. Either increase the number of shots or increase your interval.</p>

[Rick Helmke]

Hector, with an exposure time of 30

seconds and 5 second intervals that's

less than 2 shots per minute, less than

240 total for the two hours it was

working. No idea why it stopped. Re-

check all settings and double check the

instructions. Maybe run a test during

the day with a much shorter shutter

speed and see what it does.

 

Rick H

[Hector Javkin]

<p>Didn't see the 30 sec.! Or rather read it as 1/30! Should have known the solution wouldn't be that easy. Sorry. With hundreds of shots at 30 seconds, I would expect the battery to be a problem, but you said it was good.</p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Graham, I strongly suspect battery depletion given your description.</p>

<p>30 second exposures means the camera is consuming power almost continuously in acquisition mode (with 5 seconds rest between shots) so going for 2 hours sounds about right given that Nikon rates the EN-EL15 typically at 800-1,000 shots in the D7000, presumably under "normal" usage situations. </p>

<p>The battery may not be able to supply sufficient current to trigger another exposure at the time of quitting, but its terminal voltage may still rise sufficiently to indicate some residual charge. </p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Once Michael points it out, it seems pretty obvious that the OP was shooting almost continuously for 2 hours. That is certainly going to drain a lot of battery power.</p>

[graham_wiffen]

<p>Hector,<br>

Thanks for the feedback, but there seems to be a lot of confusion around the interval.<br>

I have read numerous guides/books on the D7000 and it is always described as the 'interval between shots', which I understand to mean, the interval between one exposure and the next. If your exposure is 30 secs, then it takes a shot, waits the interval, and then takes another. Count = 1.<br>

<br />Looking at the timing info on the images, it seems to work that way, with a 35 sec difference between images.<br>

Is this wrong?</p>

[graham_wiffen]

<p>I take all your comments about the battery. I came back to the unit at 7am, 7 hrs after it stopped working and the battery was showing 80-90% charge. I will have to sit by it on future shoots and check this out.<br>

I will look at getting a mains unit too.<br>

Thanks Graham</p>

[SCL]

<p>On my D300 when shooting 30 sec exposures, it takes quite a bit of time for the camera to process the exposure and be ready for the next shot. Perhaps extending the time between shots might alleviate the issue you are having.</p>

[peter_doucette]

<p>Stephen, I think noise reduction was left off in camera to be able to sequence the pictures without too much space missing.<br>

I am wondering if the camera stopped at midnight for some strange reason. The only time I used my D7000 for timelapse, it was 1/30th every 6 seconds for about 3 hours, and the battery was fine. <br>

Could the temperature have been a factor? The battery will seem to lose power in the cold, but will recover when brought back to a warm environment.</p>

[azn137]

<p>I did this once when I was in Lake Tahoe. If you happen to shoot in cold condition, you need to make sure you camera is warm enough too. I was doing the same thing, and my D7000 battery died after a few hundred shots.</p>

<p>You'll need battery pack that allows you to have 2 batteries.</p>

[pge]

<p>I third the battery explanation. I have done this with a D200, and I know it drains batteries much faster than a D7000, yet the battery did not last for very long at all. Those 30 second exposures are killers on the battery. Peter, I think the exposure time was why you had a different experience.</p>

[MichaelChang]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"I came back to the unit at 7am, 7 hrs after it stopped working and the battery was showing 80-90% charge."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>This might indicate the battery is out of calibration - showing a higher state of charge than actual and will not operate the camera; happens on laptops too and common with Li-Ion battery appliances. </p>

<p>Some laptops have battery calibration utilities in BIOS and will fully recharge, then completely discharge and recharge the battery if activated to calibrate the system's "fuel gauge". The same sort of thing can be done with camera batteries by cycling it from full charge to full discharge a couple of times. </p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Brief article on battery calibration:<br>

<a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/battery_calibration">http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/battery_calibration</a></p>

[graham_wiffen]

<p>Ok, after a full nights shooting the stars, (or clouds, I have found the issue and its <strong>NOT the batteries</strong>.<br>

My settings were as follows:<br>

Exposure 30seconds.<br>

Interval : 6 secs (time between exposures)<br>

No. of intervals : 999<br>

No of shots per interval : 1<br>

If you read the words closely, it gives the answer. I assumed, wrongly, that the 999 was the <strong>number of shots</strong> it will take, but NO, its the number of<strong><em> intervals</em>.</strong><br>

Therefore, for a 30 sec exposure, with a 6 sec interval, each shot takes 6 intervals. This was confirmed by the number reducing by 6 on the count for each single exposure.<br>

This means the number of shots becomes 999/6 = 166 shots, which at 36 seconds each, takes 100 minutes.<br>

This is about an hour and a half, which is when it stopped working.<br>

Very annoying Nikon. I want to set up my camera to shoot star time lapse sequences and it seems you cant fo it with the internal D7000 Intervalometer. I may look at an external one, but what a waste.<br>

<br />Any one have a contact for Nikon to pass this back to them?</p>

[richard_poitras]

<p>Graham,<br /> I also have a D7000 and the intervalometer works great. One of the early responses was pretty accurate in telling why the shots stopped. The intervalometer and the photo processing work kind of independently. The intervalometer measures intervals from the time interval shooting started, not from the time the photo finishes processing. If a photo is still processing, the interval will be skipped, not put into a queue to be made up later. The interval between shots must be longer that it takes the camera to shoot and process the shot. If you have noise removal for long time exposures turned on, this could be very long. If you have all noise removal turned off, the shot will be saved rapidly after the shutter closes. However, any intervals that pass during an exposure are dropped and never made up...but they are counted. So while your camera is taking 30 second exposures, the intervalometer is clicking away intervals. So you ran out of intervals during your time. (See page 158 of owners manual.)</p>

[simon_platt1]

<p>Hi Graham<br>

Don't despair the intervalometer will do what you want.<br>

As you say in you second post the interval setting is the time between exposures, this therfore needs to be longer than the exposure time. So if you are having a 30 sec exposure you will neeed intervals greater than this by a little bit to allow for preocessing so set your interval to 40 secs.<br>

This should then give you a 30 sec exposure, then 10 secs to process, then the next 30 sec exposure. that way you should get 999 exposures of 30 secs each with the start time of each exposure seperated by 40 secs</p>

<p>Simon</p>

[graham_martin2]

<p>Graham</p>

<p>I echo what the previous two members have said. The interval between shots must exceed the shutter time. I found this out the hard way myself when I was trying to shoot star trails. I also agree that the "Intervals" nomenclature is confusing.</p>

[barton_harper]

<p>Thanks a lot for all info I was having this same problem and it was driving me nuts. I just put in it on continuous shutter and taped the shutter down with a little pebble under it, so now its taking 30 sec exposures one after the other, so hopefully that works. I would do the 30 second exposure every 40 seconds but it will create a gap if your trying to do star trails and make a time lapse no look as smooth. thanks for all the help in here, i would have been stuck on this for years</p>