interval 30s timer with 1 sec pause

[ninjapimp]

I'm stumped on this issue. I thought I knew my nikon hardware well but I've come across something puzzling and I thought someone with more knowledge could give me a clue about this thing.

I'm down star trails photography.

I do 500/14mm which equals 30s exposure, any longer and i get trails in a single shot. goal is to take static shots than stack images to create trails as i want to keep noise down.

I want to stack my images so I wish to do 6 hours worth of 30s pictures at 14mm focal length

I use the interval tiemr on my nikon d800 all the time but this is the first time I tried setting it up.

I try to set it up to do 800 shots at 30s interval but it has to be start right away, which I could not figure out.

all it would do was take a picture, expose for 30s than pause for 30s and than take next shot

how to tell interval timer to take X amount of pictures every 30s with no delay? a 1 sec delay is fine

yet for some odd reason it pauses 30 sec before taking next picture

is this a limitation?

i tried doing the timelapse mode but that had similar problem is that I could not tell it to fire shot right after 1 sec, for some odd reason it wants to do a long delay.

could someone walk me thru the menu settings pls?

i'm really stumped no matter how hard i checked my settings it simply would not do something so easy which is really needed for star trails.

ultimately yes i can go buy a remote, but i just thought the built in cameras interval timer would suffice, i really dont want to carry a remote as i never needed one before.

hope theres a work around is all.

thanks.

 

[SergioSpain]

it sounds like you have long exposure noise reduction on (shooting menu). Check that first and if that doesn't solve it post again

 

[alegator]

ninjapimp wrote:

yet for some odd reason it pauses 30 sec before taking next picture

Also, what time interval are you setting in the menu? a 30sec exposure with 1 sec between shots translates into a 31 sec interval in the timer. AFAIK the interval counter in the Nikon menu starts at the beginning of the shot and not when it's taken.

 

[Marianne Oelund]

ninjapimp wrote:

I'm stumped on this issue. I thought I knew my nikon hardware well but I've come across something puzzling and I thought someone with more knowledge could give me a clue about this thing.

I'm down star trails photography.

yet for some odd reason it pauses 30 sec before taking next picture

is this a limitation?

In addition to the long-exposure NR issue already pointed out above, you need to understand that exposure times are actually slightly longer than their nominal values. When you set the camera for a 30sec exposure, you obtain a 32sec exposure. When using the intervalometer set to 30-sec intervals, this will exceed the next 30-sec trigger time, so the camera waits until the following trigger time. The result is only one exposure per minute.

Try setting exposure time to 25sec, or the interval to 33 or 34sec.

 

[ninjapimp]

thank you for the replies

allow me to put more details

noise reduction is OFF

in shooting menu> long exposure NR is OFF

in shooting menu? interval timer shooting> it is set as follow

interval 00:00':01"

number of times 800x1=800

camera set to (M) manual mode

at 30" on f2.8 with auto WB, iso 5000, RAW, manual focus mode

camera on tripod and ready to go

i start the interval timer thing...

it fires off first picture

but than pauses for 30 before it takes next picture.

 

[ninjapimp]

ah thank you

that makers sense but odd

even though i tell camera i want a 30s exposure it ends up doing 32 instead which causes a pause.

i noticed my images have trails and even though 500/14 = 30s it baffled me why there were trails, cuz 32s causes them, hence those extra 2s end up giving a tiny bit of trails

 

[michaeljberman]

I had good results using Continuous Low frame setting and a remote shutter release "locked on". I used a shutter speed of 30 second, for me no NR was needed. I did not want the gap in the strar trails that a delay, even one of 1 second between the shoots.

Also you need to know your battery life, I had about 80% on my D-700 and got less than one hour before the battery was dead, so I will next time I will use the two fully charged batteries in my MB-D10 Multi-PowerBattery Pack (well, I have a cheap copy of the Nikon one) I was using a D700 with the 17 to 35 f2.8. At f 2.8.

Have fun.

Mike--

If you have low standards, you can take a look:

Loading…

michaeljberman.zenfolio.com

 

[alegator]

ninjapimp wrote:

thank you for the replies

allow me to put more details

noise reduction is OFF

in shooting menu> long exposure NR is OFF

in shooting menu? interval timer shooting> it is set as follow

interval 00:00':01"

number of times 800x1=800

camera set to (M) manual mode

at 30" on f2.8 with auto WB, iso 5000, RAW, manual focus mode

camera on tripod and ready to go

i start the interval timer thing...

it fires off first picture

but than pauses for 30 before it takes next picture.

Shouldn't the setting be as follows? That way you'll capture 30sec shots every 1 second

interval 00:00':31"

 

[ninjapimp]

https://flic.kr/p/ebasQm

here is the result of my work, first attempt ever on star trails

alas there are gaps due to the 30s delay

but now i have a better understanding and i'm confident on my next attempt there will be no gaps.

still debating if i should use a remote.

i was pleasantly surprised how well it came out despite the gaps.

211 images over a span of 3 hours, which is how long the battery lasted.

i dont think i need to go more than 3 hours as there seems to be plenty of trails but i'll bring my battery grip

i have no idea what ya mean by cont low frame setting or what low standards mean.

however in future i do plan to shoot with lower iso

i failed to realize taking a picture of the milkyway is not the same as doing star trails but in lightroom i simply under exposed the pictures to only reveal the brightest stars than stacked them and finally merged it with the first image

michaeljberman wrote:

I had good results using Continuous Low frame setting and a remote shutter release "locked on". I used a shutter speed of 30 second, for me no NR was needed. I did not want the gap in the strar trails that a delay, even one of 1 second between the shoots.

Also you need to know your battery life, I had about 80% on my D-700 and got less than one hour before the battery was dead, so I will next time I will use the two fully charged batteries in my MB-D10 Multi-PowerBattery Pack (well, I have a cheap copy of the Nikon one) I was using a D700 with the 17 to 35 f2.8. At f 2.8.

Have fun.

Mike--

If you have low standards, you can take a look:
http://michaeljberman.zenfolio.com

 

[michaeljberman]

Here is the one I took, shooting with a cable release did away with the gaps in the stair, but my battery only lasted less than one hour

Loading…

michaeljberman.zenfolio.com

Mike

 

[ninjapimp]

michaeljberman wrote:

Here is the one I took, shooting with a cable release did away with the gaps in the stair, but my battery only lasted less than one hour

http://michaeljberman.zenfolio.com/p386886615/h54ce1134#h54ce1134

Mike

--
If you have low standards, you can take a look:
http://michaeljberman.zenfolio.com

very nice and at only one hours worth.

when i first tried it thought i was gonna need to do like 6 hours or more but looking at this even 1 hour is impressive

what thats color fringing thing on left corner? looks odd, but otherwise its real nice. i will try pointing my camera on polaris next time

i'm wondering if a 1 sec gap between shots really makes a difference

i use starstax and there is a feature called gapless blending.

i had a 30s gap between shots and starstax did an impressive job so i'm thinking with a 1 sec gap it prob will look seamless.

i've learnt alot from this first attempt

next time i'll bring a remote trigger

battery grip for extra battery life

larger memory cards.

put something pretty in foreground

aim towards polaris.

 

[michaeljberman]

The lower left haze are the lights from the city that was over the hills, I live just a little west of Tucson, AZ USA. We have great skys, clear most of the time. In fact we have many great real telescopes near by at Kitt Peak.

Maybe I should have dropped the yellow channel some to reduce the haze, but it was one of my first shoots.

BTW, I used "star_trail_stacker_by_floris" google it if like. It worked very well.

Good luck

Mike

 

[coryjamesart]

When I use the intervalometer in camera it keeps stopping after a few hundred shots when I have plenty of space on the CF card. Also at night it only took about 92 shots and then stopped with the shutter set at 8" second open shutter speed... Any advice or understanding that can be given as to why it's doing this would be greatly appreciated! Basically I'm trying to use the interval timer shooting in my D800 and it won't ever complete what I put in the settings like 999x1x0 = 999 and it will then only take 300 shots... At night with long exposures it's even worse! Only 92 shots... But when I use the built in Time Lapse shooting it works just fine... I'm desiring to get each image so I can edit them... Please help! Thanks!