Live Time Step by Step Please

I'd like to know what purpose it serves. Is it for dividing seconds or only minutes? I don't understand the logic with ND's.

Or is it just for at night?

I don't have it. That's why I asked.

Martin.au wrote:

BBbuilder467 wrote:

I'd like to know what purpose it serves. Is it for dividing seconds or only minutes? I don't understand the logic with ND's.

Or is it just for at night?

I don't have it. That's why I asked.

It allows you to watch a long exposure develop on the screen. Very good for fireworks, light painting and nighttime photography

OK, thanks. I can imagine the applications now.

In my page on E-PL5 Custom Menu E I have this.....

........................................

Bulb/Time Timer: Set the maximum time for Bulb and Time shooting. Choices are 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 20, 25, 30 minutes.

Live Bulb: Set Live Bulb display interval timing. Off, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60 seconds. Display count will be ISO 200=24, 400=19, 800=14, 1600=9 times.

Live Time: Set Live Time display interval timing. Off, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60 seconds. Display count will be ISO 200=24, 400=19, 800=14, 1600=9 times.

..........................................

It seems easiest to use Live Time, in Manual Mode go right down to slowest speeds and past that to Bulb then Live Time.

It needs a guess as to what shutter times you may need in order to set sensible Live Time display interval in the Custom Menu. Too many displays while the image is building adds to noise, so if expecting say a 30 second period then maybe every 8 seconds would be OK, the less the better, and use the lowest ISO of course. Set the maximum time to something past what you expect.

To start the exposure press the shutter, then the display builds up and each 8 seconds (or whatever) the growing image is shown, when you think the image looks good then press the shutter again to stop the exposure.

Then the camera takes some time to do what I think is a dark frame image to subtract as much noise as possible from the result. Leave Noise Reduction on Auto for best results anyway. Noise Filter best left off to get better detail and use noise reduction in post process with care to do any cleanups.

It's all experimentation so take your time and be prepared to make a few failures.

Must use a tripod of course and if the exposure time is more than say 10 or 15 seconds then no remote release is needed as button presses don't contribute enough shaky exposure problems in such long shutter periods.

Disclaimer is that I've never used the feature, just played with it now on my E-PL5.

Also Google for 'olympus live time' and get things like this http://www.ephotozine.com/article/olympus-livetime---best-new-technology-2012-20754

The E-M10 has carried this one giant step forward with its new feature called Live Composite, see a bit about it down the page at http://asia.olympus-imaging.com/products/dslr/em10/feature/06/

Regards....... Guy