D30 Long Exposure

[Doug]

Im thinking of getting a D30. I already have a nice collection of EOS gear and Im pretty sure I'll love it. My only question is how does it do at long exposures? Say 10 min or longer?
Thanks

-Doug

[Pekka]

Those who have tried such very long exposures say that "keep you film body for that purpose".... D30 can do bulb, but the noise starts kicking in after 20-30sec, unless you're out in freezing conditions.

[rojoyinc]

The only reason I can think of for a exposure that long would be for astrophotography. I've done some of this with the D30, but the results are only fair.

It doesn't record astro subject colors like film. It records them more like the human eye see's them. I have some shots of the Orion Nebula which looks like it does in my 8" SCT. Not like it shows in film shots.

30 seconds is about max for noise.

[bussty]

I have just used the D30 to photograph an Aurora (last night in fact) very impressed with results.

Was a little grain but this was magically removed using Paint Shop Pro 7.0 and the NoiseEdge Preserving Smooth filter.

If you email me bussty@ezynet.co.nz I can send you some samples.

Regards

Andrew Busst

[jpbeale]

If you want to do really long exposures, I'd suggest taking a series of 30 sec. or shorter exposures, and then combining the shots using, for example, Astrostack software or the like. Assuming your noise is different in each exposure, combining the frames will reduce the noise through averaging. As a bonus, you may be able to avoid using a tracking mount, since you can align each frame in sofware. The Astrostack homepage is http://utopia.ision.nl/users/rjstek/english/software/index.htm