mirror lock up

[S.n.a.f.u.]

can someone help me understand why this is useful and when would you want to use it?

thanks for any input !

-Snafu

[krb]

it is for maximizing image sharpness. The movement of the mirror can introduce vibrations so locking the mirror up and waiting several seconds before taking the shot will eliminate that. If you're not shooting off a tripod then there's no reason to use it and there are certain shutter speeds where it makes more sense.

[gjl711]

Exposures between 1/30 and a few seconds long, tripod mounted benefit. It's used to minimize camera vibration caused when the mirror goes flying out of the way. What happens is that the mirror flips up, waits a bit for all the vibrations to dampen out, then the shutter opens. The result is a sharper picture as camera vibration is minimized. There is a great pic of a long exposure star pic with a satellite passing threw. You can see as the shutter opens a beautiful sine wave as the camera vibrates and the satellite moves then slowly returning to a straight line. I'll look for the pic.

[gjl711]

Here is the post. The first pic clearly shows the effect of mirror slap.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=9471184&postcount=8

[puzzle]

This feature is most commenly used in conjunction with a shutter release when taking macro or landscape shots ... interesting to note (unless I am mistaken) but I have found that mirror lock up does not work when you are using your self timer function on your camera. So although you avoid the vibrations caused by your finger touching the shutter button, you do not benefit from the reduced vibrations caused when the mirror opens. Or am I mistaken?

[krb]

I believe self-timer + MLU locks the mirror at the start of the timer, doesn't it?

[puzzle]

I dont have my camera with me ... but from memory, I don't think I heard the mirror opening at the start of the timer ... I will test and confirm this tonight ... unless anyone has their camera to hand and can run this test now?

[gjl711]

I believe self-timer + MLU locks the mirror at the start of the timer, doesn't it?
Yes, MLU and timer is just one button press. Hit the shutter, mirror flys up, camera shakes and waits two seconds then fires the shutter. Without the timer it requires two shutter presses. One to MLU and the other to activate the shutter. Without the second press, the camera waits 30 seconds and puts the mirror back down without taking the picture.

[birdfromboat]

I use it to keep the camera noise down also. I shoot some species of birds with the camera on a tripod and the mirror locked up using wireless remote (bought from the POTN store). Without mirror lock up I get shots of finches about an inch off the ground, and hummingbirds departing the scene in a blur. I recently saw a bunch of "trip wire" shots, where a camera was set up to go off when a creature came close enough to set off a motion detector. Deer and Elk looked like they might be reacting slightly, but the mice and birds were all either a foot off the ground or in the process of departure most fast.

[photoguy6405]

I use MLU alot, even when I don't really *need* it. Most of my shooting is landscapes on a tripod, and I like low-light stuff so longer exposures are common for me. I just hate when I forget to turn it off when I go to shoot something handheld and it screws up that first shot.

[puzzle]

haha, yeah, I've screwed up the first shot many times that way too. This is when a full check of your camera settings before shooting comes in handy, but who really has time for all that right ;)


"Yes, MLU and timer is just one button press"

ok, so thats explains why I thought that it wasn't working, I was expecting to press the shutter button again to start the timmer but the timer was already running. IMO, it would seem that it would always be to your advantage to set MLU when using the self timer to reduce camera shake caused by the mirror ... Unless your like camera shaky images, then I guess you better leave MLU turned off.