New 40d user

hello,

i just recently purchased a 40d. i'm without question a novice at best but have what may be a stupid question but would like to know nonetheless. reading threw this month's issue of Outdoor Photography, i read an article that mentioned shooting star runs or other types of shots that require an extended shutter speed. they said to use shutter speeds of up to 45mintues to achieve the effects. as far as i can tell from reading info on other cameras even the 1d, and more importantly my 40d, the max shutter speed is 30 seconds.

is it not possibile for me to shoot star runs and things of that nature with my camera, or, if there is could some one explain how i may achieved th8e desired effects?

Hello Harry_Hood and welcome to P.O.T.N.

If you want to use shutter speeds of longer than 30 seconds you will first have to shoot in Manual "M" and turn your shutter speed to "bulb" one click past 30 seconds.
Then I would recommend a good tripod and use mirror lock-up or live view. A shutter release cable would also come in handy some come with a bulb/shutter lock button or switch, this feature will allow the shutter to remain open without you holding the shutter button for the length of the exposure.
For more information see page 96 of your manual.

I read a post where someone doing the same thing with theier 40d burned it up....basically after a 45 min exposure, the camera would work for another 30 mins processing the image and it would heat up so much it would burn out.

USER876 wrote in post #6272049
after a 45 min exposure, the camera would work for another 30 mins processing the image and it would heat up so much it would burn out.

I don't know about this example but something to remember when doing bulb exposures...
If long exposure noise reduction is "ON" in settings then the camera will automatically take a second exposure (with shutter closed) of equal length to the bulb time. This is to get a noise map and subtract it from the bulb exposure.
The thing to note is that during this second exposure the camera will display "busy" on the lcd and no buttons will work so it will seem like it has locked up.

Example: If you take a shot of 30mins then the camera will display "busy" for another 30mins after the shutter closes. THIS IS NOT A FAULT. If you don't want to wait just turn off long exposure noise reduction. There are many programs that will remove noise from images. Noise Ninja and Noiseware come to mind.

Have fun...

I like long exposures a lot.
If you plan to take very long exposures my recommendation is one of the remotes that are sold on ebay where you can put the camera in bulb mode program an exposure time click "start" and leave. Mine costed $30 and can also be programmed to start the exposure after an interval. So I can say "wait 3 hours and then take a 20 minute exposure" and click "start" on the remote and leave.

In long exposures the dark frame that evandavies comments is one of the best ways to deal with noise but if you are taking many long exposure shots with the same shutter speeds then it is better to manually take a dark fram (put the lens cap) and then turn off noise reduction. You can then reduce noise by software using deepskystacker (free) or some other software that can process a dark frame.

Hope you find this useful.

PS: No, the camera can't burn or get damaged by a long exposure unless you are shooting the sun or something silly and the blades of the diafragm get melted.

hi harry! congrats on the new camera!

they already answered your question so all that is left for me to say is...read the manual thoroughly. you might get answers here faster but you night not find out all of the camera's functions if you dont read it.

by the way, welcome to the forum!