Question about long exposures

Boz Mon · Jan 5, 2009

I posted a photo that I took on my D40 with a 15 minute exposure time the other day. Someone mentioned that the sensor would be hot after 15 minutes. Does this mean that I should not do more than 1 of these shots per day? Also, does it matter that it is cold outside when I am doing it?

I have another shot going right now, I may post it up if it looks decent.

Enem178 · Jan 5, 2009

Why not post the one that you took the other day??? I want to see!!

Dubious Drewski · Jan 5, 2009

I've heard of people doing lots of long exposures, up to 30minutes with their camera and not having serious issues. Though you do start to get visual artifacts in your picture and I'm sure if you do it often, the heat will shorten the overall life of your sensor.

There are some folks in my local photography club who do long exposures all the time and care little about the overheating aspect.

But in my opinion, I wouldn't do more than 15 minutes at a time, and I'd give it equal downtime afterwards to cool down.

Boz Mon · Jan 5, 2009

Dubious Drewski · Jan 5, 2009

Ooh! It's raining stars! Get inside!

Boz Mon · Jan 5, 2009

I adjusted my white balance on the one that I just did and the color is better but I was at 55mm instead of 18 so it doesnt look as good. In about 10 minutes I'm gonna give it another go..

After I took the shot, it took about 15 minutes to process the image in the camera.

TUX424 · Jan 5, 2009

When the person said that your sensor may be "hot" i think they ment that everything would be overexposed not that it would be hot in temperture wise. To prevent that from happening you are going to want to use a very small aperture

Clancyz · Jan 5, 2009

How do you prevent overexposure during daytime lengthy shots?

Dubious Drewski · Jan 5, 2009

TUX424 said:
When the person said that your sensor may be "hot" i think they ment that everything would be overexposed not that it would be hot in temperture wise.

No, we definitely mean hot, as in temperature. They do get very hot the longer you do an exposure.

TUX424 said:
To prevent that from happening you are going to want to use a very small aperture

Well not necessarily. You could increase the shutter speed too. Or lower the ISO if it isn't at 100 already.

j-digg · Jan 5, 2009

Clancyz said:
How do you prevent overexposure during daytime lengthy shots?

Pretty new to photography, but I think for lengthy day shots people use neutral density ( ND ) filters to limit the amount of light that is brought in.

Dubious Drewski · Jan 5, 2009

j-digg said:
Pretty new to photography, but I think for lengthy day shots people use neutral density ( ND ) filters to limit the amount of light that is brought in.

If you know what a neutral density filter is, then you can't be that new

This is your first post? Er, welcome to the forums!

Boz Mon · Jan 5, 2009

I have it stopped down to an f/5.6. I busted out the ole Pentax ME-Super for a bit too just to see what film can do in this situation. I'm gonna try some other shots tonight changing between film and digital (only because I have 1 tripod) and I'll post up my digital stuff later. May not be till the end of the week to see what the film does

EDIT: Will the sensor get hot in the film camera? AND does the outside temp have any effects on the sensor temp?

Dubious Drewski · Jan 5, 2009

Boz Mon said:
EDIT: Will the sensor get hot in the film camera?

Haha funny, right? That's a joke, right?

Boz Mon said:
AND does the outside temp have any effects on the sensor temp?

Well that's very likely, though it probably isn't very much, because the sensor is quite deep in the camera and probably pretty insulated from the outside world.

Boz Mon · Jan 5, 2009

Just shot my 3rd, and final digital shot for the night. I have to move all of my **** into my bedroom and get the shots onto my computer. Right now I am waiting for it to process...

Alright heres what I got. I like the color better, but I need a better location. I barely have any room in my backyard, and if I go out front, theres cars driving by and lights from other places.

AlexColeman · Jan 5, 2009

Turn off long exposure nr, that will fix the time, and heating will have less of an effect if you have a CMOS sensor. My friends ccd, actually melted out of the mounting, my cmos was good for a 1:15 exposure. Do as many as you want, but be logical. Anyhow, it is usually covered under warranty, at least mine is.