"Bulb" setting old school Digital Equivalent?

[MTHall720]

I used to use the bulb setting a lot in the film camera I had to keep the Shutter open as long as I wanted for a variety of things including star trails and moon shots. Can this feature be found on consumer to midrange DSLRs or this only in the full frame or pro versions?
Thanks much for any thoughts.

 

[snowbear]

My entry-level D40 had it; I don't think I've seen a DSLR without it. I'm not sure about mirrorless.

 

[480sparky]

My D60 had it as well.

 

[MTHall720]

My entry-level D40 had it; I don't think I've seen a DSLR without it. I'm not sure about mirrorless.

Thank you snowbear.

 

[MTHall720]

My D60 had it as well.

Thanks for the confirmation on this.

 

[TCampbell]

I think most DSLRs support a wired remote shutter release and "bulb" mode. But digital technology offers ways to take things like star-trails that wouldn't have been possibly (or certainly not easy) with film.

When shooting star trails, you can put the camera on 30-sec exposures but set the shutter to continuous burst mode. Normally continuous burst is to let you quickly take several images when trying to shoot action photography. But you *can* set any shutter speed supported by the camera (including 30 sec exposures).

After taking hours worth of these 30-sec exposures, there is software that will "stack" the digital images so it looks like you took one very long image. But had you *actually* taken one very long image, the background would have been blown out. So basically you get a better result.

 

[nateliv]

The times I have had GE Reveal bulbs, they had a strong color cast that would make them unsuitable for photography, though they may be different now. Daylight fluorescent bulbs from most manufacturers are also unsuitable as they are rarely color balanced to match the daylight spectrum, despite their name.

 

[480sparky]

The times I have had GE Reveal bulbs, they had a strong color cast that would make them unsuitable for photography, though they may be different now. Daylight fluorescent bulbs from most manufacturers are also unsuitable as they are rarely color balanced to match the daylight spectrum, despite their name.

It's usually not the 'color cast' that is the problem (color temperature), as that can be easily corrected with Wratten filters whe shooting film, or setting the white balance on a digicam.

The issue is usually a low Color Rendering Index. This means a light source does not emit portions of the visible light spectrum.

 

[petrochemist]

I think every digital camera I've had that allows manual shutter speeds has had a B setting. This includes some fairly low end compacts, brought for under £10.
Unlike film cameras they usually have a limit on how long you can realistically use them for (the camera stops working when the battery fails & many models are limited to 30minutes max) but digital doesn't suffer reciprocity failure so for most uses they are MUCH better.

 

[TCampbell]

BTW, I forgot to mention the name of the popular application used to combine shots to build star trails... it's named "StarStaX". It is freeware and runs on Windows, Mac, & Linux.

 

[Original katomi]

Hi I am canon based but my enter level 1100d throw to my 70d all have bulb option sorry can’t advise on other brands as I know nothing other than what I use