Is the Bulb setting hard on the battery?

[Grandpa Ron]

I have a Cannon T6 Rebel. The longest exposure is 30 seconds. It also has a Bulb setting.

I can buy a remote shutter release that has a "Bulb shutter lock" that would allow longer exposures. My question is, would holding the shutter open for an extended period of time hurt the camera or the battery?

I want to take star trail and meteor photos which would require exposure times in excess of an hour. Since my digital does not have a T setting like my old film cameras. I am a bit suspicious.

 

[Original katomi]

Hi not sure what your canon is because in UK Canon’s number them like the 600d
Anyway, I have used the bulb setting a lot on my Canon’s with no problem
I have made bulb exposures of up to 5 minutes
The B setting will drain the battery so have an extra or two. If shooting in the cold keep extra batts warm .... inside pocket is a good place
Star trails
A lot of people do these by taking a lot of images and then stacking the images
Not sure now but I think live view will give you a time counter in bulb setting. Sure beats trying to count seconds in your head
Tips
Have two lens cloths , we get a lot of dew here so iam having to wipe the camera and lens off
Battery as said extras and keep them warm until you need then
When you have finished for the night pack your camera somewhere cool with a Silcagell so that warms up slowly and the silca gel absorbs the moisture
Go straight from cold outside to warm room you could get condensation.. plz rem I am in UK some of my tips are because of the local weather

 

[compur]

Using B won't hurt your camera. It's put there to be used.

 

[Destin]

The problem you’ll get with one continuous long exposure is that your sensor heats up which leads to increased noise in your image.

Pretty much everyone these days is shooting these images with an intervalometer: multiple 20-30 second exposures with a one second interval between photos.

You can stack the photos in post using star stax - free open source software that’s super easy to use.

This also makes editing planes and such out of the photo, or using a different exposure for the foreground and sky MUCH easier than it would be otherwise