I'm very interested in buying a camera with the ability to take very long exposures? I've been looking at both these models because they are within my price range... but if you know of any other models could you please tell me about them as well... tha

-- elise eberwein (thatsjuuustfine@aol.com), January 14, 2002

Answers

i don't think that any camera has the option to take that long of an exposure. most people put the thing on bulb and manually time the exposure with a watch. if all you are doing is taking really long exposures try to get a camera that doesn't use up the battery while the shutter is open. i can't think of any off the top of my head but i'm sure others on this forum can. good luck.

-- Jeff Nakayama (moonduck22@hotmail.com), January 14, 2002.

The Rebel 2000 can take long exposure photographs in "bulb" mode, but that of course requires manual timing. Its shutter likely draws power to remain open, which can be a problem with long time exposures. (hours or longer) I say "likely" because the R2K is not listed on the following table, but I've never heard of the R2K having a different and low-power shutter design.

http://bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/drain.html

The EOS 630 is better suited to this sort of thing. You can buy the optional and highly sophisticated Technical Back E, which has the ability to do long time exposures. The EOS 630 also does not draw power to keep its shutter open.

However, the 630 has long been discontinued. It's a good camera for long time exposures, it's very sturdily built with an internal metal frame, but it's less useful than the Rebel 2000 for many other photographic applications. Autofocus on the 630 is quite slow, many 630s have deteriorating shutter mechanisms (disintegrating foam component leaving a black tar on the shutter blades) and the user interface of the 630 is a nuisance to use. But if you want just a camera to do long time exposures the 630 seems like an excellent option.

So shop around when looking for a used 630 - make sure the top deck LCD still works and that there's no black tar on the shutter curtain.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), January 14, 2002.

If you are will to do a little hunting, and going to an old fashion camera, the Praktica BII had a setting that would leave the shutter open for as long as you hold down the trigger. I had just such a camera and with that setting and a lot of patience, I could get some pretty interesting shots. This camera was about 25 years old and worked quite well. Hope you get what you'r looking for.

-- Ron Lemay (Tobiasirene@excite.com), January 15, 2002.

According to an old brochure, the EOS 10s (which replaced the 630) has a built-in interval timer. Without a special back, the 10s could be set to anywhere between 2 and 36 frames and the interval shutter times could be adjusted between 1 second and 24 hours. It had advanced features back then such as 5fps advanced rate, three focus points, mirror pre-fire, and 14 custom functions.

-- Willie Ju (wju@mediaone.net), January 15, 2002.

if the camera is just for long exposures consider the olympus OM-2. it meters off the film while the shutter is open for up to 4 minutes! now that is a unique camera that has yet to be matched!

-- Jeff Nakayama (moonduck22@hotmail.com), January 15, 2002.

"the Praktica BII had a setting that would leave the shutter open for as long as you hold down the trigger."

But that's exactly what bulb mode does on all modern EOS cameras. There's no need to find an old mechanical camera to do this. Cameras which support the RC-1 infrared remote, in fact, are even better than the old manual cameras in some ways.

You can use an RC-1 with your Elan/100, 10/10s, Elan II/50/55 or Elan 7/30 in bulb mode. Press the remote control once to open the shutter; press again to close it. Since it's a wireless remote you don't physically touch the camera or a cord - there's no risk of bumping the camera accidentally. And since you don't have to hold any buttons down during the exposure you can walk off and read a book or have a coffee and come back when the alarm clock you set earlier goes off.

The only issue is that all of the aforementioned cameras other than the 10/10s require power to hold the shutter open and so can't do time exposures of longer than 6 hours on a single battery.

"According to an old brochure, the EOS 10s (which replaced the 630) has a built-in interval timer. Without a special back, the 10s could be set to anywhere between 2 and 36 frames and the interval shutter times could be adjusted between 1 second and 24 hours."

Yes, the 10/10s had an intervalometer. But that doesn't help here unless I'm missing something.

Interval timers let you automatically take photos every time period. But the shutter speed is determined by the exposure mode you're in, not the interval timer. So an interval timer will not help you take photos in which the shutter is held open for longer than 30 seconds. You can specify two parameters in the interval timer - the number of seconds between each exposure and the number of exposures in the sequence.

I have a 10s and it seems the interval timer does not work if you're in bulb mode.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), January 15, 2002.

Oh, and there's also this thing, the TC-80N3:

http://www.usa.canon.com/camcambin/cameras/35mm/slr/ eos3acc.html

It's quite nifty but a: only works with the extremely expensive EOS 1v, 3, D2000 and D30 cameras and b) is pretty expensive.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), January 17, 2002.

Don't know if it works, but I read somewhere else that : 1. put eos in bulb-mode, leave lens hood on top of the lens, and press 2. remove the batteries (the shutter shouldn't close) and carefully remove the hood (after removing the batteries which trembles the camera) 3. after your 30 minutes : put the hood back on the lens, place the batteries and stop exposure

Can someone confirm this possibility ?

-- Niet nodig (nietnodig@rsca.be), January 31, 2002.

>remove the batteries (the shutter shouldn't close)

Most EOS cameras don't work that way - their shutters require power to stay open. The exceptions are the 10/10s and the 600 series EOS cameras, which have shutters that remain open when batteries are removed.

The method you describe (the "hat trick" used a lot with astrophotography) will work with the 10/10s and 600 series cameras, but is unnecessarily clumsy since you risk bumping the camera and blurring the exposure.

With the 10/10s use the RC-1 in bulb mode as I described above - it lets you open and close the shutter without having to touch the camera. With the 600 series cameras use the wired remote with a lock feature.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), January 31, 2002.