I’m not sure why your 350D never used to show the elapsed time with a bulb exposure – mine definitely does. It shows it on the LCD panel, in brackets after the AV setting. It’s also shown how it works in the manual (p.93 of the one I downloaded).

Nice picture by the way: you may not have been in the mood, but that’s a really nice capture.

Thanks! Come to think of it, I do slightly remember the 350d displaying it on the LCD, but at night of course its difficult to see. The 400d displays it on its main screen which is of course dead-easy to see from a good distance. So handy

nicely exposed picture, would be interested in how long shotter was open for. As an aside i have just got a 350d and in bulb mode it does count how long shutter is open. Its on the small info display not the main one.

Hi Pete, the exposure was for 25 seconds at f22. You can see more information about the shot from the EXIF information on the Flickr page (just click on the photo and look down the right hand side, or click here).

Now I think back, I seem to remember the 350d displaying the seconds count up, but of course the display is not illuminated by default. If you were to light it up, then you’d have to press the button on the back of the camera which would shake the camera during the exposure. Either that, or you’d have to press the button before the exposure starts, although it’ll sap battery and it doesn’t stay on forever, does it?

Hi, You might be able to help. I just got a 400d and want to control the bulb setting without holding the damn button down on the camera. You say about a lockdown on the remote? If this on all remotes? Can I just click the open shutter button – walk away and press it again when I get back? Thanks! Nice photos BTW!

Hi Ben, apologies for not replying sooner. Yep, grab yourself a remote shutter release from a photography store somewhere (model number RS 60E3), plug it in, frame up and set it to BULB mode, lock the remote shutter down and walk away.

Of course, don’t walk too far otherwise someone will steal your camera! But then whenever you’re ready, release the shutter again and the photo will be taken!

Great photo,I have just bought a canon eos 400d and i am wondering what is the best setings for the picture modes,
sharpness
saturation and so on.
IT WOULD BE A GREAT HELP
cheers

Hey, lovely pic

whats the max time you can have bulb on on the 400d?
recieving one at christmas and think its the only data im not sure about, would love to know,

thanks Graeme

Thanks to both of your for your kind comments.

First of all, Les, I would highly recommend RAW file formats for the best in picture quality, sharpness, etc, because there is zero compression, and therefore zero loss in picture quality. Secondly, there are some sharpness, colour, sat settings in the camera’s menu. Off hand I can’t remember exactly where, but I think its on the 2nd menu.

And Graeme, you can go for as long as you want on BULB mode (for as long as the batteries last). For up to 30 seconds, you don’t have to use BULB mode, but for anything more then I would suggest buying a remote shutter (RS 60E3) where you can set the camera up then just press down the remote shutter button and lock it so that you don’t have to stand holding the shutter button for the length of the exposure. The longest I’ve done before is 37 minutes (which is not very much at all), but with the double battery grip (BG E3) which has twice the battery capacity as it is without, I think you could go for about 4 hours straight, or without the grip, about 2 hours before the batteries give up.

Hey! Dig the picture. This may be a stupid question but at what point could you keep the shutter open for 37 minutes and not over-expose the pic? We’re you taking pictures of stars or something? 2nd question: how did you get the lights from the cars to show WITHOUT the actually cars? I’m looking at buying a 400d, thats how I found your pic.

Hi Brett, thanks for your comments, and here’s your answers!…

1, I think you’ve got some mislead information from somewhere (maybe me? not sure!), but the photo above was only a 25 second exposure, not 37 minutes! 37 minutes with that sort of light would, probably yes, almost certainly be completely over-exposed and white.

2, At night, when taking a photo of this kind (with anything above about 4 seconds) only bright lights are shown up. This is exaggerated the longer and longer the exposure goes for. Since the body of the car itself is not actually a “light” nor is it “lit-up” then it won’t show up, or at least it won’t show up as much as its lights on the front of the car. Occasionally on long exposures at night with cars you can often see white cars or buses with the lights inside lit-up. This goes for almost anything at night when taking photos, for example if you were taking a photo of yourself moving around while holding a torch, you’d only see the torch and not yourself if you were moving around since the torch is so much brighter than you! (I mean that littrally – no offence!!)

You’ll probably understand better after you’ve had a good play around with your new 400d. Enjoy!

Thanks! Not on this photo but in one of your comments above you said, “The longest I’ve done before is 37 minutes (which is not very much at all), but with the double battery grip (BG E3) which has twice the battery capacity as it is without, I think you could go for about 4 hours straight, or without the grip, about 2 hours before the batteries give up.”

You must have meant 37 minutes total of 25 second exposures?

Ah, I see what you’re talking about now, my bad!

No, 37 minutes as a solid one exposure. Not patched together! What I’m saying is that I really was standing there for 37 minutes taking one photo. Of course, the ISO was set to 100 (the lowest on the 400d) and the aperture was f4. The 37 min exposure that I did, if I remember correctly, was in quite a dense forest with minimal light pollution therefore it did actually come out as star trails rather than just white.

I think its quite possible to do a 3 or 4 hour exposure with the 400d, but battery life gets killed on long exposures, plus the cold also doesn’t help.

I hope this helps you out! A friend of mine has beaten me on this by the way, with a 45 minute single exposure on his 400d.

Is that picture posted anywhere? I’d love to see it

Strange actually Brett, I can’t seem to find my 37 minute exposure. Here’s the longest one I could find, however, at 14 minutes. Again, this is one solid exposure. No patching and minimal photoshop…

flickr.com/photos/dazecoop/110...

I have no idea what’s happened to that other long exposure of mine, perhaps it never happened! Weird!

Hi There…

WOW.. U´ve helped me a lot.. I´ve tryed your setup on my 400 d and it went really great. I got the “at night” shoot and I LUV IT !! Thanx a lot… and great picture by the way…..

Hey man thanks for this info, The top result on google

Cheers,
Jorund.

i dont mean to sound simple but how’d you set up the 400d so it takes long pictures, i’ve tried settin the iso to 100 and f to 4 both done on Av setting and i pulled off one long shot, about 20 seconds, it’s the only one i’ve managed.
every other attempt results in it just taking a normal, 100iso spead picture, which is what, a prolonged second?
its not my camera i’ve borrowed it for photography at uni, but no hand book, i’m going to buy the remote you suggested anyway as i want to get some sky shots with star tails.
could you help me with the set up please?
i hope you still use this, looks like a while since you first posted.
cheers, Jack.

Hi Jack, and thanks for the comment.

First of all, to take more than 30 seconds you will probably need a remote shutter lead and the camera must be set on full manual mode. You can take 30 seconds or less without a remote shutter button, but I would recommend using the Tv setting which is shutter priority, meaning you can manually set how long you want the shutter to open for.

I usually use ISO100 for all of my night shots since it keeps noise down to a minimum. Using ISO100 means that less light will come into the camera than, say, ISO200 or 400, but it does keep noise down.

Finally, yep, I do still use my 400d. And still very happy with it!

thanks for that, i’ll give it a try tonight.
don’t suppose you have any ideas for semi-abstract or abstract photo’s do you? thats the brief we’ve been given at uni.
he says stuff like the one you’ve done, which i rather like, is cliche.
i saw one in a photo mag the other day, he’s set the camera up lookin at a car on a drive, then with a touch, followed the outline of the car, there must have been other light in it as the car was visible, but is something like that easy? or at least possible for a novice? haha
do you know michael frye? i like some of\his night shots,
michaelfrye.com/port/night/inf...
think that one is amazing, possible with the 400d do you rec? obviously we lack the sand but i’m hopeful of snow this winter and have till jan.
cos it says he opened then closed the reopened the shutter, is that possible on this cam or is that just the truely pofessional, several grand a pop cameras?
cheers once again and sorry for the lengthy questions.
jack

Hi again Jack, yes this is certainly possible! What your talking about is known as light painting. Its the process of keeping the shutter open whilst you (or a friend!) follows something with a torch or similar light source.

I’ve done some of this in the past – take a look at my Flickr portfolio here for some inspiration, perhaps flickr.com/photos/dazecoop/tag...

As far as the technique itself goes, your best bet I think is to take a look at a friends site of mine on his light painting tutorial – this should give you a good head-start on the process. His tutorial can be found at adcuz.co.uk/how-to-articles/ho...

But in short, basically, set the camera up on a tripod and figure out what you’re going to shoot. With torches or LED pens at the ready (different colours, etc?) begin your exposure then run away from the camera, doing your best to stay out of shot. Turn the torch on and begin “lighting” up areas of your subject, however you wish.

Keeping the light source close to the subject will create very defined lines, pulling further away will reveal more to the camera – its up to you how you approach it. I would suggest just messing about and see what you could come up with.

Adcuz’s website should help you a lot – he’s very talented! Please do let me know how you get on – and where possible credit this site if you can! Always nice!!

Hi Daze,

Love the photos, Im currently doing a City & Guilds course in photography and have stumbled across you, the information you have given is fantastic and very interesting, thank you. Could you tell me where BULB mode is, I too have a the 400d and love it. We are currently covering modes and Bulb is one that has come up, but I cant find it on my camera. The other thing that we need to find out about is “medium format cameras” be serching for a while and currently loosing the will to live looking LOL. Thanks again Sam

Sorry me again, I have found the Bulb mode, now all I have to do it use it Sam

Haha, nice one Sam, best of luck with it.

For anyone reading who still can’t find BULB mode, set the camera to fully manual mode on the control dial at the top, then move the shutter speed to the slowest setting.

From memory, it goes something like 10″ (10 seconds), 15″, 20″, 30″ and then BULB. Vola!

Also, Sam, to use BULB mode with any good you’ll almost certainly need a remote shutter. One like this! – amazon.co.uk/Canon-RS-60E3-Rem...

Let me know how you get on!

Please can you tell me how to photograph the night sky using bulb and remote control to control the shutter , I tried tonight in manual mode with canon 400D and 55mm2.8 I focused on an area and then pointed to the sky but when I tried to release the shutter with the remote it just tried to focus again , how can I take the photo or what am I doing wrong , God bless, W.

This is a fantastic photograph as are the other ones on Flickr, if I could take a shot like this I would be extreeeeemly happy . W.

finally have the remote shutter you suggested, and found bulb mode. Refering back to the picture by michael frye how can you get the landscape, pause the shutter then restart once the light has dissapeered. would one just place the cap over the shutter, as this would prevent further light penetration i’m guessing it would cause the photo to just appear black?
have i just answered my own question there?
thanks again, jack.

Hi there, I too have just stumbled across the site and this that the advise given is first class, many thanks.
I also have a EOD400 and will be purchasing a remote shutter soon. My question is how can you actually set the shutter time for longer (minutes or hour) exposures.
Many thanks
David

How do i activate bulb mode in the canon 400d

Hi Ricky, as I’ve said previously in these comments, on the dial at the top look out for “M” and switch it to that. Now using the scroll wheels, move the shutter speed to the slowest it will go. It will go from 15″ (15 seconds), 30″ and then will show BULB on the display.

And you’re done!

Hey, thank you very much for the tip on putting it into bulb exposure- really have been trying to figure it out for a long time now….

I recently bought myself a semi cheap infrared remote control, and if you press and hold the shutter button downand then move out of theline of sit of the infrared receiver you can let go and the bulb exposure carries on..When you want to stop it just move back into line of sight and press the button again.

thanks again for you help and i am def gonna give it a go soon….see how long the battery will last

cheers

Hi Daze, Thank you for your comments. They are very useful and I love the pics you have taken. I am just learning and enjoying taking potraits for now. But what I am keen on doing now is taking a shot of the night sky, just like the one you took. I would like to know if my kit lens – 18-55mm would be enough to do this or would I need something else.

THanks once again for all the input.

Philip Dennis

Hi Philip, no worries & glad I could help so far.

Your 18-55 kit lens would do just great – its a good starting lens and its what I used for about 6-8 months before I upgraded. The one thing you may find when taking a long-exposure, or something that you should certainly try to minimize is barrel movement within the lens.

Since the kit lens is a cheap-o lens, they’re not made very well and there is quite a bit of barrel movement. Put it to auto-focus mode, then “wiggle” the end of the lens with your hangs and you’ll see what I mean

Although there is not much that can be done with this, more care should be taken when using this lens at night. Focusing on a fixed point on auto-focus mode, then switching a manual-focus mode to re-compose (quite a well-used technique on night photography) is great, but the lens can often be set out of focus again due to this barrel movement.

Other than that, however! Great lens! And don’t let this put you off – its still very easy to achieve great results with the good ol’ kit lens

Hey Daze thanks for the response. I will try what you suggested, hopefull this weekend! and thanks to your ealrier write ups i picked up a remote for my camera. and the guy at the shop was not sure neither did the manual say if the remote would work on the buld mode. but i just rememebered what you wrote and went ahead with the purchase and it works just great. i can’t wait to put it to use. i just hope i get clear skies this weekend. thanks a again for the help Daze.