More Cambridge shots (night)

[Mr Noble]

Bought my new Velbon Luxi SF tripod jesterday. (on special at Jessops right now, £69) Thought I would test it out up on the mound by Shire Hall in Cambridge.

It was freezing and I stayed about an hour till my fingers froze and all fell off.

Can anyone tell me why my D70 takes about the same time to process a pic as the shutter speed is?

ie. If I shoot the moon at 1/125 it takes 1/2 a second for the image to appear in the lcd. If I shoot the stars for 30 seconds, it takes about 20 seconds before the image pops up on the lcd. Bloody annoying when its -5c outside!!

Also, does anyone know how to shoot on bulb without having to keep the shutter button pressed down?

Also, want to know about mirror lock up as I think 50 of my 55 shots are blurry due to mirror shake as I was using a 2 second timer delay on them all.

3 questions there, all help and criticism appreciated as I need it and want to learn!

Thx, Greg






ps. Both are pretty much un-ps'd.

>> Edited by Mr Noble on Friday 18th November 09:38

[Don]

As I understand it on the D70 the "Mirror Lock Up" function is for cleaning the sensor only - not for long exposures. Shame - as the more up-market Nikon DSLRs have this function.

(D70 owner myself)

Nice pics too!

[HankScorpio]

Can answer one...

There's a menu option for long exposure noise reduction.
The longer the exposure, the more noise.
"NR" flashes in the top screen.

[_dobbo_]

HankScorpio said:

Can answer one... There's a menu option for long exposure noise reduction. The longer the exposure, the more noise. "NR" flashes in the top screen.

Yep, that caught me out a few times, watching "job NR" flashing thinking my camera was broken....

[_dobbo_]

Anyway, as for the pictures, I prefer the first one myself, the second is nice but I find it odd that the rooftops are level and the cathedral(?) is not - which one is built on the slope?

Try leveling the cathedral and have sloping roofs in the foreground, see if that's better?

[mmertens]

If you use a IR remote on bulb, first use of the remote will open the shutter, second will close. You don't really need the Nikon remote, a cheap universal/programmable TV-remote will often work (the D70 reacts to certain Sanyo TV codes, for example). Maybe holding the shutter by hand was the reason for your blur as well? 2 seconds selftimer with a not-very-short focal length will still be wobbling on all but the most stable tripods... Use 5 sec? There's no other option (lockup or other) for the D70, I'm afraid...

>> Edited by mmertens on Friday 18th November 21:35

[Mr Noble]

Ahh, I remember seeinf "job NR" flashing and thinking I had done something wrong!

Its a shamt that the roof lines up and the cathedral doesn't, one is on a very different axis to the other so it looks odd. Anyway, I was not going for masterpieces this time, just testing mmy new tripod, had no torch either and couldn't see any of the buttons on the camers to play around enough.

Thanks for your help guys.

Greg

[_dobbo_]

Mr Noble said:

had no torch either and couldn't see any of the buttons on the camers to play around enough. Greg

Get one of these

It's a remote shutter release and a torch in one, and it's only a fiver. Bo!

[simpo two]

Mr Noble said:

and couldn't see any of the buttons on the camers to play around enough.

Don't forget the top LCD illuminator - doesn't show all the buttons I agree but a big help.