darkness... :(

[garethmob]

hey iv just had my timer for my 300d its a shoot one

not sure if im using it correctly though i have long (i assume shutter) at 30s interval (i assume time between each shutter) 1s and 10 photos i focused as best as i could on my manual 58mm lens (in sig) all all im getting is darkness in all of my pics its as if i have the lens cap on, but every pic i take otherwise is fine

the cameras iso is also set on 800

any ideas???

the only thing i can think of is maybe the long is working different to what i think it does, i would guess it holds the mirror open for 30s then takes picture but it does seem to be taking a picture showing it on screen is this the problem?

[jgs001]

You don't mention what setting you user on the camera except the ISO... when using a timer remote, you have to set the camera to Manual, and the shutter speed to bulb or odd things happen. Is this what you did ?

Long is the exposure time,

interval is the time between exposures (probably want more than 1 second though) oh... do you have preview turned on ? If so, that can cause oddities with the timer remote too..

[garethmob]

thanks for replying john i releised what i hadnt done (not set the camera to bulb mode)

i have got the camera in manual mode (im using a manual lens)

just another question you mentioned having interval on longer than 1 second its confused me a little as i thought short time between shots be better as less field rotation.

thanks again for the swift answer

[jgs001]

Manual on the camera doesn't necessarily mean Manual focus on the lens... You can set the focus manually and keep the camera exposure in some auto mode.

You're right, but it depends... it's also often best to allow the sensor a chance to cool a little before ploughing on with the next exposure... maybe 10 or 15 seconds... equally, I've found that my 450d won't activate with the timer remote if the preview image is up, so using the timer remote I found 10 seconds was about the minimum gap. Even on a static tripod, that never caused me any problems... as long as all your captures don't go beyond probably 10 minutes of elapsed time... DSS can handle the rotation between exposures.

[garethmob]

ahh i see i didnt think about cooling

i did get one image (10 shots 30s a shot then 10 darks (actually had 7 before battery ran out forgot to charge)

this is what i ended with (ajusting the graphs a little i noticed that it is a little out of focus i was out in the garden so i was looking through the view finder and couldnt see very well but overall for a first shot it seemed quite good

the bright star in the image is Betelgeuse

im going to attempt to clean it up now

[Dave S]

I find dslr focusing a real problem without live view. A Bahtinov mask helps.

Dave...

[garethmob]

iv made a mask but i havent started imaging with a telescope yet im using my prime lens (till i can get my eq2 motor tracking properly) for focusing what do you expect? as obv i could spend a long time taking loads of pictures and find their all fuzzy afterwards