Can T3i use exposure longer than 30 seconds?

[tmcdanel]

I have been doing time lapse night exposures of a mountain on moonless nights. I have been doing 30 second exposures at F3.5 aperture but the mountain is still dark. It seems like a longer exposure would bring out more stars and color.

Is it possible to use Magic Lantern to lengthen the exposure time.

Lens Canon EFS- 18-135mm

[Rewind]

Bulb timer in Shoot menu gives you up to 8 hrs exposures.

[tmcdanel]

Thanks, Rewind. I appreciate your response. I read the documentation on Bulb Timer and it is pretty thin. Is there better? Why is it called "Bulb" Timer?

I read all the posts on Bulb Timer i could find, and found that i probably need to update.
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5714.0
I updated by simply over-writing the autobin file and ML directory. Hope thats ok, never updated before.

Hope this post helps other newbies in the future.

[tmcdanel]

Ok, tried it in a dark room, and Bulb setting does not trip the shutter. ML is configured to Bulb Timer on for 1m.

Canon T3i's give no error codes, to my great disappointment. I made certain Auto Focus was turned off and stabilization is off. Set at 30 second exposures, everything works fine.

Troubleshooting suggestions or suggested reading?

[dmilligan]

Make sure your camera is in Bulb mode (on some camera it has it's own dial setting, on others it's the last shutter speed you come to in M mode). Hold the shutter half way down until you hear a beep. A single bulb exposure will begin using the time you set. For intervalometer simply set the bulb timer time, make sure you are in Bulb mode and start the intervalometer. ML intervalometer knows to use the Bulb timer if you are in Bulb mode.

[kihlbahkt]

The answer is yes. The first way is without ML and requires that you place the cam in Bulb mode, it is right after 30" setting,  manually trip the shutter, use the accessory wired shutter actuator for that, but it can be done with your finger on the shutter but considering you are taking a long exposure the less you touch the cam the better your image will be. A better choice for one off images and not series that will become a video.

With ML. You dont say what version you are running. v2.3 is slightly different than the March nightly I am running currently. I used these settings to capture a test series of shots @
MAR312014 Nightly. 600D
Using Canon exposure setting, Set exposure to BULB
Using ML Shoot Menu, Set intervalometer:
Take a pic every ...2m30s
Start trigger...Half Shutter
Start after... 3s
Stop after...10 shots
Using ML shoot menu, Set Bulb Timer
Exposure Duration...1m00s

This works fine on my 600D

For v2.3
I am testing right now and will provide details of the settings...Results are In...
Running into problems with intervalometer and bulb timer enabled. Can only get 1 or 2 shots depending on how it is setup. If you are shooting with v2.3 run a nightly build. Intervalometer ends up being off and the cam leaves LV mode. Fail. If I find out anything else I will share. Questioning my results so I will look again. Intervalometer is fine if bulb timer not enabled as far as I can tell.

[tmcdanel]

Thanks dmilligan. I did as you proscribed with out success.

kihlbahkt, thank you as well for your very thorough experimentation. You will notice my ML version is in my signature. Having read of problems solved in 2013 builds, i updated to the latest build, 2014-07-02. It looks very different than my previous 2012 version.

Tonight, with a little experimentation, it seemed to work only with the intervalometer, not pressing the shutter or a timed shutter. My remote battery is dead. I was not able to test multiple intervalometer takes. But i will post to this thread when i can.

Thanks for the information.
terry.