Astrophotography (Reccomended) Intervelometer Settings

[Stuminator]

Hi all, I seem to be struggling to get the intervelometer to take a 15 sec exposure and then fire off as soon as the camera (5DMK3)
is ready as I need as many shots per min as possible to get a smooth timelapse movie.  I'm thinking that part of the problem may be related to the time the camera takes to process the image before the next shot can be taken, which in the case of a 15 sec exposure is about 5 seconds.  So my question is, what would be the best settings to achieve the minimum time between shots.

Thanks in advance

Stu

[a1ex]

If you don't care what that minimum time is, the "take pictures like crazy" setting should do the trick.

Otherwise, I'd expect setting the intervalometer to 17 seconds to work, but unable to test right now. That is, 16 seconds actual exposure + 1 second initial processing. File saving is pipelined.

Alternative: camera in the fastest drive mode from Canon menu + a small Lua script that just keeps the shutter button pressed.

However, the right tool for this job should be full-res silent pictures; unfortunately this code is not pipelined, so it won't work out of the box at the time of writing. If you can edit the code in order to save one image while capturing the next one, that should minimize the delay between two captures.

[Stuminator]

Hi and thanks for the reply but unfortunately the "take pictures like crazy" and 17 sec option don't work.  After a pic is taken it appears that the intervelometer waits the full 15 seconds before triggering again, no matter what changes are made to the interval time that's set.   I've never tried to do any coding before so may end up purchasing a purpose built trigger to do the job.  In any case it's approaching full moon and I'm going to have to come back to Chillagoe Far North Queensland in a couple of weeks when the night sky is best for shooting a star rotation sequence around the south celestial pole.  If anyone could assist with writing some code to do the job please let me know and I'll buy you a beer at the Chillagoe Eco Lodge & Observatory

[a1ex]

In this case, the problem is in your Canon menu settings, not on ML side. You will have the same issue with any external trigger.

I've just tested the 17" option with default Canon settings and it does work.

[Stuminator]

G'day again and many thanks for your assistance. I'd love to know what camera and ML settings you are using so I can achieve the same results as you. I'm simply not able to get the camera to trigger straight after a 15 second exposure.  ML pops up a warning saying "interval time too short (34s)" and sometimes "interval time too short (17s)" 

Thanks in advance


Stuart

[Walter Schulz]

If "Long exposure noise reduction" is applied your cam will take a second exposure with shutter closed to determine noise pattern.
Either calculate interval time accordingly or turn off "Long exposure noise reduction" and use your own dark frame procedure.

Manual page 146/147