buLb is the term Nikon uses to say "Leave the shutter open for an indefinate amount of time".
My Wife told me there were going to be metior showers over the next few days. So I refreshed my memory on how to use the "buLb" setting and took a number of pictures. Here are the best two. Both pictures are about a 1 minute exposure, f4.5, ISO 3200, using the Sigma 10-20 at 20mm. Leaving the shutter open for much more than a minute resulted in blurred stars as the rotation of the Earth changes the camera's position relative to the stars.
In order to use the "buLb" setting you set your Nikon camera to "S" or "M" mode and rotate the command dial past the longest shutter speed to the "buLb" setting. Then using your Nikon remote you press the button once to open the shutter and when you are ready press the button again to close the shutter.
My Wife told me there were going to be metior showers over the next few days. So I refreshed my memory on how to use the "buLb" setting and took a number of pictures. Here are the best two. Both pictures are about a 1 minute exposure, f4.5, ISO 3200, using the Sigma 10-20 at 20mm. Leaving the shutter open for much more than a minute resulted in blurred stars as the rotation of the Earth changes the camera's position relative to the stars.
In order to use the "buLb" setting you set your Nikon camera to "S" or "M" mode and rotate the command dial past the longest shutter speed to the "buLb" setting. Then using your Nikon remote you press the button once to open the shutter and when you are ready press the button again to close the shutter.
Nice Pics of the Milky Way, and a nice meteor in #2. Nice, informative comment on set up procedure! Excellent post!
ReplyDeleteCapturing the night sky opens up a whole other world of photography! Paul have you tried capturing star trails yet?
As Quynh Le would say, Tri-pod mandatory!
I've been thinking about trying that for months. I thought about using an 18-55 lens so I could open the aperture more but these came out pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI think a few with the stars rotating would be intersting. I have seen some photos where they left the shutter open for a lot longer and got a bunch of circular lines from the earth rotating that looked pretty cool.
Nice job on these. Is that a meteor in the bottom photo or a dog hair on the lens? LOL
Very cool shot! Thanks for the info's. I got to try this next time.
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