Overpriced and under featured. There are far better alternatives and I've decided on the Hahnel Giga Pro T II, which costs half that of the Canon and is wireless. But you can pay another $30 or mroe less and still get better remote timers.
What's more than a little ironic is that my XTi and T1i both counted the bulb exposure on the rear LCD (which you could turn off if you needed to conserve power). I lost that very useful feature when I moved up to the 60D and 5DII. Now I use the stopwatch on my phone to time bulb exposures, which is just dumb.
Chris Anthony wrote:
It's on the top LCD on those bodies
Right. Which you can't read in the dark, when you are likely to be doing bulb exposures, without touching the camera to turn on the light, which shuts off after a few seconds. Next to useless.
dsjtecserv wrote:
Right. Which you can't read in the dark, when you are likely to be doing bulb exposures, without touching the camera to turn on the light, which shuts off after a few seconds. Next to useless.
Very useful. You have a flashlight in your pocket, maybe an LED keyring light, because you are in the dark. No problems.
That way it doesn't drain the battery dry running the LCD on the back, which is very power hungry.
Monito, as I said, I use my phone to time bulb exposures, because the camera isn't designed to provide the needed information without help from some external device, like a flashlight or intervalometer. Sure you can solve the problem, but a thoughtfully designed camera wouldn't require you to solve the problem. The irony is that the less expensive Canons do this just fine. The drain on the battery is a red herring: this was never an issue with the T1i. The additional drain during the exposure itself is relatively small compared to the total power usage involved in night shooting, and the the LCD can be dimmed, or simply turned off for very long exposures.
Most people working in the dark bring a flashlight. In fact, you might even say it is the smart thing to do. With a flashlight you can see where you are and where you are going. You can choose a good spot for the tripod, stable and with good footing for the camera operator. You can use the flashlight to check your tripod / camera bubble levels. Flashlights are highly recommended. Photographers are advised to at least have an LED flashlight in their backpacks that weighs less than an ounce.
If you have to turn the rear LCD off for very long exposures, then that defeats the purpose of having it on the rear LCD.
By putting it on the top mount LCD, which uses less battery power because it is a discrete monochrome LCD array, you get the best of both worlds.
I've made exposures from a minute to 20 minutes and never been bothered by the equipment or held back by it. DSLRs are excellent cameras in so many ways and it is a wonder how painful so many people find them.
Ian.Dobinson wrote:
why should you be expected to purchase the TC-80n3 when its functions could easily be added into any of the bodies menu systems. ?
It's a matter of priorities, many of which are constrained because memory space is limited. People who haven't coded microcode systems don't realize how limited space can be, especially when you have to cram extra icons in, lots of branches in the code for UI choices, lots of checking for incompatible conditions, etc. The memory in the cameras is not your run of the mill commoditized bulk memory sticks for PCs. It has to be even more compact and higher performance, often with unusual data paths and addressing schemes.
Extra memory space is devoted to things like buffers to get the throughput up for the people who worry about 6 versus 8 fps and buffers filling up when they spray and pray.
Would you sacrifice one fps or be happy for the buffer to fill up a couple of shots earlier? You might be, but others would not. In the competitive world of camera specs analysed by gearheads, fps and buffer run size cast a very long shadow. Other doodads and whirligigs don't get much notice.
Monito, come on. The issue isn't whether one has a flashlight, but whether one has to use it to make up for a shortcoming in a camera that could be easily rectified. The fact that Rebels, with their lesser battery capacity, have the ability to show the bulb timing, and work just fine, negates any supposed disadvantage of having that capability. In the more advanced cameras, it doesn't make sense to REMOVE a useful capability. Further, cameras that have both read and top LCDs would allow either to be used, depending on the preferences of the user or the need to preserve battery power.
Really, your straining mightily to defend an unfortunate design choice that limits the usefulness of otherwise superior product. It obviously isn't a deal-breaker for those of use who still choose Canons, but it is still a disappointment.
dsjtecserv wrote:
The fact that Rebels, with their lesser battery capacity, have the ability to show the bulb timing, and work just fine, negates any supposed disadvantage of having that capability.
Nah. Most people using Rebels might make a few time exposures in their life, rather than many in one night, so power consumption is much less of an issue. Canon has to put it on the LCD on the back of Rebels regardless of how much power that uses because it simply does not have a top mounted LCD.
Read your manuals. Page 99 for the 5D2 and page 123 for the 60D.
To me it is a matter of priorities. If it was a high usage feature it might be worth spending the time, engineering effort, support training, and lifecycle cost to have an intervalometer built into the camera. But I bet most cameras have never even been shot on a tripod, let alone set to bulb.
Cripes. A fair number of times I stayed up all night doing star trails and full moon shots with my T1i. Battery usage was not any more of an issue than it was during daytime shooting, and was hardly affected by they exposure count. When I got a 60D I found it was less well suited to night shooting, both because it doesn't provide the timing count on the rear LCD, but also because it lacks the T1i's proximity sensor to turn off the LCD (and avoid blinding when alternating between viewfinder and LCD); and the T1i's reduced-brightness "green screen" option that is perfect for night shooting. I haven't used the later Rebels, but if they have preserved these features, with their more advanced sensors and processing, then they are hand's down a better choice for night shooting. I keep my T1I around specifically for this type of work, and use the 60D just as a backup.
Really, it's demeaning and petty to make generalizations about "people using Rebels" especially when "those people" find the lesser camera better suited for an advanced photography technique.
dsjtecserv wrote:
Cripes. A fair number of times I stayed up all night doing star trails and full moon shots with my T1i. Battery usage was not any more of an issue than it was during daytime shooting, and was hardly affected by they exposure count. When I got a 60D I found it was less well suited to night shooting, both because it doesn't provide the timing count on the rear LCD, but also because it lacks the T1i's proximity sensor to turn off the LCD (and avoid blinding when alternating between viewfinder and LCD); and the T1i's reduced-brightness "green screen" option that is perfect for night shooting. I haven't used the later Rebels, but if they have preserved these features, with their more advanced sensors and processing, then they are hand's down a better choice for night shooting. I keep my T1I around specifically for this type of work, and use the 60D just as a backup.
Really, it's demeaning and petty to make generalizations about "people using Rebels" especially when "those people" find the lesser camera better suited for an advanced photography technique....Show more →
I carefully wrote "most people using Rebels" because "most" does not include all. Obviously there would be some who do extensive night exposures and it turns out that you are one of them. If you want to self-identify with "demeaning", that's your choice, but there is no need to get your nose out of joint because you didn't read the word "most".
It's a fact that most people buying Rebels are not very sophisticated. Most of them don't even own tripods. If you own one and are sophisticated about your photography that is great; but it doesn't negate the fact, nor does it make the facts about "most" Rebel users demeaning. Most of them are a level more sophisticated than most point & shoot users.
Some people think that their ways of using cameras are representative of "most" users. There are many ways to use cameras and almost all users of all cameras never use all of the features that are available to them.
Canon has to balance the desires of the market as a whole when making cameras. It's a fact that there are more people interested in frames per second than intervalometers.
A lot of Nikon cameras have a built in intervalometer. Not sure why Canon can't.
After using the built in Nikon ones, I still prefer the remote but like that there is an option.
I'm also not a fan of turning on a flashlight during an exposure at night. Depending on what's in the foreground, it can mess up your shot.
Then don't flash the foreground. In any case, in an exposure of over a minute, a brief flash with a small flashlight is not going to do much. But really it is not much trouble to take care with the light.
Here's another solution: If you have a two minute exposure, then set the shutter to 30 seconds, click it four times, and merge the result. You'll have the added benefit of less noise.
If the exposure is longer than that, then checking a watch near the time is easy enough, since fifteen seconds over, say on a four minute exposure, say, is not going to make a noticeable difference: 1/16 of a stop.
There are so many ways of using equipment to get the photo made that it is very rare to be limited by the equipment. Fifty years ago intervalometers were not available except for expensive scientific research and were definitely not builtin, but funny thing, photographers still made photos even though they had to also factor in reciprocity failure.
Sure a built-in timer would be a nice feature and it will be there in due course. In the meantime it doesn't mean that Canon is "stupid". In the meantime the photographer can be a little bit smart.
Monito wrote:
Then don't flash the foreground. In any case, in an exposure of over a minute, a brief flash with a small flashlight is not going to do much. But really it is not much trouble to take care with the light.
Here's another solution: If you have a two minute exposure, then set the shutter to 30 seconds, click it four times, and merge the result. You'll have the added benefit of less noise.
If the exposure is longer than that, then checking a watch near the time is easy enough, since fifteen seconds over, say on a four minute exposure, say, is not going to make a noticeable difference: 1/16 of a stop.
There are so many ways of using equipment to get the photo made that it is very rare to be limited by the equipment. Fifty years ago intervalometers were not available except for expensive scientific research and were definitely not builtin, but funny thing, photographers still made photos even though they had to also factor in reciprocity failure.
Sure a built-in timer would be a nice feature and it will be there in due course. In the meantime it doesn't mean that Canon is "stupid". In the meantime the photographer can be a little bit smart. ...Show more →
When I'm night shooting my number one rule is no lights during a shot(unless I'm light painting or something). I'm probably being anal about, but still.
But again, it's pretty much a non-issue for me because I use a timer remote and can set it to whatever I need. No flashlight needed.
I just think it's lame that Canon doesn't include this feature that other have been including for a while.
Each manufacturer has its share of "lame". I remain astounded and thrilled by the high quality and very high capability of modern cameras.
So. We've progressed from Canon being "stupid" for not having the feature on 5D and 60D to complaining that the 5D and 60D actually do have the feature but just not in the place that some photographers would prefer, and on to calling them merely "lame". Multiple solutions and workarounds and techniques have been suggested.
The cameras are less convenient for some uses by some users than for other uses by other users. C'est la vie.
Monito wrote:
Each manufacturer has its share of "lame". I remain astounded and thrilled by the high quality and very high capability of modern cameras.
So. We've progressed from Canon being "stupid" for not having the feature on 5D and 60D to complaining that the 5D and 60D actually do have the feature but just not in the place that some photographers would prefer, and on to calling them merely "lame". Multiple solutions and workarounds and techniques have been suggested.
The cameras are less convenient for some uses by some users than for other uses by other users. C'est la vie.
We've progressed more then just that. The OP was only asking about shooting longer than 30 seconds...
I was only saying a built-in intervalometer solves a lot of the issues discussed in this thread. And yes, I think it's lame Canon chooses not to included it.
