August 02, 2006
abstract
There's a backstory to this.
Major thunderstorms here last night (a couple inches of rain, temporary power outages, and much lightning in the sky), and I tried to use a new camera (Canon 350D w/50 mm 1.8 lens) to take some long-exposure shots using the bulb setting to keep the lens open as long as I was pressing down on the button.
Nothing turned out, because the lens kept opening and closing without taking anything in. This morning, after several hours of web research, I figured out that I needed to flip a switch on the lens to turn off the auto mode—it had been hunting for focus, then giving up when it could find anything, since it was completely dark.... One of those things that makes sense only (a) if you know what you're doing or (b) after you figure it out. Still, the manual should have mentioned this on the page about the bulb setting for long-timeframe exposures (at least from my perspective).
So today after I figured out how the bulb mode worked, I took several shots in my office just to test it out (they look pretty good at large sizes). I sort of liked them, even though it was daylight so the exposure's extremely blown out.
Posted by johndanseven at August 2, 2006 02:21 AM