Length of open shutter/damage to sensor?

9 years 4 months ago - 9 years 4 months ago #417594 by jmstovall
Hi folks,I've been getting more into long exposure stuff lately and I'll be doing several as I visit the family over the holidays. I've read in several places that you should give the sensor a rest between long shots (I'm thinking 30 to 45 seconds here) because, while energized, it gets e of the shots I'd like to do will be much longer--several minutes--and I guess I have several questions:

1. How worried should I be about damage to the sensor during these long shots?
2. Is there a best practice for length of shot?
3. Is there a best practice for "rest" time between shots?
4. Is there any way to monitor the head the sensor is generating?

All those are connected, but you see my point. I'm using a t4i for these efforts. Any help is appreciated; thanks so much!


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9 years 4 months ago #417605 by Joves
Since I know nothing about Canon models, but this really applies to all models that shoot video. Your longest time for your shutter being open is whatever the longest length of video you can shoot with it. So if your camera shoots up to 5 minutes of video, that is your longest exposure time. Also you will want to use your manuals guide for if the camera needs a certain rest period after shooting video. Since the sensors are not all that large the heat dissipation rates are fairly quick, but I am not sure of how quick. It could be half the time of what the shooting time was, or a little more. 
The biggest thing with the earlier cameras was AMP noise showing up in the dark areas. But the technology has really improved since then, so it is not really the problem it was in the past. Maybe a Canon owner who has shot longer exposures will chime in.


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9 years 4 months ago #417632 by effron
The rest is for sensor cooling for sure, as no sensor damage with longer exposures. Why bother? Its easy to take a bunch of minute shots and stack them if need be. You also don't mention what kind of extended exposure photography you'll be doing, it could matter.....:dry:

Why so serious?
Photo Comments
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9 years 4 months ago #417655 by garyrhook
The advice you have received is ... suspect. Read Joves' post, above.

Yes, a sensor can be subject to heat build-up and thus noise, but you can mitigate that using dark frame subtraction.

All that said,

1) there's no damage to the sensor. That's just silly.
2) No.
3) No.
4) No.


Photo Comments
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9 years 4 months ago #417714 by jmstovall
Hey all, thanks for the advice!

Following Joves' suggestion, I checked the manual (which I probably should have done in the first place) and found that there is a temperature alert built into the t4i. The alert is mentioned in the context of shooting video; no idea if it's monitoring when you're just doing long exposure shots.

That said, garyrhook's reply basically confirms what I figured already--don't worry too much about it. I will continue experimenting with long exposures, and now I just know what the alert means if it does pop up. I'm more worried about reducing noise than damaging the sensor.

I'm also now curious about dark frame subtraction, which I don't think I know about, so I'll go off and Google that.

Many thanks for the help!

-Jeff


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