Long Exposure

[Firemansam]

Have recently purchased a Canon 400D and have started experimenting with night/astro photography. Is it possible to damage the camera if I take exposures lasting more than 15 to 20 mins?

[ricktas]

NO!

However, as your exposures get longer and longer, the sensor will heat up, and you will often find you will get noise in the resulting photo from that sensor heat. On your camera there is a thing called long exposure Noise reduction, read up about it, in the manual.

[wattsgallery]

Hi there

And welcome to the forums (I am pretty new here too but there is lots of great info and helpful people). Re Rick's note about long exposure definately read up on it and when used note that it takes up to as long as your original exposure time (after your exposure) to finish its magic so you will not be able to take another shot while that happens.

Another way around this is to take a series of shorter photos and stack them. I haven't done this myself but have seen some great shots where this has been done (ie 100 x 30sec shots instead of 1 x 50min exposure).

Good luck
Cheers
Josh

[Firemansam]

Thanks guys, had set the noise reduction when I set-up the camera.