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M10 & Long Exposures


Leicauser7

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I've started to read what I can on this topic and have a few questions:

 

1. Why would Leica limit long exposures to 2 minutes?

2. Is this something that they could change in a future firmware release? Would they?

3. Regardless, if i wanted a longer exposure, could this be achieved through a series of back to back shorter exposures, minimizing the time to the extent possible between exposures?

4. Could 3 be accomplished without significant additional movement to the camera? What would the optimal set up be?

 

Thx for any insights.

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Let me take a stab at answering your questions.

 

1) I think there are several reasons Leica might limit long exposure to 2 min. One might be concern about heat building up in the sensor and causing excess noise. Consistent with this concern Leica has shorter limits on long exposure with higher ISOs.

2) It is something they probably could change with future firmware releases, but I wouldn't hold your breath. People have asked for change in how Leica M cameras do long exposure for a long time, especially the mandatory long exposure noise reduction, but Leica hasn't made changes.

3) This idea is not as crazy as you might think. Sony has an app that does exactly what you suggest by combining multiple exposures. I don't particularly like the results from that app, but people are trying to do what you suggest. I expect in 5 years or so, there will be software that will do it and it will work in some situations and not in others. But just as focus stacking can increase depth of field, a number of shorter exposures should in some situation results in a simulation of long exposure.

4) Take multiple shorter exposure is easy with a remote release and some are even available with an intervalometer, which people use for time lapse, and such a set up should work well.

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3) This idea is not as crazy as you might think. Sony has an app that does exactly what you suggest by combining multiple exposures. I don't particularly like the results from that app, but people are trying to do what you suggest. I expect in 5 years or so, there will be software that will do it and it will work in some situations and not in others. But just as focus stacking can increase depth of field, a number of shorter exposures should in some situation results in a simulation of long exposure.

Isn't this similar to what is done all the time in astrophotography software (e.g. Pixinsight)? Hundreds of frames are combined to simulate one long exposure frame, but eliminating the noise and changes in atmospheric disturbance ("seeing") you would get in a long exposure frame.

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M10 has intervalometer function built-in.

I have not explore this function yet.

 

In Drive Mode, user can set number of frames and interval time.

 

This must be useful in astronomy if applicable to long exposures, but I doubt.

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Isn't this similar to what is done all the time in astrophotography software (e.g. Pixinsight)? Hundreds of frames are combined to simulate one long exposure frame, but eliminating the noise and changes in atmospheric disturbance ("seeing") you would get in a long exposure frame.

Panasonic has this as a handheld low light option in the camera. The camera takes a fast series of exposures and stacks them. It would not work too well on am M camera as the bursts are to slow. This system uses speeds of up to 30 fps.

The Leica C is an example, albeit not quite so fast.

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