Forums: Hacks

Back to Camera Hacker

Add Comment | Related Links | TrackBack
Related Content | Shareomatic!

Mirror lock-up in night exposure using a camera without the mirror lock-up feature

Your cheap mirror lockup idea is brilliant. I laughed when I read it because I never would have thought of that.

Cole Petersburg
Sat, 2 Mar 2002 17:52:02 -0600 (CST)

But, is mirror induced vibration really an issue at longer exposure times? I've seen writeups suggesting the impact is most serious around 1/60-1/15 second range.

Terry Brown
Fri Jun 4 13:21:17 PDT 2004

It depends on the length of your lens. Try shooting the moon at night with a 1000mm or 2000mm telescope. Then try stacking two teleconverters on the telescope. We have found that we needed two tripods and self-timer on the camera to stablize the image. The mirror-lock up helps elminate vibration from the mirror.

Chieh Cheng
Fri Jun 4 14:40:28 PDT 2004

Terri Brown: I think you are correct. In ordinary macro and telephoto work, mirror lock-up is only a necessity with exposures of about a second or less. The vibration induced by "mirror slap" is very short-lived and therefore will not disturb the quality of a longer exposure, especially very long exposures.

Note that I say "ordinary" macro and telephoto work. The rig described by Chieh Cheng is a special case. In that situation, I could just imagine the tremor from the mirror slap transmitting down the whole length of that monstrous lens arrangement. It could take a bit longer for that kind of vibration to subside, and especially since a bright object was being photographed, his exposure time might not be terribly long. Easy to see why mirror lock might be helpful with that kind of extreme magnification and very long lens set up.

Kerry Givens
Wed Jul 7 16:57:38 PDT 2004

One could also use the self timer for
mirror lock up. In most SLR cameras with
self timer, the mirror is held up long
before shutter gets activated.

ilaac
Fri, 17 Feb 2006 06:45:28 -0800

<< Back to Article

Add Comment | Related Links | TrackBack
Related Content | Shareomatic!

Add Comment

Spam Control | * indicates required field

TrackBack

Send Ping | TrackBack URL | Spam Control

No TrackBacks yet. TrackBack can be used to link this thread to your weblog, or link your weblog to this thread. In addition, TrackBack can be used as a form of remote commenting. Rather than posting the comment directly on this thread, you can posts it on your own weblog. Then have your weblog sends a TrackBack ping to the TrackBack URL, so that your post would show up here.

Messages, files, and images copyright by respective owners.

Copyright © 1998 - 2010. All Rights Reserved.