Canon 300D Question

Ok Folks, Can i ask a question about the 300d? I'm most certainly going to order one on the net this weekend, but can you tell me - I see it can take exposures up to 30 seconds default, how can all those great shots I've seen here and around the net be taken with 5 minutes/10 minutes etc. :

I'm really only at the learning stage with this, is the exposure time greater than 30secs 'loaded' into the camera via 'firmware' or 'hacks' that you can get?
I don't see any cable release thread on the camera, so I assume exposures are done by a time controller?

Is there a general link out there explaining how all this is done?
Thanks & much appreciated,
Keith.

There is a cable release. All long exposure shots would be taken on a driven equatorial mount.

There are two approaches to this...

1) Buy a shutter release cable. I bought mine cheaply from the UK for about £17. You should see it listed amongst the stuff on the website you intend buying the camera from.

2) Buy DSLRFocus (about $40 online - www.dslrfocus.com ) and build your own automatic shutter release cable. It will plug into your PCs parallel port and camera's shutter release so that the program can automatically schedule photographs for you.

Another thing to consider is that other Canon DSLR cameras support ISO 3200 whereas the EOS300D only goes upto ISO 1600. There is a firmware hack going around so that you can modify your camera's OS to give you all the features. Canon just switched it off but it is there on the camera.

You may also like to consider Haps cables He has serial paralel or usb. From the US.
Works fine with a number of programs. Consider Image plus. It does autimatic series of short or long exposures, focussing and has great funtions for astrophotgraphy. Although it is not free it is cheaper then photoshop and much more productive.

Have fun

Jouke

Would be nice if you had the URL for Hap:
www.hapg.org/astrocables.htm

and image plus:

www.mlunsold.com


Jouke

Hi Keith,
The 300D cant use a normal shuttter release cable, but you do have 3 options,

An infrared cable release, click once to open shutter, again to close shutter

A wired electronic cable release, it uses a tiny headphone jack, its basically a n electronic hold switch.

You can also control if from the PC, this requires that you build the cable yourself or order off the web.

You cant take >30 second exposures without one of the above.