Using B, T and long speeds for star trails and comet Neowise

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Rocket Rick

New member
When I go to manual mode and select shutter speeds from 5 to 30 seconds or use B ot T, the camaera says not enough light and refuses to fire the shutter.

Back in my 35mm SLR days (Nikon, Pentax, Minolta, and finally Olympus OM-1 ans 2s, I could shot pictures regardless. I would think that when you choose the B ot T shutter setting, the light metering is disengaged. Doesn't matter what ISO setting I do. Am I doing something wrong? Called Nikon customer service and they seemed not to know how to do star trails and such, suggested I use the night mode.

Last night I was forced to leave a light on when I depressed the shutter and as soon as the shutter fired I turned off the light.

Help
 
TwistedThrottle

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
[MENTION=48468]Rocket Rick[/MENTION]
When I am shooting AF-C, I have it set up to fire when I say so. When I have it on AF-S, it only fires once focus has been established. Head into your pencil menu and check to see these values are set.
 
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nickt

Senior Member
I think Cindy has it. The camera wants to focus before it will take the picture and there is not enough light. You have to use manual focus. I don't think the d3400 has the release priority mode settings the others mentioned.

Its not your other settings. In M, it doesn't care if the exposure works out. It does still care about focus, so put it in manual focus and it should fire.
 
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Rocket Rick

New member
Moab Man said:
What Hark and NickT said.
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone, switching to manual focus was it. I can't believe I was talking with a Nikon Customer Service person for nearly 1/2 hour and never mentioned manual focus. Had me try lots of other things that didn't work.

The manual simply says under 'Night Vision' that "autofocus is available in live view only; manual focus can be used if the camera is unable to focus." Says nothing about needing to set to manual focus if shooting B or T. I guess I'm new to DSLR.
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Rocket Rick said:
Thanks everyone, switching to manual focus was it. I can't believe I was talking with a Nikon Customer Service person for nearly 1/2 hour and never mentioned manual focus. Had me try lots of other things that didn't work.

The manual simply says under 'Night Vision' that "autofocus is available in live view only; manual focus can be used if the camera is unable to focus." Says nothing about needing to set to manual focus if shooting B or T. I guess I'm new to DSLR.
Click to expand...

Glad it worked for you! Possibly the Nikon tech has never taken night photos.

Nice to have you here with us. :cheerful:
 
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nickt

Senior Member
Nikon is roundabout in documenting how some things work. There are 2 sets of books for the d3400, the reference manual and the user manual. I just searched the reference pdf and found a small mention under autofocus tips that the shutter might be disabled under some conditions. But the message in the viewfinder did not give you enough info to know it was an autofocus problem.

Anyway, you are better off in manual focus for very dark shooting. In most cases focus will be on infinity. Something to try is live view. You should be able to zoom in on a distant point of light in LV and then manually focus till its sharp. It doesn't have to be a star, it could be a very distant street light just to find infinity. When I say zoom in, I don't mean with the lens. I mean with the screen controls so you can see your focus better on the screen. Use magnifier and arrow buttons. It does not zoom your shot like a digital zoom, its just a method to examine focus. You can take the picture from LV, or switch back to viewfinder. As long as you stay in manual focus it won't change going back to viewfinder. This method is good for macro too. Other than special focus situations, I'm not a fan of live view. Its a battery suck and lots of extra motions to snap the picture.
 
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