Over heating sensor on long exposures / bulb mode

I've been reading up on star trails and long exposures and night / low light photography, several different sources say that its not good to keep one long exposure in bulb mode coz it overheats the camera sensor and this can damage it / cause extra noise. Has anyone heard about these issues or provide any additional information about this? Can it really cause damage to the sensor? How long is considered long enough for the sensor to heat up? Is it a matter of minutes like say 5 minutes? Or much longer say 30 minutes to an hour?

Much appreciated!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk!

Maybe on a really hot day, but if the day is cooler, like a night shot (which is about the only times when you can take photos for more than 10 seconds, I suspect that it is not physically possible to harm the actual electronics, you might shorten the overall life, since in electronics, extended time is considered a stress condition. I'll run sensors up to 5 minutes, but that is a rare event for me.

Thanks for that... Guess its just a "Myth" then, like someone said, if long exposures damaged the sensor in sure nikon wouldn't give us the option of 30 second (or longer) exposures....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk!

Im also shooting with a D5100, I'm going camping next week and planning my first attempt at star trails. I was thinking along the lines of 30 second exposures with 10 second intervals over 30 or 45 minutes for a star trail....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk!

Samsonite said:

Im also shooting with a D5100, I'm going camping next week and planning my first attempt at star trails. I was thinking along the lines of 30 second exposures with 10 second intervals over 30 or 45 minutes for a star trail....

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk!

Click to expand...

have a blast! does your camera support auto interval shooting? would be fun to set it up and let it go.

Ye it does can't wait to give it a try... Do you think 30 second exposures with 10 second intervals is the right way to go? Or would 30 second exposure with 30 second intervals be better?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk!

Your sensor will heat up on long exposures but at no point are you at risk of damaging it. The heat issue is one of noise not sensor damage.

What Dave sad. There are methods of dealing with long exposure noise, including an in-camera solution (doesn't work with bulb, to my knowledge).

Camera NR works on Bulb setting. Trust me, nothing more exciting than waiting an extra 4 or 5 min after you've already waited 4 or 5 mins to get your camera back....all in the dark.