D610 Interval Question.

Hi I just bought the D610 last week and it's a fantastic camera loaded with features, but as I sometimes due star trails and say I want to take 100 images, I set interval to 1sec but it stops after 7 shots, so I did a little search with google and for say a 30sec exposure I would need to set the interval to 33sec which would be useless for star trails having 1 shot every 33 sec, is there a work around for this?
I also have a remote but want to use the in camera interval thanks

Well, there is the exposure, plus the additional overhead of writing the file. You could use 27 second exposures in 30 second intervals.

I don't have a d610 and I haven't ever done this, lol. But I'm thinking setting it for 33 seconds isn't going to wait 33 seconds after the exposure, it is from the beginning. So you are only adding 3 seconds between exposures. Again, I don't really know, but I thought that the interval should be set slightly longer than the slowest anticipated shutter speed. I this case, slightly longer than 30 seconds to give the camera a few seconds to get ready for the next shot.

The in-camera interval time needs to account for the exposure time (30 seconds) the interval time and any additional time required for things like Long Exposure NR. There are tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere about how to set this on Nikon cameras, and even a thread or three here (I posted a lot of stuff on it about a year ago).

That said, I use a Vello remote with a built-in intervalometer for my D600 as it's just easier - but it will only shoot if the camera's ready, so it's still critical to understand what your camera is doing for each shot and knowing when it will be ready to shoot again.

Your problem is that your interval of 1 sec is getting chewed up time and again within each exposure (a 30 second exposure includes 1 successful interval and 29 unsuccessful) which is why you're only getting 7.

Thanks everyone, I tried searching on youtube but didn't find anything useful, @BackdoorHippie do you have any links that explaines it good? thanks

Not that are convenient. If you scroll through the Low Light / Night Photography forum you're bound to find old threads with links. Also Google/Bing/Search "How to set Nikon Interval Timer" and see what you come up with.

BackdoorHippie said:

Not that are convenient. If you scroll through the Low Light / Night Photography forum you're bound to find old threads with links. Also Google/Bing/Search "How to set Nikon Interval Timer" and see what you come up with.

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Ok thanks looks like TheSnapChick has one on youtube

I tried it once many moons ago. Results weren't too bad. It was with a D7000 not my D600 but I'm guessing the intervalometer settings are similar. Read my last post, I think that got into the nuts and bolts of the shot. Basically I did 30 second snaps but set the intervalometer to 34 second intervals. Started it at 9:30 in the evening and got about 200 exposures.

http://nikonites.com/d7000/7310-d7000-intervalometer-star-trails.html#axzz2jPsj51v1

Interval time is the shutter exposure time plus the overhead of finishing the image and writing the memory card.

Manual says interval time has to be longer than the shutter time.

"Choose an interval longer than the time needed to take
the number of shots selected in Step 4. If the
interval is too short, the number of photos
taken may be less than the total listed in Step 4 (the number of intervals
multiplied by the number of shots per interval)."

For 30 seconds shutter time, it probably needs 33 seconds interval time. If interval has to be 30 seconds, then use 27 seconds shutter time. Either of these will work great. Less interval probably does not.
(Long Exposure Noise Processing will be an entire new game, start by assuming shutter is twice longer than it is).

Ok now I understand, so 30sec shutter then I put 33sec interval which means the length of exposure and 3 sec delay for the next exposure, now the only thing is in that 3 sec delay wont I have gaps in the stars?

No gaps. You don't see the stars move in 3 seconds. Stars roughly move (360/24) /60/60 = 0.004 degrees per second. That's a lot at 200 power in a telescope covering 0.05 degrees, but your star trails use a wide angle lens (creating pretty small image objects). 18mm FX for example would cover a 90 degree field.

WayneF said:

No gaps. You don't see the stars move in 3 seconds. Stars roughly move (360/24) /60/60 = 0.004 degrees per second. That's a lot at 200 power in a telescope covering 0.05 degrees, but your star trails use a wide angle lens (creating pretty small image objects). 18mm FX for example would cover a 90 degree field.

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Great thanks

A faster memory card possibly could help a bit, might could reduce interval one second over what a slow card can do.

WayneF said:

A faster memory card possibly could help a bit, might could reduce interval one second over what a slow card can do.

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I bought 2 of these, I have heard good things about them
Transcend SD Card SDHC 32GB Class 10 / UHS-I

That card does seem faster than I imagined a Class 10 card could be.

Here is a reputable memory card speed test, this in a D7000 camera.
Rob Galbraith DPI: Nikon D7000

Says Transcend UHS-1 can write 21 MB/second (in a D7000 - cameras models have different processors and vary in speed). Whereas Class 10 means the slowest of read or write is at least 10 MB/second, which is always write.
The D800 is also there, but I don't know how it compares to D600.

Certainly 21 MB is at least 10, but the faster cards typically don't mention Class.

Anyway, if the card write speed is 21 MB, and if your JPG file is 12 MB, then it takes 12/21 = 0.57 second to write one file.
I doubt a faster card would show much difference.

WayneF said:

That card does seem faster than I imagined a Class 10 card could be.

Here is a reputable memory card speed test, this in a D7000 camera.
Rob Galbraith DPI: Nikon D7000

Says Transcend UHS-1 can write 21 MB/second (in a D7000 - cameras models have different processors and vary in speed). Whereas Class 10 means the slowest of read or write is at least 10 MB/second, which is always write.
The D800 is also there, but I don't know how it compares to D600.

Certainly 21 MB is at last 10, but the faster cards typically don't mention Class.

Anyway, if the card write speed is 21 MB, and if your JPG file is 12 MB, then it takes 12/21 = 0.57 second to write one file.
I doubt a faster card would show much difference.

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Seems like in that test the sandisk are the best right? also I shoot RAW, I will read it better later thanks.

A Raw file is bigger, so 1+ second to write one. You could run off a burst of say five of them, and time how long the green access LED stayed on, and divide by the five.

I don't know about the D600, but in D7000, it says the fastest card is a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s 8GB at 26 MB/second Raw. That is not much more than the Transcend UHS-1 at 22 MB.

In the D800, it says Lexar 1000x card is the fastest (69 MB/second), but that card is not tested in the D7000.

1000x is Read Speed (1000 times the standard original CD drive at 150 KB/sec). Write speed will be slower, and also possibly limited by the camera speed. We really don't know most of these answers.

But the fast card is very nice in a USB 3.0 reader when we download hundreds of images.

WayneF said:

A Raw file is bigger, so 1+ second to write one. You could run off a burst of say five of them, and time how long the green access LED stayed on, and divide by the five.

I don't know about the D600, but in D7000, it says the fastest card is a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s 8GB at 26 MB/second Raw. That is not much more than the Transcend UHS-1 at 22 MB.

In the D800, it says Lexar 1000x card is the fastest (69 MB/second), but that card is not tested in the D7000.

1000x is Read Speed (1000 times the standard original CD drive at 150 KB/sec). Write speed will be slower, and also possibly limited by the camera speed. We really don't know most of these answers.

But the fast card is very nice in a USB 3.0 reader when we download hundreds of images.

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Ok thanks I will time it tonight to see what the Transcend write speed is.

I've done a few star trails , I find the easiest way is ... Using a shutter release cable set the camera to continuous shutter , set exposure to 30 secs at about iso 600-800 . Lock open the release cable and wait . I time it for about 50 mins and then release the cable lock and then just apply again . The reason for this is the D600 will stop at 100 shots but if you just release the lock for between one shot this is reset for another 100 shots . There is no gap between the shots using this method .

Bigfatmole said:

I've done a few star trails , I find the easiest way is ... Using a shutter release cable set the camera to continuous shutter , set exposure to 30 secs at about iso 600-800 . Lock open the release cable and wait . I time it for about 50 mins and then release the cable lock and then just apply again . The reason for this is the D600 will stop at 100 shots but if you just release the lock for between one shot this is reset for another 100 shots . There is no gap between the shots using this method .

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That is the way I used to do it with my 5D III but would like to use the interval in my D610.