Can I use BULB setting when taking remote pictures?

Question

I have a Canon XTi/400D, which I connect to my Mac OS X 10.6 and try to take remote pictures with it using EOS Utility, but I am not able to use the BULB setting on my laptop. Is this normal functionality?

If the above is normal behavior(no access to BULB), is there a way to take a picture on BULB not on remote, and not having to hold down the shutter button?

What I essentially want to do is shoot star trails...and I am not able to go above 30 secs while shooting with the camera connected to the computer.

Asked by user1160022

Answer

Yes, I'm afraid this does seem to be standard when tethered (i.e. triggering your camera's shutter from a connected computer).

However, the good news is that most remote shutter release cables have a "press and lock" feature for use with Bulb mode (or for continuous shooting). You can see this pretty clearly on this Canon remote:

Pressing the button once will fire the shutter once, but pressing and sliding upwards will either lock the shutter open (in Bulb mode) or trigger continuous shooting (in any other mode). This is exactly what I use for all my long exposures over 30 seconds.

Answered by Mark Whitaker

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Canon EOS utility doesn't work on a low-resolution netbook — any alternatives?

Question

I want my Canon 60D to display a live video feed in my netbook, so that I can use it as an external display to have a bigger video preview. Unfortunately, Canon EOS Utility doesn't want to install, saying I need a resolution 1024*768 or higher (my netbook has 1024*600). As google tells me, this is a common problem.

How can I go around this problem, or what alternative software can I use to have a live video feed in my netbook? I have Windows XP and Ubuntu 11.04 both installed on it. I can use either to solve this problem.

Answer

Do you have a VGA output?

You could set a second display with a 1024*768 resolution and hopefully trick the EOS Utility installer.

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Why do my photos look different in Photoshop/Lightroom vs Canon EOS utility/in camera

Question

I've recently been shooting in raw with my new 100mm usm is macro but I'm getting strange results in out of focus areas with bright colours in. I've used Lightroom for ages and not had any issues with it but it's not giving me the results I'd expect, over saturated with what I'd describe as colour bleed. I gather that the camera and the eos utility might be showing me some sort of preview, but they look very different!

The first screenshot is what the canon eos utility v2.9 shows me (and the same in camera) and gives me the bokeh I'd expect from a lens like this.

The second is what lightroom 3.3 shows me without any developing done. I've reimported with settings reset, and copied over with adobe bridge and photoshop and had the same results. This is with lens corrections off.

Don't ask why the filenames appear to be different between the screenshots, I assure you they're the same photo.

Answer

RAW formats are simply sensor data, to get a viewable image certain modifications need to be made to the photo (e.g. temperature correction, denoising, demosaicing, removing hot pixels, etc). Furthermore, there is no real correct way of processing a RAW image, so different RAW editors will present different looking images. Canon's utility is the most "official" software, and as I understand it will create images that look like your camera's jpeg output, but this does not mean is is necessarily the "best" RAW software.

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