Long exposures

edited August 2016 Posted in » Nikon D3200 Forum
I have been taking night shots of the rising full moon recently. I'm having trouble with exposure (on manual) of more than 4 seconds. Problem is the camera will not fire and gives me a message of "subject too dark." Even on "B" the camera will not fire. Can't figure out what the problem is. Any suggestions?

Comments

  • I was at hunts photo today and they noted that if it is too dark for the automatic focus, the camera will not fire. So in very low light situation you must manually focus the camera in order to trip the shutter.
  • That is correct. Sometimes, if you can find a distant object on the horizon, such as a light, you can focus on that. Be careful with manual focus in the dark, because most lenses these days will focus past infinity, and it's actually less sharp to do so than it is to focus closer than infinity. If you can manually focus on a star or the moon, then you're fine. If you can't find anything, pull back a little from the maximum, or try focusing on anything further away than a couple of hundred feet.
  • edited January 2017
    Infrared (Nikon and I would think Canon) alleviates this issue.
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