Shooting long exposures usually needs a tripod and a way to release the shutter without touching the camera. You can use the Canon Camera Connect app to trigger long exposures using a WiFi connection.
Thanks to a really great comment from Krisztián Balázs on my earlier post about EOS 5D Mark IV WiFi options I have three options as to how you can start long exposures with from your smartphone or tablet using Canon’s Camera Connect App.
Using the app also ensures that you don’t inadvertently move or dislodge the camera for optimal sharpness and minimal camera shake when you’re taking long exposures.
Depending on the duration of your long exposures, you might need to use one of these three solutions below.
Long exposures up to 30 seconds
Long exposures, started and stopped at will
Long exposures of a pre-determined duration
1. Long exposures up to 30 seconds
- Connect up the camera and the Canon Camera Connect app
- Turn the mode dial to manual (M) or shutter priority (Tv) and choose the required shutter speed up to 30 seconds
- Start the remote shooting function in the app and tap the shutter button to start the exposure
This would be ok for relatively short exposures, where the camera’s available settings are suitable. Available settings are 30s, 25s, 20s, 15s, 13s, 10s, 8s. If you need a 17 second exposure you’ll need one of the other methods.
2. Long exposures, started and stopped at will
- Connect up the camera and the Canon Camera Connect app
- Turn the mode dial to bulb (B) or if your camera doesn’t have B mode, then choose manual and run the shutter speed past 30s to bulb
- Start the remote shooting function in the app and tap the shutter button to start the exposure, the screen displays Shooting and has a timer in the top left corner that shows how many seconds and minutes have elapsed. Tap the on-screen shutter button again to end the exposure
This would be good when you want to start the exposure but are not sure when to finish it. If you shoot fireworks, you might want to open the shutter and then when a firework has lit up the sky you could tap on the app to end the exposure.
3. Long exposures of a pre-determined duration
Use the camera bulb timer to determine the duration of the long exposures.
- Connect up the camera and the Canon Camera Connect app
- Turn the mode dial to bulb (B) and then hit MENU on the camera and navigate to the bulb timer function. This gives you the ability to set any time duration in seconds from 1 second to 99 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds for your bulb exposure
- Start the remote shooting function in the app and tap the shutter button to start the exposure, the screen displays Shooting and has a timer in the top left corner that shows how many seconds and minutes have elapsed.
- The exposure will finish when either the configured bulb timer has elapsed, OR when you tap the button the bottom of the app screen
This would be good when you want to start the exposure and either want a very specific duration for the exposure, or want to set a maximum limit for the exposure time. If you shoot fireworks, you might want to open the shutter and then when a firework has lit up the sky you could tap on the app to end the exposure, however you can use the bulb-timer to preset the maximum exposure duration.
Does you camera have the bulb timer for long exposures?
Not all EOS cameras have the bulb timer feature, so make sure to check your manual to find out.
Generally the bulb timer is only included in recent mid-range and advanced cameras including; EOS 80D, EOS 7D Mark II, EOS 5D Mark IV, EOS 5DS/5DS R and EOS-1D X Mark II.
Can the 5D miv be set up to shoot multiple long exposures (#3 above) for star trails, or do I have to restart it every time?
Depends on how long. You can’t combine the cameras bulb timer and interval timer features. The way to do it is with a Timer Controller TC80-N3. This can do timed shutter openings and timed intervals between shots at the same time.
So you can do a 4:00 minute exposure every 4:15 seconds if you want. It plugs in the remote port on the front of the camera.
Brian / p4pictures
Hello Brian,
Thanks for the tutorial, I have a Canon 200D and would like to shoot in bulb mode together with the Canon Connect App. I was wondering if you could still achieve to lock the focus with the App. Basically with my 200D to lock focus, you need to focus and press the shutter button but not all the way, and then recompose. Don’t know if this can be reproduce with Canon Connect.
Thanks for your help,
Paul
Hi Paul,
Good question – when you press the button to start the exposure the camera will focus for you. There’s a couple of ways round this, focus then set the lens to manual focus. Alternatively if you enable back button focus so that focus is initiated by the * button on the back of the camera, then you can separately press the AF button from the app.
Brian / p4pictures