AboutJohn Wilson Expertise Over 25 years specializing exclusively in professional wedding photography. I can answer most questions relating directly to wedding photography concerning the business, film, digital, traditional & digital labs, marketing, effects, pricing & packaging, shooting outdoors and in-studio with multiple flash, color management and creating magazine style wedding albums. I can't answer questions regarding other fields of photography. I am a full-time self-employed wedding/portrait photographer. I can comprehensively answer most questions regarding portrait and wedding photography. I've operated a custom color and black & white photo lab processing films and photographic prints. I now shoot digital exclusively and process in Photoshop CS3.
Experience I have over 25 years experience working as a portrait/wedding photographer.
Education/Credentials School of hard knocks. Self-study. Purchasing all books I can find about portrait and wedding photography and attending photography seminars over the years.
Expert: John Wilson Date: 4/18/2007 Subject: shutter speed in the digital age
Question Hi John, my low-end digital camera finally died an unnatural death recently. In my search for a replacement ($200 - $400 target) I decided I wanted a camera that would let me choose a variable shutter speed. I am also into amateur astronomy and would like to try goofing around with attaching a camera to my motorized telescope and getting long exposures of the sky. Unfortunately, as I look at cameras online, I cannot figure out what to look for in the specs that will tell me the camera will allow longer exposures. Any info you can share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Answer Hi Kaycie,
You are looking for a camera with variable shutter speeds. For your astronomy you would like a camera where you can have long exposures. As far as the specs, you are looking for a camera, especially which offers the "B" setting. The B setting will allow you to manually hold the shutter open for as long as you want. In the B setting just keep holding the shutter button until you have timed the amount of time you want the exposure to last and then release. With a digital camera, you can view the image to make the appropriate time adjustment to your exposure time to get the best exposure. Hope you are able to find a camera in your price range which offers the "B" setting for exposure. This is great for astro-photography. Let me know how it turns out. Thanks for your question.
