Press shutter once to take picture, it stays closed, press again and it opens

[neuroanatomist]

Live View has another advantage - in addition to the mirror being locked up, Live View uses an electronic first curtain.  There is an additional component of vibration added by the opening of the mechanical first curtain that's eliminated with Live View (the second curtain causes vibration, too, but since that vibration starts as the second curtain closes, it's irrelevant because the exposure is over).

[pj1974]

Live View has another advantage - in addition to the mirror being locked up, Live View uses an electronic first curtain.  There is an additional component of vibration added by the opening of the mechanical first curtain that's eliminated with Live View (the second curtain causes vibration, too, but since that vibration starts as the second curtain closes, it's irrelevant because the exposure is over).

Thanks Neuro for your such insightful, accurate input. With posts like the one above, your knowledgable and generous contribution is so much appreciated.

It's good to know the benefits of live view.  I have been using it more and more lately (including some landscape bracketed exposure shots - ie for HDRs).  Good to know all the technical advantages. 

Again, cheers. 

Paul

[pj1974]

Sweet, thanks all. I definitely didn't switch it on purpose. I took a picture of some Thai kids and showed them the result. One got all excited and started pressing buttons. Perhaps that's what happened.

Any who, after reading about it, it actually seems handy.

Do you guys use the mirror lock up feature often?? I enjoy night photography and it seems useful.

I agree about Mirror Lock up being useful for slow exposures on a tripod.
Liveview is a good way to go too as it locks up the mirror. Use Liveview  ESPECIALLY  if you are doing multiple exposures for say, HDR. Much faster. The mirror locks up just once and all the exposures are made, and then the mirror goes back down. Very convenient.
Vibrations for the mirror are significant. I was in an abandoned factory a couple of weeks back and was using a carbon fiber tripod, with weigh on it for added stability. I was shooting on a solid concrete floor.  I could actually feel the vibrations from the mirror in the balls of my feet when I was doing my test shots. At first I thought I was mistaken...but I did some more tests and amazingly it was true. To me...that was significant vibrations from that mirror. Amazing.

Wow, infrared... I'm so glad you shared this.

I had a similar experience just the other day (believing I could feel vibration caused by my DSLRs mirror going up and down).  Then I thought, 'Nahh... I must be mistaken or it's just the sound and my imagination'. (I had also put my hand on my steady Manfrotto tripod... to 'check', but believed I was overly sensitive to things).

So I will be doing more HDRs using live-view I think!! And thankfully my camera batteries do last quite long, even with live-view

Cheers.

Paul

[TexPhoto]

This and many other features always get left on accidentally.  I always do it with the damn self timer.  Need it, set it camera goes into bag. An hour/day later bigfoot appears in front of you, you grab the camera and shoot! Damn it whats it doing?

[verysimplejason]

I use mirror-lockup for long exposures on tripod.  It lessens the effect of the mirror slap.

[neuroanatomist]

This and many other features always get left on accidentally.  I always do it with the damn self timer.  Need it, set it camera goes into bag. An hour/day later bigfoot appears in front of you, you grab the camera and shoot! Damn it whats it doing?

That's why my C1 setting is always a tripod setup - timer, MLU, etc.

[weixing]

Hi,
    On more advantage for live view over mirror lockup is that with mirror lockup, you can't prevent or limit motion blur cause by subject moment, but with live view, since you can see the subject (at 10x), you can took the shot at the moment when the subject is perfectly stationary... good for birding at low light without flash... 

   Have a nice day.

[rj79in]

This and many other features always get left on accidentally.  I always do it with the damn self timer.  Need it, set it camera goes into bag. An hour/day later bigfoot appears in front of you, you grab the camera and shoot! Damn it whats it doing?

That's why my C1 setting is always a tripod setup - timer, MLU, etc.

Good idea ... I think I'll do that too! Thanks Neuro

[K3nt]

Good to hear the problem's solved.
This is now getting off topic, but I'd like some advice/comments please. I've never actually used LiveView in any real way. So here's what I need to know:
I want to go out and photograph star trails, you know the kind, several hundred shots stacked to make to final image. Now if I set my camera for 30second exposures, continuous shooting and lock my cable release, it'll obviously keep taking shots until a) I tell it not to or b) the battery runs out.
The question: If i use LiveView to focus and avoid all those nasty tremors and slaps, will the screen stay on all the time and drain my battery? Can I tell it not to stay on?
I'm shooting a 7D.

[rs]

This and many other features always get left on accidentally.  I always do it with the damn self timer.  Need it, set it camera goes into bag. An hour/day later bigfoot appears in front of you, you grab the camera and shoot! Damn it whats it doing?

That's why my C1 setting is always a tripod setup - timer, MLU, etc.

Yes - configuring C1/C2/C3 for your various different shooting scenarios (even if MLU is not part of one of them) is an ideal way to avoid the surprise of taking the camera out of the bag and it not behaving as you'd expect. As long as you select the right C mode for what you're doing, you'll never get any nasty surprises.

[verysimplejason]

Good to hear the problem's solved.
This is now getting off topic, but I'd like some advice/comments please. I've never actually used LiveView in any real way. So here's what I need to know:
I want to go out and photograph star trails, you know the kind, several hundred shots stacked to make to final image. Now if I set my camera for 30second exposures, continuous shooting and lock my cable release, it'll obviously keep taking shots until a) I tell it not to or b) the battery runs out.
The question: If i use LiveView to focus and avoid all those nasty tremors and slaps, will the screen stay on all the time and drain my battery? Can I tell it not to stay on?
I'm shooting a 7D.

No, at least in my TI1.  It's replaced by a counter/timer.

[rs]

Good to hear the problem's solved.
This is now getting off topic, but I'd like some advice/comments please. I've never actually used LiveView in any real way. So here's what I need to know:
I want to go out and photograph star trails, you know the kind, several hundred shots stacked to make to final image. Now if I set my camera for 30second exposures, continuous shooting and lock my cable release, it'll obviously keep taking shots until a) I tell it not to or b) the battery runs out.
The question: If i use LiveView to focus and avoid all those nasty tremors and slaps, will the screen stay on all the time and drain my battery? Can I tell it not to stay on?
I'm shooting a 7D.

As the 7D has a top display, so while taking the photo in live view, the rear screen will display nothing.

However, astro photographers normally uses stacking in combination with a motorised equatorial mount - that way each shot will be of the same bit of sky with no motion blur of the stars, and the stacking software puts the frames together to reduce noise and increase the detail of the stars.

Star trail photos are made with very long exposures - just put your camera in bulb mode for that type of shot.

[weixing]

Hi,

Good to hear the problem's solved.
This is now getting off topic, but I'd like some advice/comments please. I've never actually used LiveView in any real way. So here's what I need to know:
I want to go out and photograph star trails, you know the kind, several hundred shots stacked to make to final image. Now if I set my camera for 30second exposures, continuous shooting and lock my cable release, it'll obviously keep taking shots until a) I tell it not to or b) the battery runs out.
The question: If i use LiveView to focus and avoid all those nasty tremors and slaps, will the screen stay on all the time and drain my battery? Can I tell it not to stay on?
I'm shooting a 7D.

    What you should do is switch to manual focus, focus manually via life view and then turn off the LCD during actual shooting. You don't need life view or mirror lockup for long exposure, so off the LCD which will preserve battery power and reduce the heat generate by the LCD (improve noise performance).

As the 7D has a top display, so while taking the photo in live view, the rear screen will display nothing.

However, astro photographers normally uses stacking in combination with a motorised equatorial mount - that way each shot will be of the same bit of sky with no motion blur of the stars, and the stacking software puts the frames together to reduce noise and increase the detail of the stars.

Star trail photos are made with very long exposures - just put your camera in bulb mode for that type of shot.

    The ideal way of taking Star trail is to use a single long exposure via bulb mode, but using DSLR, we can take the digital way... by taking many part of the trail using shorter exposure and then combine them together to form a single trail... the different is not obvious if you plan it carefully, the lens is wide enough and you don't 100% pixel peek. The advantage of this method is that you can limit the noise and you still can take a long star trail if your sky is quite light polluted.

    Anyway, IMHO, 30s is still a bit too short for this type of shooting unless he don't have an external timer controller.

    Have a nice day.

[PeterJ]

I always use live-view myself and the self-timer if not using a release. The thread just reminded me I saw the following vid on YouTube of a 5D shutter in operation filmed at 2000fps I thought was fairly interesting:

Slow motion camera shutter - Canon 5D 2,000 fps

[rpt]

I always use live-view myself and the self-timer if not using a release. The thread just reminded me I saw the following vid on YouTube of a 5D shutter in operation filmed at 2000fps I thought was fairly interesting:

That is revealing! Not just interesting, very revealing! So, from an engineering perspective, after I saw the video for the first time, I wondered why the stars I shot last week looked like Nike logos when I did not lock the mirror. Well, you need to understand that in the second half of the clip you see that the mirror bounces. Now understand that the camera is sitting on top of at least three and a half to four feet of Aluminium (or Carbon fiber - which I believe would be more flexible so even worse...). So as the first slap of the mirror pushes vibrations down the tripod, there is movement and that would cause shake...

SO! Lock mirror or shoot in Live View...

Duh! (that unique expletive was aimed at ONLY me...)