Does the Fujifilm X-S1 support true Bulb mode for exposures longer than 30 seconds?
Asked 1/20/2016
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2 answers
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I’m trying to do long exposures with a Fujifilm X-S1. The camera specs and my own testing suggest it does not have a true Bulb mode. Can a remote shutter enable longer exposures, or is there another workaround such as custom firmware?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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There is a "bulb" setting of sorts on the X-S1 that allows specific shutter times at 1 second intervals to be set. If 15 seconds is too fast but 30 seconds is too long, you can try, for example, 22 seconds or 18 seconds or 20 seconds or 19 seconds until you zero in on what works best. But the longest possible shutter time is 30 seconds (actual exposure time of 32 seconds, see Is there a sane reason why ¹⁄₁₂₅ is not, instead, exactly half of ¹⁄₆₀?) and that is only available at ISO 100. As the ISO gets progressively higher, the maximum shutter time available gets progressively shorter.
This is not all that uncommon in cameras from a wide variety of manufacturers that have sensors in the 2/3" size range. Packing that many pixels into an area that small is a design compromise that rears its ugly head in the form of noise. When shooting in bright conditions there is enough signal (light) to adequately overcome the noise. When shooting in low light environments that require longer shutter times, there is not enough signal to offset the amount of noise produced by the sensor.
Even if you could hack the camera in some way to allow longer shutter times, you probably wouldn't get any results you would consider usable.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
The Fujifilm X-S1 does not appear to offer a true Bulb mode that lets you hold the shutter open indefinitely with a remote release. Based on the community answer, the camera instead provides manually selectable long shutter speeds in 1-second steps, up to a maximum of 30 seconds (about 32 seconds actual exposure), and that longest setting is only available at ISO 100. At higher ISO settings, the maximum available shutter time becomes shorter.
So a remote shutter will not add a longer Bulb exposure if the camera itself doesn’t support it. The practical workaround is to use the camera’s built-in long exposures and fine-tune within that range, for example 18, 20, or 22 seconds instead of only standard values. There’s no support in the provided answers for custom firmware enabling true Bulb on this model.
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