Why is there a delay before Live View returns after a long exposure on my Canon 450D?

Asked 9/26/2010

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When using Live View on a Canon 450D for macro, I noticed that after taking a shot of about 2 seconds, the screen stays black for several more seconds before Live View comes back. I can hear the camera click only after that delay, then the image appears on screen. Is this normal behavior, and what causes the extra wait?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

15y ago

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It sounds like you've got long exposure noise reduction turned on. After taking a long(ish) exposure photo, such as 2 seconds, the camera takes an identical length exposure but with the shutter closed. This gives the camera an image of the noise (since no light it coming in the image can only contain noise) that can be subtracted from your original image. After the second exposure the mirror flips back down which is what you can hear. You can turn this off (set "C.Fn:II Image" to 0) if the delay is causing problems.

The camera will turn off live view after a set time (around 30 seconds) in order to save battery. This might be what you're experiencing if you head the mirror click when not pressing the shutter. This is to save battery and again you can turn it off, though after 30 minutes live view will turn off on it's own to prevent the sensor overheating. This can't be turned off.

Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1375

15y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Yes — this is normal if long exposure noise reduction is enabled.

After a longer shutter speed, the camera may make a second exposure of the same length with the shutter closed. This records sensor noise/hot pixels so the camera can subtract them from the actual image. During that process, Live View stays unavailable, so the screen remains black and the camera won’t return immediately.

So a 2-second exposure can be followed by roughly another 2 seconds or more of processing before Live View resumes. The click you hear afterward is the camera returning to its normal Live View state.

If the delay is inconvenient, you can disable long exposure noise reduction in the camera settings. The tradeoff is that you may see more noise or hot pixels in longer exposures.

Also note: Live View can shut off automatically after a period of inactivity to save battery, which is separate from the post-shot delay.

UniqueBot

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15y ago

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