cheap easy camera for long exposures?

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

Back when 35mm film was the most popular format for everyday photography, I had a Pentax ME Super. It was pretty easy to use - really intuitive (for the most part) - it had a lovely light meter (green, orange and red lights that ran up the side of the image / lens / viewfinder whatever.

Taking long exposures was easy - I mean, yes, you obviously would need a tripod. But you didn't even need a plunger, because it had a little clockwork timer on the front for "selfies" (as nobody ever called them in those days). I took some interesting snaps that way.

I suppose what I'm saying is, do I need a digital SLR? I want something VERY easy. I'm not into drilling down into gadgets and tech. I just want to snap stuff - and do it easily and quickly. I googled this stuff but haven't felt like I'm making any headway.

I grew up with mechanical, electro-mechanical and analogue, and more often than not, digital can be a bit teeth-grindingly annoying.
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[ThunderGuts]

I used to have an ME Super - had a gloriously smooth and quiet shutter compared with most SLRs of the day. Happy days.

To your question; a dSLR is the way really. Yes, there are more advanced non-SLR cameras but an SLR generally is the way forward with control, as has always been the case really. Modern dSLRs allow you to connect to your smart 'phone too and you can do long "bulb" (they still call it that) exposures really easily.

In terms of cost - like anything really, you get what you pay for. I've got an EOS200D which I've had for nearly 3 years now and it's actually really good. Was about £500 with a lens I think (kit lens was OK actually) and has plenty of features and 20mp of resolution which is fine for most things.

The good news is these days sensor tech is pretty impressive; with film there used to be all sorts of issues, e.g. non-consistent film-speed across a long exposure, colour shifts etc.. but with modern sensors it's much more controllable and you can see the results easily too.

This is an example; shot on my 200D with an 8 minute exposure (star trails look rough because of the resolution, they're smooth really).
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TG.

[doggone]

Most of the compact style digitals will have manual control and typically you can get up to 30 seconds, to go beyond that you need what's called bulb in the olden days you had a cable release and there are still variations on that or you can get an IR remote or in many cases there's a way to control it from your smartphone by app.

Then you'd have to define 'cheap'.
I would look out for a 'better' one perhaps second hand if need be.
Everyone has their favourites but I've always liked Canon or Sony. The Sony RX100 range is very well thought of and curiously they still sell older versions e.g. RX100iii at 'reasonable' cost for what you get.
Around £350 new. The RX has relatively large 1" sensor which helps reduce noise in your long exposures.
But if you're a technophobe the menu system takes some getting used to.

[weasley]

Just trying to clarify your needs: you want to do long exposure (so I would define this as exposures beyond normally-available shutter speeds, so 30+ seconds) but then you say you "just want to snap stuff".

Also to check your understanding of long exposure - the ME Super (which I also used and still have) could do long exposures but DID need some kind of "plunger" to do this - the mechanical self-timer was only a shutter release delay but could not be used with the 'bulb' setting, which requires the shutter release to be held open as long as you want the shutter open, so a locking remote shutter release was needed (or keeping your finger on the shutter release, which isn't great for vibration).

Most DSLRs will do what you want and often using built-in software. I'm a Nikon guy and two of the three bodies I have were picked up second-hand so I would consider that option seriously. If you're looking for decent long exposure use then maybe consider full-frame and the most recent model you can, for the best sensor noise control, although these come with a price tag (and size/weight tag). You'll have to consider the lens(es) too - long exposures are usually used with wide-angle lenses and you'd ideally want a fast prime lens, again cost and weight.

[ThunderGuts]

[weasley]

I still have my enlarger and developing tanks somewhere. Even got the Smiths darkroom timer. No idea where you’d get chemicals, paper, bulk film etc from these days - I used to work in a photography shop that sold it all.
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[MCN]

I bought a Canon EOS 5D £400 ebay. About three years ago.
Love it. Dead easy to use or dead complex if in Anal Mode.
It's a professional grade machine and shoots great pics.
Your weak point is the lens speed. That has never changed. Since Aristotle was a lad.
Long exposure require a robust tripod too.
And stars and planets have that annoying habit of racing across the shot too. 🙄
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

[ThatDippyTwat]

Anything that has a manual (or Shutter Priority) mode can do it. About 20 seconds is your limit on a standard setup, beyond that, the rotation of the earth makes things awkward. It'll be far more difficult to find a good place to shoot that hasn't got light pollution intruding into your shots than a camera that will work for you.
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'98 VFR800 (touring) - '12 VFR800 Crosrunner (Commuting) - '01 KDX220 (Big Green Antisocial Machine)

[MCN]

Light Pollution is a general projection of city lights onto the sky. It is reflected and the camera picks it up.

One needs to look for a place with a 'Dark Sky'.

But mostly in town the sky it illuminated by our lighting.

https://www.darksky.org/dark-sky-places-in-the-uk-and-ireland/
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[WD Forte]

I've still got a Fuji finepix S9600 bridge camera I cant bear to part with
cos it took great pics for what it was and on auto couldn't be easier to use.
I've got a newer better one now and have the use of my lads Canon DSLR but still kinda miss it in a way.

If you to stay old school
you can pick up 35mm SLR film cameras for pennies on Ebay and
get the film developed and transferred to digital format
a bit of a faff though tbh and way back when I did that, the scan resolution didn't seem to be very high.
This was Tesco though other places may do a better job of it
cos the yoof couldn't even tell me what resolution they scanned them at.I did a better job using my own scanner.
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bikers smell of wee

[ThunderGuts]

[WD Forte]

I agree film might be too faffy nowadays, cba anymore meself.
I've never done long exposures on DSLR but seen some very good ones
done by others.
These were generally done on good quality/semi pro kit though.
I'm wondering if cheap/budget cams might be a bit noisy for such work?
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bikers smell of wee

[dynax]

I would probably invest in a good Bridge camera.

I have a Panasonic DMC FZ45, quite old now but it is my goto everyday camera.

You can do point and shoot or change the settings just like a DSLR.

Although they have a fixed lens, you can still attach filters and use other lenses like fisheye's or closeup etc.
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Mike.
Bikes: Xena, Bridget,Florence
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[ThunderGuts]

[MCN]

[toby1]

Sign of the times my current Samsung Galaxy S20 phone has much photo trickery and modes non of my other Pentax, Canon, Kodak ever had

[MCN]