Essential Night Photography Equipment.
Most landscape photographers already have the vast majority of equipment necessary to take images at night. Cameras and lenses swallow up the majority of budgets, with some of the smaller accessories often overlooked.
The principle concept of the cable release is to release the shutter remotely that is, without actually using your finger to press the shutter. This helps to reduce camera shake in slower exposures. This, usually in conjunction with Mirror Lock Up, are tried and tested methods to ensure sharp images in landscape photography.
The MC-36 is the “timer” version of the remote release, as opposed to a more simple remote shutter, which just acts as a trigger. Of course, the MC-36 can also be used in this way, but where it really comes into its own is when used with its timer functionality.
This is an essential feature for a number of specialised camera methods like Time-Lapse Photography and creating images for Stacking Star Trails.
How to use the MC-36 for star trails
The idea with stacking star trails is to create a series of identical exposures that can be stacked together in processing. Once an exposure has been decided upon through evaluating the available night light, you program the MC-36 using the set button.
Set your Camera in BULB mode and set the Aperture manually based on the desired exposure.
There are only 4 things to set -
Delay – You can set a time in here if you want the series to start after a given amount of time, such as if you have to set the camera up and then leave it over night etc. I have never done this, but I know people who have.
Interval – This is the time between frames – for star trails stacking you want to select the minimum which is 1 second. Any longer and the gap between the star trails becomes visible.
Time - This is the exposure time, for example 3 minutes.
Frames – You can specify a number of frames, but I usually set it to the (-) symbol, which means it will keep taking frames until you press stop.
When you’re ready, press Start and the timer will take the first frame, after the first exposure, it will take another etc.
IMPORTANT – It is vital you turn Mirror Lock Up – OFF.
I have used the same timer since 2009 and it is still going strong and it has been dropped a number of times and fully immersed in sea water in a few occasions too. I have had to tape up the area near the camera connector, but the thing still works very well.
The price now being advertised by Amazon is significantly less than it was, perhaps in light of the numerous third party alternatives. I have one of these too, as a back-up, but I do find it to be a lot more flimsy than the original Nikon.
The Nikon MC-36 is compatible with the following cameras – D300, D700, D3s, D3x etc.
