[Bob Lee]

@Othar - I changed ISONR from Auto to ISONR OFF, unfortunately it didn't make any difference, the organge LED still flashed for the same duration as the exposure was set for.

[othar]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, too easy to blame the camera.

Your examples show some kind of stray-light. Eighter on the filter but more likely from the optical viewfinder (have you used the optical viewfinder cover or closed it with some tape or cloth to prevent light coming in from there?)

edit: When shooting pictures the OVF is usually covert by your eye preventing light coming in, it is also very little light that will not influence your pictures because the light falling on the sensor through the lens is much brighter, but when doing long exposures with ND filters you reduce the light passing through the lens and thereby equalize the light values from the lens and the OVF -> influencing/ruining your pictures when doing long exposures -> always cover the OVF when using ND filters

[othar]

the organge LED still flashed for the same duration as the exposure was set for.

I have to try a long exposure with my K-3 it has been a while, I'll report back my findings later.

[C_Jones]

The second, third, and fifth images look like the viewfinder is letting in light. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it has to be covered in order to disallow light from reaching the sensor. From the look of the other images, it looks like you are getting some more normal type results. I test with different settings when I shoot longer exposures to eventually find a reasonable image, then I note those settings to provide reasonable exposure for following images being taken in similar conditions.

[TwoUptons]

It does look like there is light getting in from somewhere it isn’t meant to, and I would agree the viewfinder is most likely...

My concern with the lens aperture is that the lens may not be getting all the way to f29, for example, when it says f29.

-Eric

[Bob Lee]

Hi, I think that covering the viewfinder has resolved part of my problem, see the latest two attachments from my garden (not the most scenic view), but the second at four minutes (first was 1/125) is definitely better than what I got yesterday. The pictures I posted yesterday were some of the better ones, some I took were almost white-outs, and I realise now that those had the sun on the rear of the camera, ie. straight into the viewfinder.

Thanks for offering that suggestion. I now havea roll of black insulating tape in my camera bag.

All pictures uploaded so far have been straight from my camera, no editing.

Turning ISONR to OFF doesn't appear to reduce the time the orange LED flashes. Does anybody know if what is going on in the background is necessary/important, can be menu disabled?

I'd like to dabble with much longer exposure times, but having to wait twice as long as necessary will be painful. I'll go through a lot of gum!

[othar]

Turning ISONR to OFF doesn't appear to reduce the time the orange LED flashes. Does anybody know if what is going on in the background is necessary/important, can be menu disabled?

I just tried a 8 min exposure, NR off, card writing time ~3 sec
So there apears to be a problem either with your camera settings, your SD card or your camera.
Maybe try another SD card (I remember vaguely that my K-3 only can take cards up to a certain size, maybe you have a incompatible card or some other defect) , if that doesn't help try a factory reset of the camera (on second thought try this first)

EDIT: NR (next to ISONR when using the INFO button) is the setting you need to deactivate not ISONR

---

Last edited by othar; 11-11-2019 at 05:12 PM.

[TwoUptons]

I still think you are seeing the dark frame subtraction, not a card write issue.

That is different from the high-iso noise reduction.

-Eric

[othar]

I still think you are seeing the dark frame subtraction, not a card write issue.

That is different from the high-iso noise reduction.

-Eric

That would have been my first guess too (I totaly forgot that ISONR and NR are two different things), the only funny thing for me is, that the orange LED is supposedly lit for the whole NR duration (at my K-3 the orange LED only lights up for about 3 sec after NR is finished

[Kobie]

That would have been my first guess too (I totaly forgot that ISONR and NR are two different things), the only funny thing for me is, that the orange LED is supposedly lit for the whole NR duration (at my K-3 the orange LED only lights up for about 3 sec after NR is finished

I'll have to check my K-3, but I'm pretty sure the Long Exposure NR does trigger the activity LED for the duration. I may be wrong. I'll check later when I get home.
I wonder if having the other corrections on would cause this as well (lens correction, shadow correction, highlight correction etc).

[Kobie]

Interesting, so the K-70 has an actual time you can input in bulb mode. My K-3 just shows Bulb and the time is dependant on when you actually stop the exposure yourself.
So I tried long shutter in both Bulb and manual (30 Sec). When the dark frame subtraction (long shutter noise reduction) is active, the orange led doesn't light.

[Bob Lee]

Tried the suggestions above to see if any of them would stop the orange LED flashing for the same duration as the exposure setting in Bulb mode:

Different SD card - no difference
Factory reset of camera - no difference
Instead of using the timed setting in Bulb mode, tried holding shutter open for one minute - no difference, orange light flashed for one minute. (that was on C1 menu Bulb option 1)
Changed C1 menu Bulb setting to option 2, so pressed shutter to open, and a minute later pressed shutter again to close - no difference, still got one minute of orange flashing LED

I've described the problem to Digital Support Contact Form - RICOH IMAGING EUROPE S.A.S, but I'm not that hopeful of receiving a reply.

Does anybody know of any other Ricoh/Pentax contacts I can ask?

[othar]

Tried the suggestions above to see if any of them would stop the orange LED flashing for the same duration as the exposure setting in Bulb mode:

Different SD card - no difference
Factory reset of camera - no difference
Instead of using the timed setting in Bulb mode, tried holding shutter open for one minute - no difference, orange light flashed for one minute. (that was on C1 menu Bulb option 1)
Changed C1 menu Bulb setting to option 2, so pressed shutter to open, and a minute later pressed shutter again to close - no difference, still got one minute of orange flashing LED

I've described the problem to Digital Support Contact Form - RICOH IMAGING EUROPE S.A.S, but I'm not that hopeful of receiving a reply.

Does anybody know of any other Ricoh/Pentax contacts I can ask?

Have you turned NR additionally to ISONR off too?
As TwoUptons pointed out those are two different things

[Kobie]

I just thought of something. Could it perhaps actually just be that since you're doing such long exposures during the day that the amount of color information that needs to be processed is what's actually happening, hence, the LED showing that processing is going on. Try a long exposure with the lens cap on and see if the LED still blinks for the whole duration.
My long exposures are generally at night so there isn't much color info to process compared to daytime shots.

[stevebrot]

Different SD card - no difference
Factory reset of camera - no difference
Instead of using the timed setting in Bulb mode, tried holding shutter open for one minute - no difference, orange light flashed for one minute. (that was on C1 menu Bulb option 1)
Changed C1 menu Bulb setting to option 2, so pressed shutter to open, and a minute later pressed shutter again to close - no difference, still got one minute of orange flashing LED

Change this setting:

Menu --> Rec Mode (camera icon) 2 --> Noise Reduction --> Slow Shutter Speed NR --> OFF

This setting is also available as a control panel option and may be applied to a custom user mode. The intent of this feature is to do a dark frame subtraction to remove thermal noise. The time required to do the dark frame is the same as that for the actual exposure, hence the long wait. Turning the feature off allows for a much shorter process time and the ability to deal with noise in post processing.

Be aware that there are some built-in User modes such as AstroPhoto for U3 that may set Slow Shutter Speed NR "ON" (all exposures over 1 second) by default and will override your setting should you switch to that User mode.


Steve