X-T5 ES in bulb mode doesn't work

[AndresYc2]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to do some astrophotography, and I need to capture between 200-500 photos with a 60-second exposure. However, in bulb mode, it only allows me to take pictures with a 1-second exposure when ES is selected, so I cannot use my own external intervalometer.

Also, when using the built-in software intervalometer, I can use ES with no issue in other modes. While I can work with this, it's not my ideal approach to astrophotography.

Is there a way to change the shutter speed from 1 second to BULB? The wheels doesn't work either.

I'm using firmware version 2.03.

Edited December 14, 2023 by AndresYc2
add tags and fix firmware version

[Greybeard]

19 hours ago, AndresYc2 said:

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to do some astrophotography, and I need to capture between 200-500 photos with a 60-second exposure. However, in bulb mode, it only allows me to take pictures with a 1-second exposure when ES is selected, so I cannot use my own external intervalometer.

That is what the specifications say - "Bulb: up to 60min." with mechanical shutter and "Bulb: 1sec. Fixed" with electronic shutter. So bulb works it is just fixed at one second with electronic shutter.

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/products/cameras/x-t5/specifications/

[AndresYc2]

30 minutes ago, Greybeard said:

That is what the specifications say - "Bulb: up to 60min." with mechanical shutter and "Bulb: 1sec. Fixed" with electronic shutter. So bulb works it is just fixed at one second with electronic shutter.

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/products/cameras/x-t5/specifications/

Thanks for your answer, and I get that, but why would the camera let us take pictures of up to 15 minutes of exposure in ES in time mode, but 1 second in bulb mode... it just doesn't make sense to me. They can perfectly set 15 minutes fixed instead of 1 second.

I guess we'll have to live with that or wait for an update for them to increase the exposure time in that mode. Because as it is now, it's completely useless for me.

[SergePhoto]

Just curious, why do you not want to use the mechanical shutter? I can't see any possible advantage of using ES in this scenario.

[jerryy]

12 minutes ago, SergePhoto said:

Just curious, why do you not want to use the mechanical shutter? I can't see any possible advantage of using ES in this scenario.

For astrophotography, you may be taking many hundreds or thousands of images at a time depending on what you are doing. That puts a lot of stress on mechanical shutters, they wear out fast under those conditions. Dedicated astro-cams pretty much are ES only.

Also, once the focal length gets past 100mm or so, in long exposures, any kind of ‘camera shake’ ruins an image, blurring fine details, — mechanical shutters do have some shake, ever so slight as it may be.

It would be fantastic if Fujifilm would give us longer ES times, maybe a minute or so.