Long Exposure Continuous Shooting

[Professor1991]

I intend to go out taking long exposures of traffic lights when the clocks go back towards the end of October. I know I can go out now but I'd much prefer to go out shooting at a earlier time plus I traffic will be more abundant which should work in my favour. One technique I've been meaning to explore is Image Stacking.

My main question here is exposure settings aside, is it possible to use burst mode for long exposures ? I know this sounds counter intuitive and is an almost oxymoron but my understanding is burst mode is taking successive photos as long as the shutter is pressed, this is usually attributed to a fast shutter speed. Now if the shutter is pressed for 5 minutes lets say, with each shot being 20 seconds (hypothetically speaking) would I be able to capture the equivalent photo of a 5 minute long exposure (Account for post processing) or do I have to manually take 15, 20 second long exposures successively ? Something that just occurred to me, if I was to shoot in manual focus, my remote has a shutter lock (Keeps the shutter button locked down for bulb mode) so would this pretty much automate it ?

Thank You

 

[Kodiak Qc]

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Look for an intervalometer.

 

[Steve B]

Probably depends on make of camera?
Certainly possible to use a locking remote on Canon DSLR's as you described,
The same technique is often used for startrails.

EDIT : Thought it worth adding that 5 minutes would probably be too long unless traffic is very light, but capturing a 5 minute sequence will give you the option to remove the frames you don't want. Where a car is changing lanes for one example.

 

[Craig_85]

Looking at your previous posts am I right in thinking you own a Nikon D5500?

If so I'm pretty sure it has a built in intervalometer, called interval timer under shooting menu.

You might need to read up on how to use it because it is not immediately intuitive but it's a great feature for time lapse, star trails or for exposure stacking as you intend.

A real advantage of exposure stacking, or image averaging is you really reduce noise too. As above, you can also clone out issues with a given file easier.