I'm not sure about Nikons, but long exposures are nothing to sweat on a Canon dSLR. I routinely push my exposures up to the half hour mark:

http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/01/00300.php
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...04/11/00009.php
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...04/10/00022.php

I'm not the type to shoot concerts and bars at high ISOs, so you'll have to talk to someone else about that. :-)

Sean, I visited your website, very impressed. What technique are you using for good quality half hour exposures on digital? Longer exposures and lower iso or the other way round? Are you running extensive noise removal, etc?

The truth is that I don't meter at all -- I just do the rule of thumb thing. I keep my exposures to around 4 - 5 minutes at ISO 200 if there's a full moon (if there's snow on the ground I shoot at ISO 100 for around 3 minutes). If there's no moon in the sky at all and the area is completely dark, you can leave the shutter open for hours.

Here's an article I wrote (in PDF format) that you will probably find helpful:

http://www.digiteyesed.com/clippings/f2_lp_article.pdf

I've since upgraded to a Canon 20D, but find that it is just fine for long exposures as well.

Sean...
Outstanding work!!!!!

After looking in the manual I see it has a bulb setting for longer exposures.  so never mind my last post.

Canon (Japan) has an online article on astrophotography here.

Mike.

Some time back I migrated to digital - D1x.  I have a Mamiya 7II and Mamiya 645AFD outfits.  I have a fairly large archive of film which I am slowly scnning via a Nikon 9000.  The question is low light photography.  I enjoyed shooting as high as 6400 ISO rated film.  Found a few films that had their purposes and could give the details that made the low light work appealing.  I am curious about how the opinions run on the new high end Nikon / Canon / digital cameras deal with low light work.  I have been only modestly pleased with the D1x.  good but not great at the 1600 and 3200 ISO equivalents.  Certainly no options above.  I enjoy going into parks and bars and other low light places at night to shoot and enjoy the night.  Any thoughts?

Thank you.

I shoot a lot of concerts and such at ISO1600 with the Canon 1D-MkII. This is a fairly representative sample:



No noise processing, just a batched action to resize and sharpen for the web gallery. This is a full-frame ISO1600 wedding shot with a 100% crop overlaid:

.

Both images were shot RAW, and converted with ACR. All in all, I think you'll find digital much better than film; ISO 1600 on the 1D-MkII is better than most ISO400 35mm film.

Sean, I also visited your site and was wondering how you meter for 1/2 hour? I do a lot of night shooting on a tripod at ISO 100 with my 1DS Mk II and don't have any problems with noise, but I don't have a way to calculate that long an exposure.

drgary

Sean beautiful photos in your website!

Thanks very much everyone for the kind words.  :D

I don't shoot long exposures at all but I have a 20d and as far as I can tell the 20d only goes up to a 30 second exposure,  so how can you get 4-5 minute or hour long exposures with the 20d?  If it will do it can you tell me how.
thanks

You'll need the remote release cable to use the bulb setting.