What is Nikon D3100 bulb mode, and how to set up it for long exposure
In the photography world, there are a ton of things which you have to learn if you really want to be a professional photo hunter. You should find out the things from the detail to general. You always have to learn both of how to use the camera in a thousand kind of camera and how to find out the most beautiful moments in life. It requires that you always use all of your senses to capture the best photos in the best moments. All your works are the art, and you are the true artist.
Nikon D3100 bulb mode, and how to set up it for long exposure
To help make your photography dream becomes true, we all want to gather all of the knowledge about photography from the real experience in our articles. Especially, in this page, we want to emphasize the one thing that is very basic which all of the photographers know “bulb mode”. Maybe, most of the newcomers are wondering what is bulb mode in camera and how to set up it for long exposure. On the most of the camera share, the same definition of bulb mode and it just has the differences between how to set up it. In this page, we just focus on the Nikon D3100 which is one of the most popular camera models on the market today. We will help you understand about bulb mode in detail and the way to set up bulb mode for a long exposure in the easiest way.
What is Nikon D3100 bulb mode?
nikon d3100 bulb mode
For the amateur photographer, it takes a long time for them to know all about the setting of their camera. It seems very complicated, and it makes you confused sometimes. Especially, we would like to mention the bulb mode. I have to let you know that it supports well for you to take a photo with the beautiful stars, gentle moon and the nice northern lights in the night sky. However, it always is designed to hide deep in the recesses of the shutter settings of your camera. Thus, you might be difficult to find it.
As you know, in your camera which include two main parts these are the lens which focuses the light and the shutter which opens to cover the light. They are the components which carry out the bulk of the work when you capture the photos. The bulb is the part to control the shutter of your camera. When taking a picture, your shutter usually is opened a fraction of a second to make the light in. When you take a photo of the day, if you keep the shutter open for as much as a second the sunshine will be very bright. And the white picture will be the result so we typically use the shutter speed that is measured in the fraction of a second (in the day, you should take a photo at 1/500s to 1/125s).
You can choose the shutter priority of the manual mode if you want to use the bulb mode. After that, you begin scrolling the wheel of the selector to the end of the shutter speed. After at least 25 seconds, you see the “bulb” on the screen of your camera, or the letter “b.” It means that your camera in the bulb and you are successful. Of course, your camera will capture a photo until your finger press off the shutter button. I said that the bulb mode mostly is used and work well for long exposure at night, so it is very amazing because it allows you reach the shutter speeds longer than 30 seconds on your Nikon D3100.
How to set up the bulb mode on the Nikon D3100 for long exposure
nikon d3100 bulb mode
It is very easy to active the bulb mode on Nikon D3100; you just need to enable the Manual mode which is M on the mode dial. Then scroll the smaller command dial to the left-hand side until the “Bulb” appears on the info panel. If you use the remote control, you should join the shutter button and keep it down for the long exposure. If you release the shutter speed button, the exposure absolutely finishes.
You should remember that bulb mode is especially for the exposure times longer than 30 seconds, so you don’t need to worry about the slight vibration of a mirror if it is only 1 or 2 seconds. You just need the bulb mode in the condition which is with the weak light as the night, and so you definitely need a tripod. You should keep your camera on a slow shutter speed from 1/30 of a second to get more chance of a blurred picture. In case, you want to take a large landscape picture you should use the reasonable fast shutter speed as 1/60 and short so the mirror up is not necessary. Besides, you can set the shutter to 2 seconds for giving more time to take your hand off your camera after you squeeze the shutter button.
The way that the D3100 bulb mode helps you getting the longer exposure
nikon d3100 bulb mode for long expose
Maybe, 30 second is not enough for you and you need to hold the shutter speed open for longer like for minutes or even hours. When you switch your camera to bulb mode, you just need to press the shutter speed button to open the shutter and after that press this button again to shut up the shutter.
You can use the bulb mode when you take photos with the starlight or the northern light. They are in the sky and very bright, but they are very far from us, so the quality of the light is not good. Normally, without the bulb mode, you will have to take more than a half of hours to get the exposure which is bright enough to catch the colors. When taking photos, it depends on the available light around. Generally, in the city especially the big cities are brighter than countryside or suburbs at night. Therefore, you might not need to use the bulb mode in the urban areas.
In conclusion, the bulb mode works well when you want to photography at night. We gave you the way to set the bulb mode for long-exposure in the Nikon D3100, and you completely use it for your photography. Happy shooting!
