Canon R6 I R6 Intervalometer Issues

TMac99 · May 14, 2021

I am having an issue with shooting with an intervalometer with the R6. This issue occurs whether I use the internal intervalometer, or an external one. I am wondering if anyone else sees this issue and/or has a fix for it. The problem comes when I try to leave just 1 second between shots with a shutter speed of 15 secs or greater. I suspect the camera is still "processing" the previous frame and skips firing off the next frame, for example, with a 15 second exposure and a 16 second interval, at the end of the first shot, the camera does not fire the second shot and waits until the 3rd time interval to fire a shot, so I effectively get half the number of shots with a time interval of 16 seconds between them. I suspect it is because the camera is still processing the previous image, but for a camera that can handle bursts of 20 fps, it doesn't make sense that it can't do a single frame in less than 1 second. I am shooting in Raw and have all in camera adjustments turned off. My SD cards are reasonable - SanDisk Extreme Pro with a write speed of 170 MB/S. If the shutter speed is 13 sec or less, I don't have the issue, it's only with 15 seconds or greater. At 15 secs I need to increase the time between shots to 2 seconds, for longer exposures it needs to be up to 3 seconds. For many types of photography, this wouldn't be an issue, but it really shows up if you want to shoot star trails - the gap between shots is very noticeable at 3 seconds.

Any ideas? Anyone willing to try this to see if they have the same problem - try setting your shutter speed to 30 seconds and the intervalometer to 31 secs and let me know if it correctly fires off every shot.

Thanks in advance for any help.

So you can see the effect of the problem I am adding a star trails photo - the apparent "dotted" nature of the trails is caused by this image and the need to have a 3 second gap between shots.

Tim Mayo · May 17, 2021

The interval time is from first shutter to second shutter release, not the time between the first shutter closing and opening again for the next shot. So if you have an exposure of 25 seconds and you want a gap of 5 seconds between shots you'll need to set the interval to 30 seconds. If the interval is too short it skips frames and you will drop shots. Also, do you have long exposure noise reduction turned on? As this might also be what is causing the dotted star trails as it can also result in skipped frames if the interval is too short.

TMac99 · May 17, 2021

Timothy Mayo said:
The interval time is from first shutter to second shutter release, not the time between the first shutter closing and opening again for the next shot. So if you have an exposure of 25 seconds and you want a gap of 5 seconds between shots you'll need to set the interval to 30 seconds. If the interval is too short it skips frames and you will drop shots. Also, do you have long exposure noise reduction turned on? As this might also be what is causing the dotted star trails as it can also result in skipped frames if the interval is too short.

The issue arises when the shutter speed is longer than about 15 seconds. If I just want a 1 second gap between shots with a 15 seconds shutter speed, so I set the interval to 16 seconds, it missies firing every second shot, so I actually get 1 x 15 second shot, a 16 second gap, then another shot. This only starts to work correctly for a 15 second shot if you set the interval to 17 seconds 9i.e. a 2 second gap). For a 60 second shot, you need to set the interval to 63 seconds to get reliable results. I do have all of the noise reduction turned off.

I am pretty sure the issue is caused because the 1 second gap does not give the camera time to "process" the image, but this just doesn't make sense to me given that the R6 is capable of bursts of 20 shots per second and I have a reasonable fast SD card.

Tim Mayo · May 19, 2021

TMac99 said:
The issue arises when the shutter speed is longer than about 15 seconds. If I just want a 1 second gap between shots with a 15 seconds shutter speed, so I set the interval to 16 seconds, it missies firing every second shot, so I actually get 1 x 15 second shot, a 16 second gap, then another shot. This only starts to work correctly for a 15 second shot if you set the interval to 17 seconds 9i.e. a 2 second gap). For a 60 second shot, you need to set the interval to 63 seconds to get reliable results. I do have all of the noise reduction turned off.

I am pretty sure the issue is caused because the 1 second gap does not give the camera time to "process" the image, but this just doesn't make sense to me given that the R6 is capable of bursts of 20 shots per second and I have a reasonable fast SD card.

I would of thought that the card would be fast enough. If you shoot a 15 second exposure without using the intervalometer, how long does this take to process? I don't have the R6 but will try with my R5 when I get a few seconds free, I'll use the same SanDisk card as well.

Tongho58 · May 19, 2021

You should take into account the time it takes for the intervalometer to wake up and start preparing for taking the shot plus your 15-second shutter speed starts only after the first curtain is raised and ends just when the second curtain closes.. so it takes time to activate the shutter and raise the first curtain and close the second curtain...one second is hardly enough for all of that I don't think.

Suzq · Jun 7, 2021

Timothy Mayo said:
The interval time is from first shutter to second shutter release, not the time between the first shutter closing and opening again for the next shot. So if you have an exposure of 25 seconds and you want a gap of 5 seconds between shots you'll need to set the interval to 30 seconds. If the interval is too short it skips frames and you will drop shots. Also, do you have long exposure noise reduction turned on? As this might also be what is causing the dotted star trails as it can also result in skipped frames if the interval is too short.

Thank you so much for explaining this. I was using short shutter speeds (just four seconds) with one minute intervals (thinking it was one second after the curtain closes) and I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't shoot. Your explanation cleared this issue up for me!!! Thank you. Now I'll have to try an exposure over 15 seconds with the interval at 16 seconds -- to see if I have the same problem as TMac99. I have the R5.

Canon R6 I R6 Intervalometer Issues

TMac99

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Tim Mayo

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TMac99

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Tongho58

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Suzq

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