5DSR AEB and Mirror Lock Up

I'm setting up my 5DSR and it seems like you cannot use AEB and Mirror Lockup at the same time without pushing the shutter button multiple times.  Has one else experience this?

Ideally I want to set the camera up so that in AEB (3, 5 or 7 shots) I can press the shutter button once have the mirror lock up and the camera to proceed with taking the shots then the mirror closes.  I'm pretty sure that is how my 5D Mark II worked but its been awhile since I've done any photography so I could be mistake.

The only way I can see to set it up is with Mirror Lock up on you have to press the shutter button 3,5, or 7 times.  I don't like to press the shutter button more than once because the camera can move.  If I turn Mirror Lock up off I can get it to take the 3,5 or 7 shots only pressing the shutter button once however the mirror slaps up 3, 5 or 7 times.  Can't imagine this is good.

Any thoughts or help is appreciated.

If you can bracket in Live View, that might be an option as the mirror should never be down during that kind of shooting.

E.J. Peiker wrote:If you can bracket in Live View, that might be an option as the mirror should never be down during that kind of shooting.

motor drive probably should be in silent mode for that to work.  

Wildflower-nut wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:If you can bracket in Live View, that might be an option as the mirror should never be down during that kind of shooting.

motor drive probably should be in silent mode for that to work.  

I'm not sure what that has anything to do with bracketing in live view - there's no actual motor.  It was a "motor drive" in the film days.  Now there's nothing to motor along.  It's just a setting that determines whether the shutter button automatically keeps shooting and how fast or if it just takes one shot.  That's why it hasn't been called a motor drive since film - it's either continuous shooting or single frame shooting. Silent mode, on the other hand, slows down the mirror so that it makes less noise.  In live view you aren't using the mirror, just the shutter.  Now if the 5DSR had a fully electronic shutter, then you would want to use that, but it does not have that.

Not sure whether this would help you but I believe silent mode is how you turn on the electronic first curtain in live view on this camera.

Someone else may come up with a better answer, but when bracketing for macro shooting on a tripod I set it to live view (amounts to mirror lock up), silent mode (to engage electronic first curtain), and the AEB setting I want.  Each time I press the cable release (what canon now calls a remote switch), I take one exposure in the series and allow the camera 1-2 seconds to stabilize between shots.  This is the best way I'm aware of to get a series with maximum sharpness.  Before live view I did it with mirror lockup and it was a lot of button pushing.

If you are doing HDR, you may want to consider setting up live view so that the histogram is displayed on the screen.  Set your sequencing so that the most "underexposed" shot will be first in the series.  You can then check on the histogram to make sure that the highlights are not going to be blown on the most "underexposed" shot before you take any exposures.  Then let the rest (exposing for the darker areas) fall as they may.  I must admit I don't do a lot of HDR so I cannot attest to it but the idea originated from someone I trust.

Ah yes, that is true - I was keying on the word motor drive which doesn't really have any meaning in the digital world. You are right. On a Canon body with EFC, that is how you trigger it. All other camera brands have an actual setting for that.

Not sure who this is directed to. I only use the time delay technique when I don't have a cable release. My problem is that I may be waiting for the peak moment or a flower to stop moving due to a faint breeze. The 2 seconds delay may cause me to loose the decisive moment. Time delay is best for static situations. Normally, if I have my tripod, I have a cable release. On my 5Div the timer gets you mirror up but you loose first curtain electronic shutter. My thinking is If you are working at shutter speeds where you have to worry about mirror lockup you might as well get electronic first curtain.

On Charlie Krebbs web site he has a pdf with illustrations of regular, mirror lockup, live view, and live view with electronic first curtain. Surprisingly mirror lockup is better than live view without electronic first curtain because some canon cameras in live view actually close the first curtain, cock the shutter and then take the picture unless silent mode selected. Canon cameras without silent mode (think rebel) apparently use electronic first curtain all the time in live view. go figure.

Aaron Jors wrote:Ideally I want to set the camera up so that in AEB (3, 5 or 7 shots) I can press the shutter button once have the mirror lock up and the camera to proceed with taking the shots then the mirror closes.  I'm pretty sure that is how my 5D Mark II worked but its been awhile since I've done any photography so I could be mistake.

The only way to do this is as follows:

Set the number of bracketed shots and the exposure interval between each shot.

Then set the drive mode to self-timer 2sec/remote.

Now press the live view button (this lifts the mirror).

Now press the shutter release or the remote release button.  The camera will take the 3, 5, or 7 shots (as set) with the mirror raised.

It is a somewhat hidden feature of the Canon system.  Much simpler on a Nikon.

I had not heard of this one. Tried it on 5Viv There is a 2 second delay on the first exposure and then the shutter appears to go as fast as the camera can through the rest of the shots. No delay. Mirror stays up all the time. You loose electronic first curtain and I would guess pick up a fair amount of shutter slap. I think I would want to do some tests at different shutter speeds to check sharpness but there is no question, it will do what the originator of this thread requested.

Wildflower-nut wrote:You loose electronic first curtain ...

Are you sure about that?  The shutter needs to close for the end of the exposure due to the camera not having a fully electronic shutter.  So of course that means the shutter has to open for the next exposure so if you can put a delay esteem each shot, the shutter should still be already open at the next exposure but it does need to close at the end of the exposure.

Interesting reading this thread, I had no idea of the Rube Goldberg dance you have to do with these modern cameras. My old Sony A900 just lifts the mirror and brackets. Of course the SLT Sony have no mirror movement and EFC and mirrorless just fires away with only shutter 2nd curtain (though the A9 has no mechanical shutter if you want that).

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Wildflower-nut wrote:You loose electronic first curtain ...

Are you sure about that?  The shutter needs to close for the end of the exposure due to the camera not having a fully electronic shutter.  So of course that means the shutter has to open for the next exposure so if you can put a delay esteem each shot, the shutter should still be already open at the next exposure but it does need to close at the end of the exposure.

I am taking the lens off the camera and watching the shutter.  There is absolutely no delay between each shot whether it is set for 2 seconds or 10 seconds.  The only delay is for the first shot in the series.  After that it goes as fast as it can between shots (7fps?). I reread tonight the pdf on Charlie Krebbs site.  Based on my interpretation of the Chuck Westfall (canon usa's rep) email silent mode is only way to get electronic first curtain in a 5d type camera. Frankly, the way it rips through the shots, there is so much shutter slap going on with virtually zero time to stabilize between shots, whether there is or isn't electronic first curtain may be immaterial.

This might actually work better in Canon cameras w/o silent mode (rebel) as they always use electronic first curtain in live view according to the email.  I don't have a camera to try and while you get electronic first curtain in single shot and high speed drive mode, I don't have a clue whether that will extend to the 2 and 10 second delay modes.  The key to this is whether you get an actual delay between the shots.

Hmm, that really limits the actual photographic resolution then for anything but a single shot taken in Live View with the camera in silent mode.

Is there confusion here between the effects of mirror movement and shutter curtain movement?
I have used this technique extensively with my 5Dsr for HDR sequences of buildings at night and do not recall any instances where I have experienced blurred images that I would ascribe to the shutter curtain movement impacting the stability of the sensor. Surely if this was the case, it would not be possible to do any long exposure photography.