gx20 and long exsposure mode

Hello folks, back from london just got in the door, very frustrated today, my batterys both died after about 60 shots,as i forgot to charge them, ok i wish to use a 30sec exsposure on my k20/gx20 however when i tried any shutter speed in tv mode today, it just fires a normal shot with no exsposure time, the fstop flashes f22 and just releses shutter normalley,i tried just now in the house and it worked , however i set it for 30 seconds and it captured the image at f11? am i missing something here thanks

You were hitting the limits of the camera and lens.
F/22 is probable the highest f-number of the lens, right?

What happens is the camera meters and you tell him to use 30seconds.
He lowers the iso to his lowest (iso100) exposure is still to bright so the camera use a higher f-number but hits the sealing at f/22 and then the exposure is still to high.
If you would have taken the shot the photo would have been over exposed, I don't know if the camera lowers the shutter speed then so that you still get a good exposure though.

It really does not matter though what the camera does at that point, the only way to make the shot is to use a ND filter to block a part of the light that hits the sensor.

I think Stefan is right, if you want to do long exposures in bright light you will really need some ND (neutral density) filters but you could try a polariser if you have one.

Ah ok great thanks for the info, so really the long exsposures are really desighned for low light, as is bulb mode etc, As always wishing well and thanks for the help its appriciated

Well yes and no. There are just physical limits in how long the shutter can stay open, unless you use 'B' and a stopwatch, and how far the lens can stop down. The only thing left is to physically restrict with dark glass the amount of light getting in.