Ultra long exposures

[Leonard Evens]

Today's NY times (7/12/06) has an interesting article about the work of Korean photographer Atta Kim. He uses a large format camera and makes exposures of many hours. It shows a photoograph of 57th Street at 5th Avenue in New York City which was exposed for 8 hours. I've seen similar kinds of photographs by other photographers, and I wondered just how one went about it. It looks like something that might be interesting to try, although I doubt that I would want to sit out on a city street for several hours guarding my camera during the exposure.

[medform-norm]

Did you look at Michael Wesely's work as well? Same method. I think it's done by custom ND filters that are so dark that you'll need hours before anything shows up on the neg. Also, use a slow film, at least 100ASA or less, and you get lovely fine grain as well.

Norm

[Ron Marshall]

There are 20 stop ND filters available for solar photography.

1/30 second would become an eight hour exposure with this filter.

[medform-norm]

There are 20 stop ND filters available for solar photography.

1/30 second would become an eight hour exposure with this filter.

Good to know. Would you have a link to a company that sells these?

[robc]

Good to know. Would you have a link to a company that sells these?

http://www.thousandoaksoptical.com/solar.html

[Helen Bach]

B+W also make 10 stop, 13 stop and 20 stop ND filters. I suspect that the 20 stop would be a bit too much once reciprocity failure is taken into account. If you calculate an exposure of eight hours before reciprocity failure, it is likely that there will be no image at all in what should be the lower tones - stable latent image centres may not form.

Best,
Helen

[Gordon Moat]

On a security of the camera basis, you could set it up in such a way that you were near it most of the time. An example might be clamping it to something, or using a clamp pod, then hanging out at a library of coffee shop with the camera in view. Other than that, getting permission to place the camera in an out of reach place, telling the building security what you were attempting, then coming back later for the camera.

One stop off eight hours would be four hours, and one stop off that would be two hours. So far I have only done one hour photos on Kodak E200, with about two extra stops exposure. In other words, a setting indicating 15 minutes exposure, then letting the exposure run 60 minutes. I have used E100VS out to 30 minutes, though that was with four thirds stop extra. It would take some experimenting to run colour films longer than that. E200 seems to work best for this, but is not available larger than 120 roll film.

The images I saw a few years ago were in Reponses Photo (French publication). I don't remember whether it was a Frenchman, or a Russian, though I do recall him using a Hasselblad and B/W film. Very unusual effects with movements of people.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Why not stack 4 or 5 of those 20 stop ND filters on your lens, set the camera up in your favorite outdoor photo location, trip the shutter, and then come back a year later? I'll bet you could get some neat effects by recording the changing of the seasons...;)

[Ron Marshall]

B&H has a wide selection of ND filters.

Check out the reciprocity failure curve for the film you intend to use at the manufacturers website.

A one to two hour exposure with most films would require an eight hour exposure to account for reciprocity failure.