Night shots with LF????

[Bob Farr]

Hi,

I'm interested in doing some night shots with LF. Are there any suggestions for the length of exposure, iso or developing that would help with getting some stars??

Thanks,
bob

[Heroique]

It’s a lot of fun – good luck on clear autumn skies in our region!

Will you include lighted buildings, or will you be in the wilderness? Also, do you want pinpoint stars, or star trails? If star trails, how long do you want them to be?

The direction of a star trail depends on where the star “begins,” and it can trend in many directions – up-down, left-to-right, etc. Depends on which portion of the sky you’re shooting.

What’s more, the relative length of a star trail – for any given time – depends on its proximity to the north star – the closer it is, the shorter the trail.

If you know you’re facing North, you should be able to figure-out which way the spinning goes...

[Dan Henderson]

Assuming that you are shooting urban scenes (buildings with lights, streetlights, etc, turning the zone system on its head has always worked for me: expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves. Since the shadows are usually too dark to meter accurately, I instead meter highlights and place them on zone VII or VIII, depending on exactly what they are and how bright I visualize them appearing in the final print. The lower shadow values will not have any tone, but I think the mind and eye of the viewer accepts blank shadow areas in a night scene. Higher shadow values will show enough tone to print some detail.

[Bob Farr]

Hi Heroique,

Thanks for replying!! I plan to be in the landscape away from city lights. Am assuming that with a lens with the widest aperture of f/9 or f/5.6 it will still be a long exposure.

I may try some facing south and then north to see what happens. And to learn the length of the exposure.

Although it now looks as though it'll be necessary to go to the eastern part of the state to get some clear sky.

Long star trails could be interesting, pin pointing a star with LF may not be possible. Or is it??

Bob

[Bob Farr]

Thanks Dan,

That will also be interesting to try.

Bob

[Tim Meisburger]

There are plenty of resources online for night photography, which is the same regardless of camera format. I have a scene guide (I forget the name) for night photography that I downloaded that seems to work really well. I dig it out when I get the chance and post the name.

[Bob Farr]

Thanks Tim, will also try to find some information online.

[MikeH]

Maybe you are referring to the Jiffy Calculator. It works well for me at night.

[Bob Farr]

Yeh, I just printed it this afternoon, looking forward to seeing how it works. Bob

[Brian C. Miller]

I haven't done LF at night for a while. I did it in an urban setting, and since I was near Boeing Field, I got lots of airplane landing and takeoff lights in the frame. The last time I used E6 at night, it was Kodak E100S, with a 15 minute exposure by moonlight. Looked like daytime, except for some house lights in the distance reflected on the water.

Anyways, meter with your favorite meter (I used a Pentax spot meter) and then expose according to the film reciprocity factor. No problems.