Loooooong exposures (at night)

[macandal]

I have a simple question (I think). How does one guess the time to make a long exposure at night?

When I was starting in photography, I took a beginning photo class. My class went on a field trip one evening here in San Francisco to Sutro Baths. We were going to do long exposures. When we got there it was pitch black and you couldn't see anything. I was very surprised when I finished the exposure and I could see that my camera had captured something (this was done with a digital SLR)!

This is a shot I did with my digital camera (6 minutes, set to infinity):

106262

360 sec ƒ/4 ISO 100 30mm
Canon EOS Rebel xTI, Sigma 30mm f1.4

(To see the full set of exposures, click here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/11460465@N02/sets/72157608363714141/with/2972295380/))

Anyway, when making a loooong exposure, under similar conditions to those in my trip to Sutro Baths (night, pitch black where you can't see what you're photographing, etc), how do you arrive at your camera settings (aperture, length of time, etc) to make an exposure?

Thanks.

[vinny]

I meter something with my spot meter. no guessing. or guess and double that.

[Merg Ross]

You could start here:

http://www.calculator.org/calculate-online/photography/exposure.aspx

Be sure to allow for reciprocity.

[jp]

I don't really have a need/interest to photograph something with LF at night. DSLRs are so good at that right now. But that's my style and we're all different.

If I did, I'd take a flashlight and laser for focusing / composition. Use the DSLR for the metering, then add for reciprocity failure of the film. I'd probably err on the side of overexposure and use a pyro developer to maintain the highlights.

[macandal]

I meter something with my spot meter. no guessing. or guess and double that.Sometimes you can't see anything Vinny; metering is not an option.

Thanks.

[macandal]

You could start here:

http://www.calculator.org/calculate-online/photography/exposure.aspx

Be sure to allow for reciprocity.Thanks Merg.

[macandal]

I don't really have a need/interest to photograph something with LF at night. DSLRs are so good at that right now. But that's my style and we're all different.

If I did, I'd take a flashlight and laser for focusing / composition. Use the DSLR for the metering, then add for reciprocity failure of the film. I'd probably err on the side of overexposure and use a pyro developer to maintain the highlights.Agreed. My humble crop DSLR did indeed a great job at capturing what I couldn't see. However, when you're hooked on your 4x5, the way I am with mine, you want to do it with the clunker and not the DSLR. Thanks.

[Vaughn]

Some recommended times:

[vinny]

Sometimes you can't see anything Vinny; metering is not an option.

Thanks.

how are you composing/focusing if you can't see ANYTHING? or are you doing that during the day and coming back at night to shoot?

[macandal]

how are you composing/focusing if you can't see ANYTHING? or are you doing that during the day and coming back at night to shoot?Vinny, if you saw the set I did at Sutro Baths (from my flickr set (http://www.flickr.com/photos/11460465@N02/sets/72157608363714141/)), most of those shots were done blindly, meaning that I couldn't see anything or I could barely make out what I was pointing the camera at (I'm pretty sure that was the case with the picture I attached in my original post). So much so that even if I could see something, focusing was not possible. That's why we were told to focus at infinity, open the aperture somewhat wide, and point the camera in the direction of something interesting (you would have to know where that "something interesting" was before hand to point it), and let your shutter go for X number of minutes (in the bulb setting).

[macandal]

Some recommended times:Thank you Vaughn. I was planning a 1-hour exposure at my widest opening setting. This helps.

[David R Munson]

Plenty of times I've composed using a flashlight or just by guessing, metered with the hyperfocal scale (with medium format) or putting my cell phone where I wanted sharp focus to be, and made an educated guess at exposure because no meter would be able to register what I could only kind of see after an hour of being out at night. When it's really dark, meters become useless. The most sensitive meter I've ever owned was a Quantum Calcu-Light XP, and even that became a paperweight after a point. Ultimately what has helped has been experimentation and guesswork. Sometimes you just have to fudge around with things until you find something that actually works.

[Vaughn]

Mario -- the chart will give you a good starting point. Michael Kenna uses 35mm and medium format, but I don't believe using a LF camera would make too much of a difference.

David -- a trick -- If a meter can almost read the available light, another way of getting a few more stops of 'sensitivity' out of the meter is to meter a white board (backside of most gray cards, or anything white, really.) Then one just adds two to three more stops to adjust for metering on something white.

[David R Munson]

Interesting trick. I'll have to try it at some point.

In these situations I've mostly just opened the shutter and listened to my ipod or taken a nap for a couple hours. A headlamp with a red LED and a kindle are also marvelous for night photography.

[Vaughn]

Interesting trick. I'll have to try it at some point.

In these situations I've mostly just opened the shutter and listened to my ipod or taken a nap for a couple hours. A headlamp with a red LED and a kindle are also marvelous for night photography.

Some of my daytime exposures in the dark forest can be an hour long...a good time to nap! :D

[VictoriaPerelet]

I have a simple question (I think). How does one guess the time to make a long exposure at night?



Mario, you can use loooong exposures even during mid sunny day (see example below). You are doing it right way. Use dslr in M mode to pickup exposure time *. After that use manufacturer reciprocity tables for your film and little bit of luck. CMOS sensors used in dslr's do not have significant reciprocity effect. I use tmax for long or multiple exposures - it has much shorter reciprocity values compared to other films.

If you are using color film - it shifts color during long exposures (dslr's don't, they just get grainy), you may compensate with color correcting filters. In color pic (bleached fujiroid negative) colors shifted towards blue, which was ok for composition, I also manually discharged handheld Canon flash (about 20 times) to highlight "bridge".

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?46577-What-did-you-compose-at-Waters-Edge/page24

To focus during night - LED flash lights and some tape work great (I even use them in studio all the time)

* Do not not listen for dslr metering nay sayers - they do not know how to use it in M mode.:)

[Drew Wiley]

I just printed a black and white shot from the interior of a cave (lava tube) on Kauai. I could barely see anything on the groundglass itself. So I composed using a fast lens on my Nikon, noted a few relatively bright spots near the corners of the intended scene, and sorta oriented the 4x5 the same direction, sorta guessed my substantial tilts and swings, and sorta focused with the loupe on a few of those spots as best I could, and sorta guessed the reciprocity correction. Anyway, the neg turned out perfect. I don't know why.

[macandal]

Mario, you can use loooong exposures even during mid sunny day (see example below).That looks great.

[macandal]

I just printed a black and white shot from the interior of a cave (lava tube) on Kauai. I could barely see anything on the groundglass itself...Let's see it.

[John Hennessy]

I developed a simple spreadsheet with column A a list of shutter speeds at iso 3200 & f/4. the next column shows an equivalent shutter speed at iso 100 & f/11. So at 3200 and f/4 you can find the right actual exposure for the scene (in manual mode only) and then translate to iso 100 at f/11 without doing any mental arithmetic. If you think you won't like the resultant f/stop or shutter speed, then you can do much easier mental arithmetic from there. This is a tall thin spreadsheet taped to a tripod leg.

You can compose well enough if you have been out long enough without any light (half an hour or so) and if there is at least a cloudy full moon or a clear 1/8 moon. Focusing is the problem. If you have a near full moon and a clear night, then there is no problem with either. But of course noise becomes the next problem regardless. 106313

[vinny]

then there's the issue of the film popping, just sayin.

[Roger Thoms]

Interesting trick. I'll have to try it at some point.

In these situations I've mostly just opened the shutter and listened to my ipod or taken a nap for a couple hours. A headlamp with a red LED and a kindle are also marvelous for night photography.

And lots of warm clothes and a thermos of hot coffee or tea.

Roger

[jp]

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?88437-Extreme-photographer-captures-aurora-borealis

[macandal]

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?88437-Extreme-photographer-captures-aurora-borealisThe link, on the first post, is dead.

[macandal]

You can compose well enough if you have been out long enough without any light (half an hour or so) and if there is at least a cloudy full moon or a clear 1/8 moon. Focusing is the problem.But that's why I thought you set your lens to infinity, because focusing is near impossible. For the digital shots I posted, I didn't focus. I set the lens to infinity for the amount of time I planned and that was it. And that's exactly what I was planning on doing with the LF shot I'm planning.

[Drew Wiley]

Whenever I contemplate a true night project, I bracket test with roll or 35mm film first, before proceeding to sheet film. Fuji ACROS is an especially nice nite film in
black and white, because there is little recip failure. With color film actual pre-testing is esp important because you have not only exposure time compensation to deal with, but potential color shift and corrective filtering relative to both recip issues and the possibility of mixed light sources. No way to really know without a little
advance experience. For critical focus, a little laser pointer is nice to aim at nearby targets.

[jp]

The link, on the first post, is dead.

I'll get right on that!

[Vaughn]

Here is an image of the ceiling of a lava tube (two 4x5 negs, each printed 16x20). Fortunately, I was working within the first 200 yards or so from the entrance, so not too dark. So the TMax 100 only needed an f16 at 8 seconds exposure. Focusing was still a challenge, though. Diameter of the lava tube was about 80 feet, I think.

Skull Cave, 1997
Lava Beds National Monument, CA
Gowland PocketView, Caltar IIN 150mm/5.6

[Drew Wiley]

Film popping? That's why I use adhesive holders when necessary. More often, wind is going to be an issue. Small things like grass might move during the exposure,
and we anticipate that ... but camera shake will ruin everything. One more reason to pack something solid, and a nice big wooden tripod.

[John Hennessy]

If, as in my example, the subject is not at infinity, then focusing exactly is just as important at night as any time. In this instance, I waded out and put a flashlight on a rock. Shining a light or a laser pointer may work too. A tilt may help overcome small errors, but you still have to focus. Of course if the subject is at infinity, than that solves that.

[Jim Graves]

For long exposures, one other issue is the type of surface your tripod is on ... When Weston did his tour around California he found many of his beach shots surprisingly blurry when developed ... he finally concluded that the tripod legs were very slowly sinking in the sand.

[StoneNYC]

If you have an iPhone...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reciprocity-timer/id459691262?mt=8

Best most useful app ever! (Except the massive dev chart app perhaps) I use this all the time (like today).

Reciprocity Timer app

And a new version is coming soon with a TON more films...

[Drew Wiley]

What kind of app' is that, Granny Smith or Red Delicious, maybe? Shot is over by the time you finish chompin' it? Anyway, beach sand is tricky if you're within wave
reach ... a bit of quicksand effect as the sand grains reconsolidate. I lost a shot last month that way. Fresh snow is another culprit.

[Vaughn]

For long exposures, one other issue is the type of surface your tripod is on ... When Weston did his tour around California he found many of his beach shots surprisingly blurry when developed ... he finally concluded that the tripod legs were very slowly sinking in the sand.

Same with his images in the Redwoods...