Tadge Dryja
14-Oct-2004, 06:13
Hi everyone.
I've been recently doing some extended exposures at night with my 4x5 camera. It's a challenge of course to focus and compose and all that with the relatively slow lenses I have, but unfortunately by the time I get back from work, it's dark, and I don't want shooting to be something relegated to teh weekends. So I've been getting the hang of it, but I seem to have some kind of problem with vibration or something.
It doesn't seem to happen on every negative, but it happens more often on the exposures that are on the long side, from tens of minutes to hours (the longest so far is 2hr). There will be 2 images, on a mm or two out of registration with the first. Both images are "sharp" I suppose, but the sheet is of course ruined by this problem.
This suggests to me that the camera is moving once, because if it were a vibration or movement that happened continuously the whole thing would just be a blur. Or if it happened once every few minutes I'd see several distinct exposures.
So... I don't know what to do. Try to plant the tripod in softer ground? Maybe the film is shifting in the holder, can I ... tape it to the holder?? (this sounds like a bad idea though...)
well anyone who has figured this out, let me know.
Thanks!
-Tadge
tadge.net
I've been recently doing some extended exposures at night with my 4x5 camera. It's a challenge of course to focus and compose and all that with the relatively slow lenses I have, but unfortunately by the time I get back from work, it's dark, and I don't want shooting to be something relegated to teh weekends. So I've been getting the hang of it, but I seem to have some kind of problem with vibration or something.
It doesn't seem to happen on every negative, but it happens more often on the exposures that are on the long side, from tens of minutes to hours (the longest so far is 2hr). There will be 2 images, on a mm or two out of registration with the first. Both images are "sharp" I suppose, but the sheet is of course ruined by this problem.
This suggests to me that the camera is moving once, because if it were a vibration or movement that happened continuously the whole thing would just be a blur. Or if it happened once every few minutes I'd see several distinct exposures.
So... I don't know what to do. Try to plant the tripod in softer ground? Maybe the film is shifting in the holder, can I ... tape it to the holder?? (this sounds like a bad idea though...)
well anyone who has figured this out, let me know.
Thanks!
-Tadge
tadge.net