wooden camera and large expousure times?

[primoz]

hello
has enybody some experience with large expousure times (from 10 to 20 min end more) and a wooden camera? are there some micro movement? I'm particulary interested in ebony sw45.
thank you very much primoz

[Dave Parker]

Never had any problems on the couple of woodies that I used to own, one a Calumet and one a Shen, I was able to lock them down with no problems, now of course in a windy condition it would create problems but under normal shooting conditions, never had a problem at the level the Ebony is, I would imagine it would lock down and not give you any problems, however be aware, even without wind areas that are prone to vibration could cause a problem, IE close to roads, in studios with people walking around, etc.

Dave

[reellis67]

As long as your tripod is rigid enough for a long exposure, I wouldn't think you would have any problems - at least I've not seen any problems with either of my Koronas and long exposures. Just give the film holder a bump to seat the film on the 'bottom' of the holder so that there won't be any chance creep over that long of a time. I've never seen film shift during exposure myself, but it can't hurt to be safe.

- Randy

[GPS]

Some reasons for instability has already been mentioned - wind, walking around a camera put on an unstable floor. Other reasons could be - sand, snow, wet ground can cause slow sinking of the tripod-camera assembly. Temperature change (night photography) can sometimes play a role too.

[Brian Ellis]

Fortunately with exposures of 10 or 20 minutes or longer a little movement here and there for brief periods won't matter. You could have a few gusts of wind lasting a few seconds each that jiggled the camera and the image would be unaffected (assuming the wind wasn't so strong that it caused the camera to change position). Or you could stand in front of the lens and peer into it for some period of time - maybe 10, 15 seconds or more - and your face wouldn't show in the image. That's because the movement or the positioning of your face in front of the lens constitutes only a very tiny fraction of the total exposure time, not enough to register on the film. The same principle explains why in some old photographs of busy streets the streets look deserted even though in reality they were teeming with people, traffic, etc. The exposures were very long because the wet plates or early film was very slow but nothing stayed in one place long enough to register on the film.

[GPS]

Fortunately with exposures of 10 or 20 minutes or longer a little movement here and there for brief periods won't matter. You could have a few gusts of wind lasting a few seconds each that jiggled the camera and the image would be unaffected ...

Unfortunately, this is not true. If the wind moves the camera, the lack of it doesn't move it back to the original position...

[Brian Ellis]

Unfortunately, this is not true. If the wind moves the camera, the lack of it doesn't move it back to the original position...

Unfortunately you didn't read my message carefully. Note the parenthetical that says "(assuming the wind wasn't so strong that it caused the camera to change position)."

[John Powers]

Fortunately with exposures of 10 or 20 minutes or longer a little movement here and there for brief periods won't matter. You could have a few gusts of wind lasting a few seconds each that jiggled the camera and the image would be unaffected

You can have other surprises that pop us, but creative solutions (lucky guesses) will get you by. I was making a 16 minute exposure in the local court house stair well. Everything was marble. The curves and light were beautiful. It was a slow day with no traffic. I set up an 8x10 Phillips woody just above the landing between floors so I would catch the curve of both near and far railings. About half way through the exposure a middle aged woman walked up from the lower level to look at a plaque on the wall. She saw me, 8x10, tripod, dark cloth, bag, and said , "Oh are you taking pictures?" I moved the dark slide in front of the lens, stopped the watch, and said, "oh no, just setting up." As I spoke her daughter came up to read the plaque as well. I waited. They walked away. I moved the dark slide away from the lens, started the stop watch and continued exposing for another 8 minutes. It must have worked. The 16x20 print is in a local show now and got favorable criticism from the city newspaper's art critic. No ghosts that are visible, only mother and daughter in my nightmares.

John

[GPS]

Pity you can't use the same trick when taking star trails pictures. Even a short airplane flight through the field of view makes them interrupted, when you cover the lens for that time. On the other hand, when you use a guided camera, you can use the trick - but then you don't get trails...

[Vaughn]

You probably will have a greater problem of having the film move within the film holder during the exposure than having the camera move. I try to remember to give the holder a good tap before inserting it into the camera. Forgot to do this recently with a 30 minute exposure -- the neg slide down in the holder during the exposure and I got a doubled image (8x10 film)...oh well, I can return and try to get that image another day.

This has happened to me way too often that I need to be wary of it.

Another source of movement is the tripod settling during the exposure -- especially if one sets up on leaf litter...one might need to dig out to more solid ground.

Vaughn