Exposure meter for night photography

Can someone recommend a good light meter for night photography?

Steve,

 

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Perhaps it depends on what you intend to do, but usually you don't need one. For a given film speed, most situations such as street lights, fireworks, bonfires etc have a wide range of possible exposure setings you can use with success. See photo magazines, many good text books or Kodak's professional photo guide page 25 for advice..........Tony Cunningham

I have found that neither camera meters nor handhold meters (Luna Pro) can do more than get you into the right ballpark. As there are reciprocity problems and contrasty scenes often having street lights and flood lights, I have found that bracketing is the only way to go. With Tmax 400 I have found that 5, 10, 20 & 40 seconds at f16 gives me a good selection of negatives for most cityscapes and street scenes.

Amazingly, if you give "proper" exposure of a landscape by moonlight, the resulting print will be in full color. Past a certain light threshold, our color receptors are no good and our eyes perceive a monochrome scene. Color film properly exposed has no such limitation. In town, almost any exposure worth printing will be burned out at the source; that is, don't plan on being able to hold detail in a lighted sign and have detail down on the street -- the contrast is just too great. Steve Simmons in his book "Using the View Camera" shows how a pro overcomes this limitation in architectural photography through double exposure: taking the lighted windows of a post office at night and then waiting a couple of hours for the morning sun to illuminate the building so he can properly expose the exterior. The example is stunning and utterly convincing. I agree with the gentleman who suggested that you bracket heavily (until you can tell by looking what you will need). I occasionally spend a day shooting without a light meter just to try to reduce my dependency on "3D Matrix" whizbang metering. I learn from my mistakes, which are many.

I also have to agree with the previous poster. My own experience comes from using an Ansco Viking 6x9 to shoot cityscapes at night.

I bracketed from 15 seconds to 4 minutes in factors of 2, and was very pleased with the 2 minute exposure on Provia 100 at f16 (Provia I, not the newer II stuff.) But importantly, it still looks like night.

 

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Overexposing can produce very surreal effects. For example, the city lights reflecting off of the bottom of clouds produces luminous blobs for exposures in the 6-12 minute range. When we get the right kinds of clouds one night, I'll shoot a few rolls and try to get a nice artistic print (it's a major crapshoot, but the time would otherwise

be wasted doing junk on the internet :-).

 

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Anyway, bracket, and bracket some more. At these levels, your eyes are decent enough lightmeters to get started. Also, shoot short rolls, and get to know your subject area over time if you have that luxury.

 

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Regards,

I need to photograph some luminaries for a national park and need some help with exposure. I will probably be using Kodak Max 400 color print film. I will start when there is still a little ambient light and also take some when it is totally dark. We are in southern Arizona. Will be using a Nikon N70. Thank you.