shooting 8x10 chromes at night

i am currently a student at the new england school of photography. i'm shooting

chromes at night for the term project in one of my classes. i'm then going to

build a light box and present them. right now i'm shooting them on my hasselblad

500c/m and plan to have 10 to 12 final images to present. i would like to

augment these images with 2 8x10 chromes. i have experience with 4x5, but have

never shot 8x10. the way i plan on shooting is to go out and shooting it on 120,

processing it, and seeing if i need a filter (hopefully not) and then returning

with the 8x10. the school's stockroom has an 8x10 camera that we can take out,

so i have access to a tripod, the camera and film holders. i was looking for any

advice on shooting with the 8x10 and the 8x10 chromes (or shooting night chromes

in general). anything will help. thanks.

Can anyone there at the schoolhelp you figuring out reciprocity failure?

 

From it being seered into my brain from years of using Ektachrome and Fujichrome: if your meter says 15 seconds, give it a 43 second exposure. If the meter says 30 seconds then try around 2 minutes. If 60 seconds try 8 minutes.

You may be able to find some information here

 

http://www.thenocturnes.com/

 

I would work with the smaller format film first, and then once you have an idea of the proper time expose the 8x10 film. You're looking at $8 per sheet + processing costs for 8x10 chromes, so use them wisely. Don't get me wrong though - an 8x10 chrome is a thing of absolute beauty, but it comes at a cost.

 

- Randy

I have no experience with 8x10 but have done quite a lot of night sunset photography shooting cars on film. My advice to you would be to choose the film which has the best reciprocity characteristics, over any other quality as this will be a big issue for you. There may also be differences between 120 and 8x10 emulsions so you might be best off running a test with the 8x10 at night, documenting everything accurately. You could even shoot the same tests on the 120 film to see if the emulations match up. If they do then you're laughing and can be sure that the 120 images will translate correctly to the 8x10 film. Good luck.

 

I was using 120 100SW at up to about 2 minutes with minimal reciprocity failure, and no significant colour cast but found that velvia went a bit green and needed correction for recpiprocity sooner. You really need to test the films you intend using in the actual circumstances you intend using them in.

 

JJ

Provia 100F claims to go two minutes without reciprocity failure or a color shift. Use a spot meter.

 

I think Chris Jordan used to do a lot of long exposure shooting at night with transparency film. He might be able to offer some tips if you ping him (www.chrisjordan.com). I'm not sure if he participates here but I have seen his posts on www.largeformatphotography.info

I think Lance Keimig can help: http://www.thenightskye.com/

 

He's in Pembroke, not too far from you, and is a great teacher.

My. I suggest you find a copy of [ Using the View Camera] by Steve Simmons has all that info there: good luck ::