long expousure techniques??

[megan_griffith]

hello, i dont know if this is the correct forum to post my question but here

it goes; i am currently workiing on a series of the pch @ night and i have

been experimenting with long expousers (i shoot b&w film and use a spot

meter/zone system) but i feel like its mostly hit & miss.does any one have any

suggestions for metering night scenes, or does any one know any good books on

night photography???thanks for your time i really appreciate it,megan

[max cooper]

Not sure what the pch is, but I always bracket like crazy shooting night scenes. You can see my work at my website; I think I've gotten the technique down pretty well. After awhile you learn to judge a scene and can pinpoint the exposure without so much trial and error, but in the beginning, I started out like this: f2.8 for 1 sec, 2 sec, 5 sec, 10, 20, 40 , 80. Then switch to f8 and do it all over again.

 

But then, most of my scenes are pretty well illuminated. If you're going for star trails or something, you'll be using 3-4 hour exposures. Can't help you there.

[john_macpherson]

Night scenes - lots of black stuff (think shadows) - lots of light stuff very very close to where illumination is present (think highlights) - oodles of area in between these two where there are partly dark/lit bits (think midtones). Meter off the midtones.

[Norma Desmond]

Max, My guess is that pch is Pacific Coast Highway. That's how we Californians commonly

refer to the famous Route 1 that winds its way past Santa Barbara, Hearst Castle, Big Sur,

Monterey, and the rest of this edge of town.

[ilkka]

In my experience it is impossible to 'meter' a night scene. You can expose the same scene at + 3 stops or - 1 stop and get a very different looking, but still very much a night scene. Only experience and trial and error will show what exposure is the best. Digital helps a lot because you can chimp and get a feel of the image. I have sometimes used a DSLR as an exposure meter for night scenes, sort of like modern polaroid.

[gordonjb]

http://nightphotographer.com/

Night Photography by Larrie Thomson - Night Photographer Dot

 

Comhttp://www.thenocturnes.com/

The Nocturnes Night Photography Web site

 

Both of these site have good info and lists of resources and links

[Jochen_S]

If your spot meter goes low enough for the zone system at night, you might need your film's data sheet too, to get predictable results since usually beginning at 1 or a few seconds shutter speed the film speed vanishes, read you'll have to expose 2x-4x as long as metered to get the predicted grey tone.

[bob_gentile]

<a href="http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm#Light%20Intensity%20Chart">Fred Parker</a>

posted an EV chart that shows exposure values for night photography that go down to -6EV.

It doesn't do much for me personally, cuz my spot meter drops off at +3EV on the low end.

If Zone V is -6EV, my meter won't even see the Zone IX <em>highlights</em>! Trying to

meter Zone II textures would be absurd.</p>

 

<p>So... I guesstimate and bracket like mad. </p>

 

<p>When bracketing for night shots, don't bother bracketing a one minute exposure with

two, three, and four minute exposures. Just go from one to four. Or <em>more</em>. It's

easy to forget that the difference between a one minute exposure and a two minute exposure

is still only one f/stop. Hardly worth doing with B&W film, since you can usually pick

up or drop an f/stop during printing anyway. Now, one minute to <em>four</em> minutes is a

two-stop bracket, but that doesn't take reciprocity effects into consideration. So, as <em><strong>Jochen</strong></em>

pointed outdepending on your filmyou may have to go from one minute to <em>eight</em>

or <em>ten</em> minutes (or more!) to get an "effective" two-stop bracket. It seems like so much more than it really is.

[dangoldman]

get an old SLR, and use that as a meter...