I need an analog meter with the longest exposure time ever for low light

[bonnie_porter1]

I want to take my Holga out and do some night shots in the city, maybe the

lights on the bayou or some street scenes. I am prepared to sit around with my

tripod and dinky plastic box for hours if neccessary since I can't change the

shutter speed or aperture. So, I need an meter that has both good low light

sensitivity and really really long speeds... My current meter goes up to 2

minutes, but sucks in the dark. Am I asking too much from an analog meter? I'm

not too concerned about perfect accuracy since I'm just using a Holga after all.

I need some ballpark figures for my exposure times though. Can someone suggest a

good meter? That will not require selling a kidney to pay for? I am young and

slightly destitute a little bit...

Thank you!

[sg_adams]

Have you ever heard of the Harris Photoguide "Xisting Light"?

It is a little pocket folder for calcualting exposures. I looked around and only found a couple references on a Google search.

I leave mine in my accesory bag and it goes whenever I travel as a back up reference, and more importantly for after hours shots. I've only done a couple things with it, but I felt a lot more confident making an educated guess rather than having no idea.

I think they used to sell for about twelve bucks and I have no idea if still in print.

Perhaps tomorrow some more informed folks will chime in.

Yeah, kinda silly to have a light meter worth four to ten times as much as the camera eh? On the other hand, I think my spot meter is the most valuable piece of equipment I now own. Still wont work in the dark...

[ilkka]

Gossen Luna Pro is the most sensitive analgoue meter I know. Calculight XP is the most sensitive light meter I know, but it is not analogue. And why does it have to be analogue?

 

But really, you don't need a light meter for several hour exposures at night. Just do trial and error. There is no one right exposure at night, it all depends on what balance you want between dark and light, how light you want to make the night.

[frank_menesdorfer]

I risking it all, being a black and white man with Kodak's 400 ISO film not much of the metering going on and not much of the timing either for that matter.

In the city when lights are involved 8 seconds mostly do the job. Than of course there is more and less lights so I add or expose less it's all deepens. That's much more fun to do in it that way and you learn fast to on try and error.

So, when you find your subject than you just count, one glass of beer, two glass of beer and so on. After a while it's in your bone.

Good luck!

 

PS: The only thing you got to practice is to spell the sentence in one second before you going out.

Otherwise the Gossen is a good tip as Ilkka suggested.

The pic here is out of my series "Urban Nightscapes" taken in London on Ilford with the Mamiya Universal, 100 ISO and exposed I think some sec (don't keep records).

[Monophoto]

You don't need a meter. A meter is essentially useless for what you are trying to do. For exposures that are longer than a second or so, you have to deal with a phenomenon called "reciprocity failure"; meters won't do that for you.

 

The best suggestion is to find a copy of the old Kodak publication "Low Light Photography". This booklet included a table that suggested trial exposures for various subjects and various film speeds. These trial exposures took into account reciprocity failure for the Kodak films that were being made at the time it was published; modern films will be different, so you will need to bracket quite a bit. Keep in mind that exposures in the minutes to hours range tend to be far more forgiving than ordinary daylight exposures, but some experimentation is still required. And of course there is also the Diana factor.

 

Another suggestion is to search for the website of a group that call themselves Nocturns. These are photographers who work by available darkness - and produce some beautiful work. Their website provides guidance on trial exposures.

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

I agree with Louie - you don't need a meter. Take a look ate this site for tips:

 

http://www.thenocturnes.com/resources.html

[rodeo_joe1]

Metering the sort of night scenes you're describing, Bonnie, is pretty useless. The contrast between bare street lamps and the darkness of the street or water is enormous, and well outside the range of any film. It's like trying to meter a daylight scene by pointing your meter directly at the sun - it just won't work.

 

The best you can do is to meter from a grey card under one of the street lights in question, or use incident metering from the street lights. However, you'd get an image of the lights using an exposure time of 1/125th of a second, or any exposure longer. It depends on the effect you're after, so trial-and-error is probably the best way to go.

 

In any case, an exposure time of hours won't be necessary. Most urban lighting only requires an exposure time of a few seconds at most. And does the Holga even have a "B" setting?

 

BTW, I hate to burst your bubble, but the Holga definitely isn't a large format camera. It's medium format, and that would have been a more appropriate forum for this post.

[maris_rusis]

The longest exposure time displayed by any meter is 8 hours for the Gossen Luna Pro. This exposure is a function of the calibrated length of the calculator dial and not primarily due to the actual light sensitivity of the meter itself; although the Luna Pro is one of the most sensitive.

 

Reciprocity failure becomes extremely obtrusive with very long exposures. For example the film I use most, Fomapan 200, needs 3 seconds for a metered 1 second reading. For a 30 minute reading it would need 34 hours exposure and in the extreme example of an 8 hour reading an actual exposure of 756 days (!!) is theoretically required.

 

I do a lot of night photography and find exposures between 1/1000 second and 10 hours all yield results, all different, and some interesting. Trial and error is the best teacher. Light metering is pretty much a waste of time.