Shooting very dark interiors with Canon equipment

[shawn_may]

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>I'm headed out to a very dark location this weekend to gets some shots I need. Though low light interiors is something I've been doing for over four years now, I have this sinking feeling that this place will be a new kind of dark, making my exposures as long as possibly five minutes or longer. </p>

<p>Setting aside the basic (Use a tripod, cable release, mirror lockup, bring a light as a focusing aid, etc etc), anyone got any tips for me? Anything helps.. I'll be shooting with my 5d MarkII with a 17-40L and maybe a bit with my 24mm TS-E.. I'm bringing a 350D body just incase, as I'm worried the exposures are going to kill my battery faster than I'm used to. </p>

<p>All the best.</p>

[john v.]

<p>I just <a href="../casual-conversations-forum/00SarY">posted</a> a few weeks ago a technique that may be of use in such a situation. Its called painting with light. Basically, set the camera on a tripod, open the shutter and then sweep a (flash)light back and forth across the part of the interior you need illuminated. It takes some practice, but it might work for you.</p>

[alan_bryant1]

<p>I've shot exposures up to almost half an hour (star trail shots) with a 5D. I only had a good tripod - without a cable release, I set the camera on Bulb, and used a rubber band to press the bowl of a 1/4-teaspoon measuring spoon against the shutter button. It worked fine. I turned on the long exposure noise reduction (CF 02), but I never ran tests with it on and off, so I don't know how effective it really is. Digital does not appear to suffer from reciprocity failure -- or not like film does, anyway. Battery capacity was a problem, as was the sheer quantity of time needed to fire off a few exposures -- CF 02 makes both those problems worse, as it doubles the required exposure time. A battery grip might help (I think they allow for additional batteries? I don't have one, so I'm not sure...).</p>

[terry_spade]

<p>Probably not what you had in mind. But I shot this old train tunnel with 3 580EXII speedlites with the built in 14mm wide panel dropped down, at full power. 1 Vivitar 283 at full power. All fired by skyports. Used a Brinkman portable spot light to help with focus. Cannon 5D, EF 24-105mm lens at 28mm f4 1/30.</p><div></div>

[shawn_may]

<p>Really interesting guys. I think I'm going to leave noise reduction off, just for the sole purpose of saving battery life. If worse comes to worse, I've got a power converter in my car, but damn I'm sweating it about the battery life.. I guess I'll see how that goes!<br>

Anybody have any tips on measuring exposure, besides the 'guess and bracket from there' method? </p>

[alan_bryant1]

<p>I did test exposures at high ISO, with the lens wide open, to check focus, composition, and exposure. So for instance, a 15 second exposure at ISO 1600, f/2.8 to make sure it's all set right. If that looks good, do the 15 minute exposure at ISO 200, f/8. Or whatever - I'm assuming you're shooting at lower ISOs. In multi-minute exposures, noise at high ISO gets out of control.</p>

[michael_ziegler2]

<p>How about using the IR of your flash or the wireless flash trigger to register the focus.</p>

[greg_moss2]

<p>No chance of getting the ACK-E6 power adapter by then? It would be nice if Canon included the AC adapter, but I guesss that's reserved for the 1D series.<br>

And yes, the BG-E6 grip holds two batteries.</p>