Achieving low/no noise, and low-key, long exposures: 5D (mk 1)

[reish_lakish]

Have ideas or instruction for achieving low-key long exposure shots with no noise? (posted here because I see no place for digital night photography. Apologies if I'm knocking on the wrong door.)

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Currently: I shoot long exposure images at night/early morning.

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I want: low key images--tone on tone, the values across the image varying slightly. (think Robert Adams's <a

href="http://www.heyhotshot.com/blog/images/longmont-robertadams-583.jpg" target="_new">"summer night walking"</a>, or Hiroshi

Sugimoto's <a href="http://asheard.com/wp-content/uploads/21156309.jpg" target="_New">"night" Seacapes</a>.

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Why long exposure? To achieve a sense of movement in the trees and a elimination of waves in seascapes.

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Exposure setting: I typically underexpose, which I read is the wrong way to go--that better to meter for highlights and expose to the point of clipping, then adjust in photoshop. I prefer doing as much in-camera as possible, knowing that I have my shot before leaving the scene. I'm delighted to be disabused of this notion. Please share your ideas.

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The problem: even 10 second exposures yield noise. (I shoot raw, but sometimes raw+l jpg. Noise reduction set to on. Note: my

locations tend to be cool at night. I see no reason why the sensor should overheat.)

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I may try: shooting in daylight, using an ND filter.This will allow me to take advantage of some terrific light dappling, eliminate the need

to shoot around street lights and, in seascapes, get a variation of light across the sea and sky during the longer exposures. I'm

especially grateful for ideas/experience re ND filters to make day-for-night pics.

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Thanks in advance-

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Don't expose to get an image that "looks" like the final result you have in mind. Instead, expose to the right, just avoiding clipping of highlights. Then take this strong and low noise image and reduce the brightness in post to achieve the look you are going for.</p>

<p>That probably seems counterintuitive if you have a background in film photography, though here it is almost always a better way to go. If you only capture very dark tones in digital, the level of your signal will not be sufficiently higher than the level of background noise and you'll most likely end up with more noise than you want.</p>

<p>Also note that there is no such thing as a noise free image. It didn't exist with film, and though the potential for controlling noise is greater with digital, there will always be some noise in your image. </p>

<p>If you are doing very long exposures - on the order of many seconds to minutes, be sure to turn on the long exposure noise reduction feature on your camera.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[dillan k]

<p>I've never tried for this sort of photo before, but Dan's advice makes sense. The key to a clean photo is proper exposure. Once you've done that, you can develop the photo as you like.</p>

[david_wu6]

<p>Try to avoid underexposure.<br>

I never use long exposure noise redction because I thought it won't affect raw (is it true?).</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>David, LENR most certain <em>does</em> affect raw files.</p>

<p>LENR follows your exposure with a second "dark frame" exposure that is "black" except for noise and, especially, hot pixel data. The camera subtracts the dark frame data from the "real" image data to compensate for hot pixels and so forth that can otherwise become more visible in very long exposures.</p>

<p>Dan</p>