OM-2N Long Exposures

[bonsignore_ezio]

One of the main reasons for my purchase of an OM-2N was the intriguing capability for accurate metering over very long exposures. I was however disappointed in discovering that the system does indeed work as advertised, but not in the sense  I was hoping for. That is: when I take a shot in poor/limited light conditions, I wish for the photo to more or less accurately reproduce the real situation. What my OM-2N does is rather to keep the shutter open until the photo appears as if correctly exposed under the midday sun... This is certainly of much help under many circumstances, but how can I obtain a night photo that looks like it was taken at night?

[John Seaman]

The camera does not "know" that the subject is a night scene and that you want it to be exposed as such. It will correctly expose the subject as mid grey to give the range of tones which are present. To achieve what you want, set exposure compensation, probably minus one or two stops. It's not the camera, which seems to be doing exactly what it was designed for. A similar situation would be a snow scene, when the camera would set an exposure making the snow look grey. In that case set plus 1 or 2 stops of compensation. Or set the exposure manually using an incident light meter, but it would have to be very sensitive to work at night.

Edited December 1, 2022 by John Seaman

[bytesmiths]

Besides @John Seaman's excellent answer, another thing to consider is what is called "reciprocity failure."

That is the tendency for film to either over- or under-expose with extremely short or extremely long exposures.

You say "the photo appears as if correctly exposed under the midday sun," so you probably are not experiencing reciprocity failure with that particular film. But be aware that other films may behave differently under extremely long exposures… the OM-2n can go well beyond 120 seconds, which is one of the reasons I got one in 1977!

Here is an example of reciprocity failure with a very long exposure. This is probably what you were hoping for! But it was under-exposed without my trying to make it that way.

 

[bonsignore_ezio]

I did already replay to thank John for his advice, but for some reason my message doesn't show up. So, I repeat it again: thanks a lot!

And, yes, I was aware of the reciprocity failure issue, but I don't seem to believe that was my problem with the Ektachrome 100 slide film I have been using. I cannot shows the disappointing results because I don't keep photos I don't like, but basically the main point was that the sky came out way clearer and more luminous  than it appeared to my eyes when taking the shot.

Edited December 6, 2022 by bonsignore_ezio