eric_yin

Thanks for the Comments, guys.

To answer Peter's question:

The lens is 45/4, the aperture is set between F5.6 and F8 (that's F6.7 I think), the focus set base on Hyperfocal of F5.6 instead of F6.7( that's just my way to make sure infinity distance objects are in focus for sure), I made sure the the nearest object in frame is 3 meter away with a help of a headlamp. No filters, which wouldn't do any good on a long exposure.

I think the unique part of exposure of this photo is that it's not only a night exposure, but also the exposure stopped at half hour before sunrise. The mountains at west side of Eastern Sierra/Owen Valley are much higher than the mountains and desert at east, so they(westside mountains) usually get some before-sunrise (very weak) red light from reflection of eastern sky about 45 minuts before the sunrise time, the long exposure on film also enhanced that color on mountain.

Techniclly the film is far from dead and is still much better than digital in many prospects , the problem is in the market. I will be getting a semi-auto film process machine at home next year, and continue use my beloved P67II until there are not any films or film processer to be sold anywhere, plus I usually stock enough films for two years usuage:)..

Really appreciate the comments. Thanks, guys.

This is actually my first shot which is longer then one hour, and fifth of which are longer than 15 minutes.:) Here are some details of the exposure:

Aperture: F8

Exposure time : 5.5 hours to 6 hours.

Lighting for Tent: from a Petzl Myo XP Headlamp(LED).

1. the headlamp used as flashlight, medium brightness, "paint" all over the tent and surrounding area for about one and half minutes.

2. went into tent with light off, while I was taking off my cloth and organizing stuff in tent, I moved the headlamp around once a while with medium brightness switching to minmum brightess, about 4-5 minutes. after that, the lamp stayed on beside my "pillow" for about two minutes, then off, I went to sleep, waked up 5 to 6 hours later...:)

The Camera is Nikon F3HP , Film is Fuji RVP100 which performs better than RVP50 under long exposure, also the one more stop on ISO means lot for a several hours exposure. The silde was scanned by my Nikon 9000ED scanner. A drum scan probably will make the reflection on lake little bit more visible, also bring out more detail from darker area.

This is a backcountry camping site, with the surrounding mountains, the moon sets with sun in late October, so it's completely dark out there, except the stars in the sky. If there were moonlight, I would skip the step of "light painting" on tent, and lower the aperture or got up earier:-). As it turned out, I think half stop higher aperture probably would be little bit better for the situation.

Also couple things I want to mention:

1. Because of the completely darkness, it's very very difficult to make sure everything is ok in composition, use a very wide lens will give you some room to crop or do something later if there were mistakes, use the lamp or flashlight to help double checking the composition before exposure. it turned out ok for me, I didn't have to do any cropping or fixing afterwards, I was lucky.:)

2. Remember to turn your light off when you walk from camera into the tent. I had a friend with me that night, his tent is about 30 meter away from mine, he was making simlar shot with his tent, and he walked around and into the tents with his headlamp on, it left some light track in the final image. Also because of the battery problem of his headlamp, he ended up have the lamp on for a shorter time in tent, the tent didn't get lighten up enough.

3. not to aganist the digital camera , I do think film is better choice than digital in this kind of very long exposure situation due to the special properties of film under long exposure, also don't have to worry too much about the camera battery thing on film camera in this kind of cold night, but color shifting under long exposure definely is a problem for film.

I did have another shot with both falls close to center but I considered that it's too "regular" :) , also couldn't give up too much the yellow-green grass and that small falls on left edge, so had this try.

Enrick, to have this kind of photo, base on my experience , the key points are not to over-exposure the water and using a slow shutter speed to have a "motion feeling " on water. For exposure part, I usually use spot meter to measure the brightest spot on water and add 1 2/3 stop or 2 Stop depend on the Light condition and film. For slow shutter speed (1/4 sec to 2 secs depend on the water speed and the effect you want) , using a small aperture is usually enough( this one used F22, shutter was 1/4 secs or 1/2 secs cannot remember exactly), sometimes you may have to use a Netural Density filter to cut down the shutter speed. Hope this helps and happy shooting.:)

With the right side falls reside close to edge, it's good? bad? or

odd? Thanks for the comment.

S Spencer, this photo is scanned using my Epson 4870. Other photo in my portfolio, some are scanned by 4870, some are drum scan.

Jerry, there are still tons of snow on table mountain trail when I was there, but anywhere up to the heather meadow visitor center are free of snow. Shuksan is right at east side of picture lake, it should be really really beautiful at dusk in the sunset light, couldn't wait to a so late summer sunset this time.:(

Thank everyone for the comments, I appreciate it.

Peter, I totaly agree with you on "the sky is too big causing the distraction". that's exactly what I realized after I looked at it for couple of week.(I had a cibachrome print of this photo on the wall), I guess it always took longer for me to realize my own mistake...:)

It was a cold cold morning and the rocks are so slippery after whole night freezing rain, I'm glad that I had this photo, but regret that I was too lazy at that moment to move back a bit to reset the tripod then have other couple more taken...

UPS didn't delivery the 4 STOP ND to me before the trip. I was

wishing to make a 4 - 6 minutes exposure, but this is a 30 seconds

exposure at F22.

Please critique. Any comments are appreciated. Thanks

The grad line was placed a little bit above water level, the bottom of the snow mountain at far end. After Spot metering , I realized a 3 stop gnd soft would be best , but I only had a 2 stop soft and a 3 stop hard, I don't think a Hard GND is good choice for this , so I used 2 stop soft , gave up little bit highligh detail on sky and little bit shadow detail on forground mountain, a compromise.

I do have another shot with half more stop open, but the red light on peak was almost washed out. The light on peak was moving so far, about 6-8 minutes from begining to end , the exposure time was about 45 seconds to 60 seconds , I only had chance to make five shots(include changing lens to make a close shot :)), the peak on fifth shoot was already half white.

Also , the film is E100VS, I just corrected it, I put RVP 50 by mistake when I post.

I have another photo about this boathouse was posted three years ago, It was a raining afternoon,

Lake Louise in Rain

Thanks again, appreciate for the comments.

an Epson 4870 scanner was used for scanning this photo and others in this folder. The grass in FG are showing some pretty looking green with little bit red cast on slide, but I couldn't get it on scan. Will send this one for drum scan, I will upload the better scanned image when I get it.( I assume the drum scan will be much better. :) )

Thanks. Any comments are appreciated.