Advice on night photography anybody?

M

michael

Guest
Quite by chance I happened to take a couple of quite intriguing (to me) photos near dark, and then I ran into a book of Robert Adams photos called Summer Nights. Zowie! As a Colorado Springs boy I never thought Greeley, or is it Fort Logan, could have much going for it, but I eat my words.

But I'm a little short on technique. Any suggestions about how to do it systematically? Do I need a more sensitive meter than the R2 has got? Any tips, small or large, much appreciated.
 
The most sensitive Meter that I have is EV-2 in the Nikon F2AS. Usually EV1 or EV0 is the limit. A scene lit by Full Moonlight is EV-5, or 1/8th the light that my meter can get down to.

So the rule of thumb is to tripod mount the camera, open up the lens, set the camera to "B", use a cable release, and Bracket. Long exposures of 30 seconds or so are in order.


Exposure Values going Down to Starlight
 
Don't forget about reciprocity failure. With long exposures the normal stop relationship between shutter speed and apeture doesn't work, leading to under exposure. I have had my best luck when looking up the film info from the manufacturer's web site which gives specific info on exposure for long shutter speeds.
 
Right on Brian. I use 30 sec. to a minute usually. Also my FE2 has no problem with most night/low-light scenes. Of course a handheld meter can help too.
 
what kind of night shots are we talking about?

a street scene with street lights and light coming from store front windows is different than shooting stars on a country lane.

joe
 
Thanks guys. I've got a lot of information there to assimilate. I suppose the next question---given the local climate---is how to do rain photography. and then rainy night photography. I suppose it might involve an umbrella and an assistant...
 
The most helpful advice I can offer is to get a "Black Cat Exposure Guide" it''s a paper calculator thingy. It has helped me very much! And not to expensive.
 
I always like my Fujica ST 901 with its SBC down to a rated -3 EV. Actually it went lower. I also like my Gossen Luna Pro and only wish I had the SBC version too.

All good advice above. You mentioned rain. Don't forget to account for reflections and use them to your advantage. They can really add to a night photo.
 
Michael,

Night photography is to a large extend "trial by error", and the most important part of your equipment is no so much your meter but the notes you make as you take the pictures, since most will probably endup being time exposures well beyond what your meter will indicate.

Check some of the stuff on photo.net, specifically the place under pictures where they provide the technical info.

Hugh
 
What excellent advice coming through! Now the challenge is actually to make it work. Thanks you very much. It's been a long day though, and I think I'll start digesting a little later. Perhaps gin will help....
 
If you have a digital camera with manual control settings, you can get immediate feedback from your trial and error. Then you can use film if you prefer. For exposures over about 1 sec, with most films, you have reciprocity failure, as others have pointed out. The film manuafacturers provide data on this, so just apply the correction and go ahead. It would still be a good idea to do some bracketing to be sure.
 
A great B&W film for night photography is Fuji Acros. You don`t have to compensate for reciprocity failure before 120 second exposures, after that add 1/2 a stop!
 
What I've found is that at night there seems to be a large range of exposures that are more or less right. I guess what I want to say is that if you bracket at night, don't bracket just one stop. Space the exposures at least 2 stops apart.

Another thing that I've found is that modern in-camera meters give a very good suggestion to start from. Of course this may require you to measure at f2.0 or so, but you can close down aperture and extend exposure time to match from there. Color print film is quite reciprocity friendly (this in contrast to instant film which gives very nice pictures but fails from 1/10 sec already).

Attached image is on NPH, f11, 8 seconds, although it's virtually identical to the one I took at f11, 2 seconds..
 
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