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Night Landscapes
For every problem there
is a solution,
Hardly a week passes on the usenet photography forums when someone does not ask about night photography. Usually they ask what would be the best film, and what exposure to set for a moonlit landscape, or a floodlit building. Some are after shots of the moon itself, and some want to reproduce the twilight pictures from travel magazines. Many have given it a quick try, and discovered their light meter gives them wrong exposures, or fails to give them a reading at all. So they turn to the net. Some of the answers they get sound easy enough, but when they try these solutions out, the results are disappointing. Other answers seem too vague and uncertain to be of any use. This article will probably fall into the vague camp, but I will at least endeavor to explain why there are no simple solutions, and why some simple solutions work for some people and not for others. Reciprocity and Failure If you meter a scene and find that 1/500th of a second at f11 will give you proper exposure, you know that you can change that exposure to 1/250th at f16 and get the same exposure on the film. You also know that the following combinations will work just as well: 1/125th at f22 1/60th at f32, 1/30th at f45 1/1000th at f8, 1/2000th at f5.6, 1/4000th at f4, 1/8000th at f2.8. The amount of light falling on the film is equal in all these cases, and the exposure will be identical - although depth of field and motion freezing will vary. This is what makes it possible to expose film for our own practical or artistic needs. Every film works the same way, and as long as the shutter speed stays within certain limits there will be no difference in the density of the resulting slide or negative. This is known as the Law of Reciprocity. Like all laws it was passed by Congress, and is written with a lot of heretofore and parties of the first part. So where are we going with this? Why do we even have to get into this stuff? What’s the big Problem? The problem is that the law breaks down for very long or very short exposures. In low light this means leaving the shutter open twice as long will not necessarily produce twice as much information on the film. It gets even worse with colour film as the different layers the film is composed of fail at different rates, causing colour shifts. No two films will work exactly the same way in low light. In fact, films that are technically the same may not react the exact same way tonight as they did a year ago. The film companies are always tinkering with the formulas, getting a little improvement here and a trace better colour there. They concern themselves with optimizing these films for typical shooting situations. A half hour exposure at 3 am is simply not typical. Some people try to get around reciprocity by using very fast film, pushed to its limit. For shooting low light action this may be the only solution, other than flash, but fast films are grainy and pushing makes them even grainier. The effect can be quite interesting, but unless this is what you want, it can also be the death of a good picture. The Solution So what’s to do? Your film is not reliable for long exposures. Your meter has given up, fast film is going to make for grain… It looks hopeless. But not quite. There are a couple solutions. There are, in fact Two solutions. You will need to use both to get away with night photography. A) Bracket like Hell B) Take careful notes Only by bracketing, and bracketing broadly, will you get consistent successful night shots. Without taking notes you will not be able to reproduce your results, and you will have to use up just as much film each and every time you shoot at night. You might luck out but you can also end up messing up every shot. You should be prepared to return to a site for another go round. Armed with good notes and pre-knowledge of the situation, you are more likely to get a winner. Wasting Film If your frugal nature rebels at the thought of wasting film, you probably shouldn’t be out shooting at night anyway. Film is the least expensive part of photography. It is expendable. B/W shooters can lower expenses by buying 100 foot rolls and spooling their own rolls and they can use compensating developers to bring out more latent details in their night shots - if they do their own developing. Custom processing is very expensive, and is no guarantee of good results - unless the processor fully comprehends what is needed. Colour negative film can be used for night shooting, but getting good prints from many labs can be a problem. Unless the operator is willing and able to compensate the machine exposure, the prints are likely to come out grey and quite ugly. Getting the batch re-printed frequently results in another handful of grey ugly prints. The "we’ll keep re-printing until You are satisfied" promise means little if they are incapable of ever producing a decent print. When I briefly experimented with colour negative film I always left instructions about the conditions under which the film was shot. I paid about 15 dollars for processing and machine prints on a 36 exposure roll. This was more than twice the price of drugstore prints but I rarely had to get anything re-printed. I consider time to be much more valuable than money. Slide film is probably the best bet for most night shooting. Besides sidestepping the lab problem the film itself has a built in advantage. Un-exposed slide film comes out black. It’s a deep, opaque, velvety black that yields to sudden bright highlights. Only slide film produces this rich chiaroscuro as a natural effect. Rembrandt would have been a slide shooter, and probably a night shooter as well.
I shoot Kodak Elite 100 for most of my night shots these days. It is fairly low priced, and seems to handle the mixture of lighting quite well. At this writing Fuji’s Provia F 100 is not a good film for night shooting, as the results are far too red. I’m not sure if it simply is too sensitive to red or if this is a reciprocity problem Improved Provia is supposed to be more neutral in skin tones (which are reds) so it could very well be a good night film. Other Necessities of Night Shooting A solid support is essential. There are enough ways to mess up long exposures without adding a shaky tripod. To add stability I use an old canvas camera bag full of bricks. A watch with an illuminated face is very helpful as is a small flashlight. Just remember to keep the beam from hitting the lens during an exposure. I carry a notebook at all times and note not only the exposure details but the phase of the moon (if it is going to affect exposure) and frequently a number of readings made of lit subjects - These can come in handy for those inevitable re-shoots. Some Starting Points I do my night shooting after the sky has gone black. There are plenty of magazine articles on twilight shooting that can give you some assistance with those shots. Keeping that in mind, here are some starting points for Elite 100 film. These are taken directly from my notes. » Full Moon Mid-summer (low in sky) 1/15th second at f16 Mid-winter (high in sky) 1/90th at f16 » Landscape Lit by the Full Moon One half hour at f8 » Floodlit Buildings Most modern camera meters can read subjects like this. Just get close enough, or use a zoom to get a reading. You will still have to bracket. Interiors shot from outside are usually meterable too. » Street Light Patterns (shooting to expose the lights themselves) 1 second at f8 » Objects Lit by Street Lights 10 seconds at f8 » Automobile light streaks Bulb at f16 » Christmas Lights (the tiny little ones people put on their bushes) 1 second at f8 This last will, like the streetlights, only show the lights themselves, not the houses, trees etc they are on. I did only a quick test - 3 exposures - as it was very cold. Next year I’ll do a more complete test… If it’s warmer. |