 Pieter J. Roelofse |
No Shutter Speed Reading for Low Light Photography Dear Sirs I want to take landscape pictures in very low light situations. I want my pictures to be crisp and clear (ISO 50 or 100) and correctly exposed. I open my aperture as far as possible, yet, the light is so low that I don't get any reading on shutter speed. What do I do? I would like to try out really long exposures such as 1-4 minutes or even longer. Any advice? Thanks
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
What kind of camera do you have and how low a light are we talking? You could override your ISO and set it higher and then compensate the resulting reading down to your actual ISO. For example load ISO50 film and set your ISO for 400. Take a reading and add 3 stops. Or you could get a low light exposure guide and experiment. Kodak makes such a guide as well as Black Cat.
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Ken Pang |
Another thing you could try is to do the math in your head manually, (or on a calculator) and then use the bulb setting on your camera. Being a little off won't make much of a difference. The thing you have to worry about is camera shake, especially with long lenses, heavy cameras or bad tripods. Even the slightest wind will cause the photo to be then unsharp. I had a 70-200mm f/2.8 set up, which was quite heavy, sitting on a cheap tripod, and almost every photo I took over 1/2 a second was unsharp. I'm considering investing into a Manfrotto Carbon Fibre Extrodinare.
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
One thing I forgot to mention is that you must also correct for the recriprocity failure of the film. Check the spec sheets on the film for recommended filtration and compensation.
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John A. Lind |
Ken mentions a Manfrotto tripod. If you are in the U.S., Manfrotto is sold under the Bogen name with a different numbering scheme for the models of tripods and heads. As Ken mentioned, you want a tripod that is *very* sturdy and with a solid head as well as the legs. I've used a Bogen 3221 for night cityscapes. It's heavier than the one Ken mentions and wouldn't recommend it for mountain climbing, but can still be carried fair distances (day hikes). Manfrotto's web site (not the Bogen one in the U.S.) has a conversion table that shows the Manfrotto and Bogen model numbers together. For very long exposures using chromes, Fuji's Provia 100F (RDP III) has one of the best I've found; it's good to 128 seconds without any exposure compensation or color correction. Fuji's Astia 100 (RAP) is good up to 32 seconds, which is still very long compared to the other chromes. By comparison, Provia 400 is good up to 4 seconds which is more typical. -- John
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