Night Photography

Marco B · Oct 19, 2009

lilmsmaggie said:
I'm shooting with Delta 400 aperatures ranging from f2.5 to f16 - increasing exposures as aperture gets smaller e.g. 3 secs to 3 minutes 36 secs. Tonight, I plan on shooting this range and adding +- exposure compensation for each aperture, so that should give me a total of 24 exposures.

Wish me luck!

F16 will in most cases be overkill, unless you intend to shoot tele with foreground subjects and need serious depth of field. F16 may require very long exposures taking into account reciprocity failure in some situations. Most of my shots in urban settings use wide angle (28-40mm) and I usually get away with F5.6-F9.5 combined with careful manual focussing to make the most of the depth of field.

I also recommend you to overexpose and underdevelop. E.g. bracket your shots, starting at +1 to +3, and than underdevelop with maybe 30-40%. It will help curb contrast and create printable highlights (e.g. direct streetlights)

Maybe it is best to shoot two rolls: one that you develop normally, and a second one with the same shots that you develop shorter. You can than see the difference and learn from it.

Marco

lilmsmaggie · Oct 19, 2009

Marco B said:
Maybe it is best to shoot two rolls: one that you develop normally, and a second one with the same shots that you develop shorter. You can than see the difference and learn from it.

Marco

Well I did shoot two rolls duplicating the exposures and also shooting the scene from a different vantage point. I probably should have used slighty different exposure times as well -- Doh!

mikez · Oct 20, 2009

My experiences with Delta400 at night is that it's hard (but possible) to "over" expose. A lot of the time you're going to be running into unevenly lit scenes so you want to get as much information as you can in the shadows without blowing the hell out of the highlights. I think what Marco recommended is a good starting point for you in terms of film development, it really does help to under develop the highlights.

lilmsmaggie · Oct 20, 2009

mikez said:
A lot of the time you're going to be running into unevenly lit scenes so you want to get as much information as you can in the shadows without blowing the hell out of the highlights.

Ain't it the truth! -- my biggest issue shooting Mondavi has been automobile traffic and headlights. Mondavi is near the entrance to the U.C. Davis campus from the Interstate exit, so there's constant traffic.

The slowest drivers take aprox. 8-9 seconds to enter and leave the lens field of view (I'm shooting with a 28 mm lens). For exposures of 10 seconds or less, that pretty much affects the entire exposure.

Sanders recommends covering the lens during that time and adding it back in once the vehicle passes - but that may be easier said than done considering the frequency and number of vehicles that pass through. I haven't tried it yet because I just happened to read about the technique last night. :rolleyes:

And of course - butthead that I am, I didn't think of doing that myself.

I decided to take the first two rolls to a commercial lab to have them processed using Gordon Hutchings PMK Pyro formula. Expensive but if I just happened to get some good frames, it may be worth the cost to get the additional detail, etc. The lab also uses Xtol which I understand has some sharpness benefits in terms of the grain.

I wouldn't know. I'm still learning.

In any case, I can use the results I get to fine tune my exposure times.

lilmsmaggie · Oct 20, 2009

BTW - Andy K - thanks for recommending Sanderson's book --Sweet!

mikez · Oct 21, 2009

Sounds like you're working hard. Hang in there. Sometimes people like the vehicle lights streaking through, but to be honest I think it looks very tacky in a lot of images, IMO streaks in the sky from planes look better.

Anyway have you tried shooting VERY late at night or very EARLY in the morning. Like last night I was out from about 2AM-6AM photographing with my hasselblad X-PAN and Mamiya 7 II and hardly encountered any cars. I guess it depends where you live. (NOTE TO ANYONE: RANGEFINDERS + NIGHT = NO FUN)

Regardless why don't you try stopping down your lens more so your exposures become longer and you can cover the lens more accurately while cars pass? If your exposure time is longer it's easier to block light for 8 seconds out of a 20 minute exposure than it is to block light out for 8 seconds of a 10 second exposure, then recalculate and re-expose. I've done some shots on traditional grain (HP5+, FP4+) 8x10 that were upwards of two hours. Any cars going by were a breeze to exclude with a sheet of cardboard.

Andy K · Oct 21, 2009

If I'm making long night exposures and a car comes I just put my hand in front of the lens and stop the count until the car passes.

Marco B · Oct 21, 2009

lilmsmaggie said:
And of course - butthead that I am, I didn't think of doing that myself.

You're not a butthead, we all need to be pointed out the all to obvious sometimes, and this simple solution, although effective, can simply prove impractical if there is way to much traffic. Sometimes you have to live with the situation and hope for the best. It may work out well, see one of the shots I posted here in the thread before.

lilmsmaggie said:
I decided to take the first two rolls to a commercial lab to have them processed using Gordon Hutchings PMK Pyro formula. Expensive but if I just happened to get some good frames, it may be worth the cost to get the additional detail, etc.

I really do think you need to try the overexpose/underdevelop option as well (N-2 pull development)... Instead of trying to pull out as much detail using a more expensive and complicated development process like Pyro or stand development.

It is easy to do, and I think you will be amazed at how much more shadowdetail you can have, without blowing your highlights entirely. I definitely was, when in the beginning of this year, I for the first time made a controlled test using three 4x5 LF negatives of the same building at night, one exposed normally, the other two overexposed and developed shorter at 25% (N-1), and about 40% shorter (N-2). I was flabbergasted at the difference.

And except for a longer exposure time (which at night time with usually non-moving subjects is no problem), you have the benefit of shorter film processing... which as in my case is handwork and can be boring enough at times.

I think Pyro and stand development are more of use in those cases where short exposure times are critical, or you haven't made a conscious decision to overexpose, and later decide you need to get the most of the film in terms of overall detail. But I must admit I have never used one of these methods, so probably some more knowledgeable people can comment better on their respective benefits for (night) photography, also compared to N-1/2 pull development.

Marco

Marco B · Oct 21, 2009

And in addition you will have the benefit of some very nice fine grain. It really makes a difference in that respect as well.

Andy K · Oct 22, 2009

If you can do your own developing you can avoid blown out highlights by stand developing. This exhausts the developer on the highlights while the shadows develop normally.

lilmsmaggie · Oct 31, 2009

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. The last two rolls of Delta 400 I used for this project returned last Friday but I haven't had time to look at the negs and the contract sheet. I did notice that several frames in succession were blow out/overexposed (guessing here), not sure what I did. These two rolls were processed in Pyro. I need to make it a goal to take better notes.

Maybe tonight I can look at the notes I did manage to take along with the contact sheet and determine where I should be concentrating on getting good exposures.

AmandaTom · Nov 21, 2009

@Marco:
I tried the overexposing and underdeveloping trick last night with Acros. I do have some TMax 400 as per your recommendation but I didn't have it in holders for my impromptu session. I set up in front of a building I guessed would be about 4 seconds at f8 on Acros (it was well lit). I used f/11 for better depth of field and tried 8 seconds, 16 seconds, and 32 seconds. I tray developed them for N, N-1, and N-2 in Xtol. I had doubts about this working as I am so used to using speed enhancing developers or semi-stand development. I turned the sheets every 30 seconds. I am happy to report that I was wrong and you were right. I will post a link later today.

Marco B · Nov 21, 2009

AmandaTom said:
I am happy to report that I was wrong and you were right. I will post a link later today.

Good to hear. Definitely give that TMax 400 also a try. I am curious to hear what your experiences are. I must admit I have only tried it in my pinhole camera for nighttime photography, but the results were quite convincing beating TMax 100 and Acros 100 in terms of shorter exposure times. But I would like to hear your experiences as well.

Marco B · Nov 22, 2009

I have now posted some test results of overexposure and shortened development here:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Marco

lilmsmaggie · Nov 22, 2009

Hey amanda and everyone!

Forgot to update you on results. I got several really good shots in f8 thru f16. In some frames, you can barely make out that there were vehicle lights moving across. Most of the shots of Mondavi came out clean and sharp. There were a few frames where I used a cross-screen filter. Unfortunately, it was way too much. Overwhelming in fact - primarily because of multiple light sources.

All in all, I think I did a pretty good job --(pat on the back) for my first foray into night shooting.

AmandaTom · Nov 23, 2009

Got any shots we can see?
I did not have time to convert my tiffs to jpgs yesterday and the files are way too big to load, so tomorrow.
Marco, thanks for posting your results. Yes, the 6 & 12 minutes do look over-exposed but my what a difference in density! My biggest challenge with my negatives is printing them. I really must hone my exposure skills because printing negatives with 9-10 zones is far beyond my skills.

AmandaTom · Nov 23, 2009

Finally, I have uploaded to flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandatomlin/

Marco B · Nov 23, 2009

AmandaTom said:
Finally, I have uploaded to flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandatomlin/

Looks good Amanda! Results a bit similar to mine, except the overdone overexposure I had.

But you can see the clear increase in shadow detail, while keeping the highlights under control.

The 16 sec, 6.5 minutes negative definitely looks more pleasing than the "normal" 8 sec, 8.5 minutes developed negative. Just that extra bit of detail in the shadows that you want to have without ruining the highlight areas (shop window), especially the pavement area in the lower left part of the negative is no longer one big black hole, but shows some nice detail.

The 32 sec, 4.5 minutes also still looks good.

Marco

lilmsmaggie · Nov 23, 2009

The short answer is yes, but I'd have to scan, convert to jpeg or tiff then upload. And oh yeah, there is the little matter of becoming a subscriber. But the biggest show-stopper is scanning. I can check at school and see if I can get one of the lab assistants to help me scan. I know they have a scanner. In fact, last week while I was doing some mounting one of the students in an advance class came in for just that reason. We'll see.

Night Photography

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