P3D Re: That time of year...

[Bill Costa - NIS/CIS - University of New Hampshire <Bill.Costa@xxxxxxx>]

    Linda Nygren <lnygren@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> I also would like some suggestions for where to start with exposure
> settings for night photography with my Realist including Christas light
> displays, lighted buildings such as Capitol domes etc.

    Unfortunately I don't have the information available at the tip of my
    fingers but perhaps I can give you a lead to follow.  Kodak has
    published a series of photo books over the years and at least a few
    have addressed this very subject.  In fact Kodak also use to give a
    short table of recommended exposure values in the data sheet that use
    to come with the higher speed films (400, etc.).  They don't seem to do
    that any more.  In any case your local library may have these Kodak
    books, it's worth a shot.  With luck you will find their tables that
    list various common situations (stadiums, stage shows, christmas
    displays, etc. etc.) with recommended exposure settings.

    As for metering, that can help give you a starting point, but that's
    about it.  The trouble with a meter is that it thinks all of the world
    is an 18% (right value?) gray card.  In other words, the assumption is
    if the entire scene were swirled together into one homogonized hue, it
    would be a gray of a certain density.  The meter gives you the exposure
    to reproduce that gray.  In the average photo, the extremes (shadows
    and highlights) typically end up falling about right in terms of their
    exposure.  But in night photography you are usually dealing with large
    fields of black with pin points of light which means that the meter
    will typically end up telling you to over expose.  In the case of a
    well illuminated building, however, one trick you can use is to walk up
    to the building so it fills the meter's view and meter from there. 
    Then use this value when you move back away from the building to frame
    your shot.  This will usually be pretty close to the ideal exposure.

    For indoor photos of Christmas trees and such, the best technique is to
    do double exposures.  For you Star Trek fans, when they film the star
    ship models in motion (actually it's the camera in motion) they do two
    (or more) passes.  For example one pass is with general illumination on
    the model itself with the interior lights off, then rewind the film and
    do another synchronized pass with just the model lights on, etc.  Each
    exposure is optimized for the lighting of that particular pass.  In a
    similiar fashion, to get a good exposure of indoor Christmas lights,
    you need to take two pictures of the family tree, one with a flash (or
    other appropriate fill lighting) and then a double exposure which is a
    much longer exposure of just the lights themselves (i.e. the room
    lights off).  It's been a long time since I've done this so I can't
    recommend any specific exposure values but I do remember getting good
    results by doing multiple tries while bracketing the bulb exposures (5
    secs, 10 secs, 15 secs, etc.).  I also remember that on the longest
    bulb exposures, the lights on the tree where so over exposed that it
    looked like the tree was on fire! :-)

    Hope that helps...

    							Later....BC


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