Night photography on Film

in #photography7 years ago

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Shooting film in the night is still one of the hardest parts of film photography for me. Every film exposes differently and you have to know how much time you need to get the right light by practice. The best thing you can do with any branch of photography is to experiment :)


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This post has received a 1.84 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @rorxco.

The great thing about long exposures on film comes from the reciprocity effect. It means that there is almost no difference between a 1h exposure and a 3h exposure.
On film I always rather overexpose, as the negatives are rather 'printable' than when underexposed.
The conclusion: If you think about exposing some minutes, go for a full hour. If you think about an hour, go for 5....
Here's an example of a 10h exposure. It was a dark night. Exposed on some Fuji film and cross-processed.

Hope that makes sense!

Wow! Love your comment and the shot! Reciprocity is what was pushing me off film until I tried it for night scenes. Now it’s what brings me the fun in shooting it. For most films I find reciprocity scales but I couldn’t do so for ultra max so in that shot I went with exactly the rule you state. Thanks for the good advice :) and keep sharing knowledge