night shots

santino

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Hi there!
I'm kinda new to "tradiotinal" night shots, I use a Praktica MTL 5B
http://www.praktica-collector.de/214_Praktica_MTL5B.htm
I got a question, I use the "B" mode but it's still a mystery to me, how long the shutter should be kept opened. (I know it depends on light sources and so on) any advise would be very helpfull.
 
You will probably have to experiment to really get a feel for it. Take a roll out and try 1 sec, 3 sec, 10 sec, 30 sec, 2 min, 5 min, and 15 min.

Depending on your film choice you may not even see much of a difference between some of the exposures even if it seems like there is a big difference in exposure times; this is reciprocity failure in effect. Check out sites on night photography for suggestions for different subjects, and be sure to read the small print about your film; it will give recommendations for adjusting exposure times longer than 1 sec.
 
If you go to the Fuji site and look up the tech pub on that film it'll have a chart somewhere that looks something like this:

if your meter says 5 sec, then open up the aperture 1 stop
if your meter says 30 sec then open up your aperture 2 stops
etc...
 

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