long exposure, metering and manual camera

den9 · Mar 7, 2012

i do alot of night shots in the city, my old cameras always metered down to 30 seconds, my current camera is only good for 1 second and bulb, is there any trick or general rule of thumb? i assume ill have to hold down the shutter and use a stop watch or count in my head and buy a hand held meter.

ann · Mar 7, 2012

buy a cable release and a stop watch and experiment

snowbear · Mar 7, 2012

Like Ann said, remote, stopwatch and bulb setting.

edit: I got curious on this (as usual) - both, the D50 and the 1N have shutter speeds of 30" according to their prospective manuals.

SCraig · Mar 7, 2012

According the owner's manual for the D50 the shutter speed is adjustable from 1/4000 second to 30 seconds.

snowbear · Mar 7, 2012

duplicate post - sorry

Helen B · Mar 7, 2012

Is it the D50 you are asking about? You've posted this in the film section.

What light level do you need to meter down to - ie what typical set of ISO, aperture and shutter speed are you talking about? That will tell us how sensitive a light meter you would need. What camera were you using before and what speed film were you using?

Proteus617 · Mar 7, 2012

den9 said:
is there any trick or general rule of thumb?

Rules of thumb at the Ultimate Exposure Computer. Don't forget about reciprocity failure. Like Ann said, it's more a matter of experimentation and experience than anything. Bracket liberally and take notes. I did an experiment in my neighborhood last year. I would load TriX 120 in an old box camera and pick four subjects. All were shot at the same aperture and bracketed 1sec, 10 sec, 30 sec. Then I would run home and develop the roll, giving it some push with Rodinal 1:100 semi-stand. After a roll or two I get pretty good at estimating light values for that particular set-up.

den9 · Mar 7, 2012

i should edit my signature, im using a nikon fm10 now

den9 · Mar 7, 2012

Helen B said:
Is it the D50 you are asking about? You've posted this in the film section.

What light level do you need to meter down to - ie what typical set of ISO, aperture and shutter speed are you talking about? That will tell us how sensitive a light meter you would need. What camera were you using before and what speed film were you using?

well whenever i did night photography it was always around 3-30 seconds

i usually did f/8 with 50-160 iso film

using nikon fm10

Helen B · Mar 7, 2012

30" at f/8 with ISO 160 isn't all that dark - it's EV 1 at ISO 160 (f/8 is Av = 6, 30" is Tv = -5), so it's EV 0.3 at ISO 100. Most light meters, but not spot meters, should be capable of reading midtones at that lighting level. It is, however, just below the metering range for the FM10 - but only just below, if you have a fast lens fitted. That means that most of the time you could use the FM10s meter (especially if you meter off something light like a white card) then adjust the aperture and recalculate the shutter speed. Get a locking cable release, as already suggested.

den9 · Mar 7, 2012

well today i learned about EV tables. how do you calculate all this if you are shooting at different iso's?

i have the tripod and shutter cable ready. ill be shooting lit night scene, neons and such

Proteus617 · Mar 7, 2012

den9 said:
well today i learned about EV tables. how do you calculate all this if you are shooting at different iso's?

i have the tripod and shutter cable ready. ill be shooting lit night scene, neons and such

EV takes into account ISO, LV does not. LV = EV at ISO 100.

Mike_E · Mar 8, 2012

Proteus617 said:
den9 said:

is there any trick or general rule of thumb?

Click to expand...

Rules of thumb at the Ultimate Exposure Computer. Don't forget about reciprocity failure. Like Ann said, it's more a matter of experimentation and experience than anything. Bracket liberally and take notes. I did an experiment in my neighborhood last year. I would load TriX 120 in an old box camera and pick four subjects. All were shot at the same aperture and bracketed 1sec, 10 sec, 30 sec. Then I would run home and develop the roll, giving it some push with Rodinal 1:100 semi-stand. After a roll or two I get pretty good at estimating light values for that particular set-up.