Long exposures with film

The answer to both questions is - trial and error. ;)

For development, I would start out as if it were exposed normally at the box speed - and make adjustments from there.


Try Fuji Acros - it has absolutely the best reciprocity characteristics there are. No correction needed till 120 seconds. Between 120 and 1000 (16.6 minutes) seconds, you only need +1/2 a stop of correction. Longer than that, it's going to be trial and error...


Hehe, thanks! I just checked, and the main site for analog photography products in Norway is stocked up on that film! Maybe I'll get one or two someday. I will start with Delta 100 Pro, and see what happens. This should be exciting.

One, maybe silly, question: When I note down my camera settings for each frame, do I number my notes according to the counter on the camera? :) How does that counter work? Fair enough, when I advance the film the counter wheel turns, but how does it compensate for any "dead advances" in the beginning of the film? I've noticed it starts on "1" after three advances after I've shut the compartment door shut.
 
As long as you number them (in your notes) in the same order you shoot them, it should be easy to figure out which shot is which. Maybe shoot something different in the middle somewhere if the whole roll is mostly the same thing - just to have a good spot to count from.
 
From my experience with night shots, even taking notes won't mean much unless you are taking the shots at the same place, same time of the month, same weather and same atmospheric conditions. That's not going to happen.

Different times of the day matters. Position of the moon matters. Humidity matters. Air pollution matters. Light pollution matters. There are tons of factor affecting your shots, and most of these factors aren't detectable with the naked eye, only picked up when your film has been exposed long enough.

Which means, it's trial and error. I am not a fussy person so I never think too much about this. Also, I suck at Math. I basically go out there and shoot at F5.6 with ISO400 film. I play with 20min, 30min and 40min exposures. It depends on how long you want the trails to be.

Honestly, the exposure difference between 20, 30 and 40min isn't very great because when you get to that time length, one stop more is A LOT. 40min is like one stop more than 20min. In day light, that's a big difference. In total darkness, you will have enough room for adjust in post processing(digital wise). You should be more worried about clouds moving in or some jerk driving up to you with his high-beam on to see what you are doing, half way into your shots.

Dress warm! Once I was all alone on the beach in total darkness. It was really creepy because I hear the sound of the waves but I could see nothing. I kept turning around thinking there's someone around. So I left the camera on the beach, went back to do my laundry and came back 45min later to pick it up. Of course the camera was still there. You couldn't see a thing!
 
With the stars constantly moving the exposure to one small trail of lght is not the entire 2 min. or whatever time you choose. The actual time amounts to only the time that particular star was in the line of your camera lens.
 
Try looking at the info on this website:
Night Sky Photo Tips

Dennis Mammana is recognized as one of the best night sky photographers working today. I really doubt you need to worry about reciprocity when doing star trail imagery. The exposures are going to be many minutes long and will be more influenced by sky brightness from artificial lights unless you are photographing from a very dark sky site.
 

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