Night Shot

[mangorockfish]

Not sure if this is the correct place for this or not. Across the street is a very small and old cemetery with an old timey street light beside it. The street light gives one tall monument as well as the whole cemetery an eerie glow. I want to photograph it with my Mamiya 645 and have a question on exposure. Can I set my camera up on a tripod across the street, walk over to the cemetery, take a meter reading showing how much light is falling on the scene from the street light and adjust my camera settings accordingly and get a good exposure or will I need to have some sort of flash? Thanks

 

[tirediron]

You can definitely do that, but I wouldn't hold my breath that a street light is going to provide sufficient light for an exposure unless you're using VERY fast film.

 

[mrca]

If you have a digital camera, after taking a meter reading in area you want properly exposed , check the exposure on the lcd/histogram. There will be falloff from the street light illumination so you may want to check to check the exposure difference between the darkest area you want shadow detail and your brightest area and your middle gray. If you are using b&w film you probably have more dynamic range than digital that will help.

 

[Derrel]

If you have a digital camera, after taking a meter reading in area you want properly exposed , check the exposure on the lcd/histogram. There will be falloff from the street light illumination so you may want to check to check the exposure difference between the darkest area you want shadow detail and your brightest area and your middle gray. If you are using b&w film you probably have more dynamic range than digital that will help.

It's possible that you might need a rather long exposure time, such as f/8 at 10 to 30 seconds, or perhaps even more time...kind of depends on the amount of light present and the speed of the film in the Mamiya 645. And YES, it is very possible to do some test button-firing of a hand-held flash unit and to in that way, "light paint" some of the darker areas with flash pops that you fire during a rather lengthy time exposure. I did this a technique back in the 1980's using ASA 100 or 64 slide film, at f/8, and typically 15 to 60 second exposures, with one to as many as twenty flash pops from a Vivitar 285HV run from a Quantum Turbo battery for VERY rapid flash recycle times.

 

[TCampbell]

Not sure if this is the correct place for this or not. Across the street is a very small and old cemetery with an old timey street light beside it. The street light gives one tall monument as well as the whole cemetery an eerie glow. I want to photograph it with my Mamiya 645 and have a question on exposure. Can I set my camera up on a tripod across the street, walk over to the cemetery, take a meter reading showing how much light is falling on the scene from the street light and adjust my camera settings accordingly and get a good exposure or will I need to have some sort of flash? Thanks

I have a Mamiya 645 (that I never use) ... so I'm thinking you're talking about the film version of the camera (the digital version is VERY expensive).

You're going to need to get an idea in your head of what details you want... vs. what details you're willing to lose and consider the light "fall off" problem. The farther something is from the source of the light, the more the light has had a chance to "spread out". This means the amount of light landing in a given area gets less and less and you are farther way and it will be darker.

The rules are based on the inverse of the square of the difference in distances. E.g. if the monument which is near the light is (I'll make up a number) 10' away... then anything 20' away is "double" the distance (2x) . The square of 2 is 4. But it's not the square... it's the INVERSE of the square... so instead of 4... it's 1/4. The light 20' away will only be 1/4 as bright as the light 10' away. (1/4 as much light is a difference of 2 stops). If you picked a spot 40' away (4x farther) then 4^2 = 16 so that area only gets 1/16th as much light.

If you set your exposure for the light of the nearby monument then the areas farther away may seem too dark (depending on the look you want).

What you CAN do is meter the light at the monument and see what you get. Meter something you want a bit farther away that you want to be in the image. Now you have two meter readings... one bright, one darker. This way your monument is exposed to the bright side, but the other details you want are exposed to the dark side, but they all (hopefully) fit in the dynamic range well enough.

In the darkroom you can play the burning & dodging game to get something you like.

 

[mrca]

Derrel, you bring back memories of that vivitar. Have a newer version that won't toast my digital camera if in the hot shoe. Light painting is a great suggestion for op. Could be some appropriately eerie effects for a cemetery and produce some cool images.