Need help exposing this night time image with Vision 2 500t

Bjarne Eldhuset · September 17, 2006

Hi, I'm planning to shoot my two first rolls of Vision 2 500t negative film this evening. I will do some inside tests as well as outside. The problem is I don't know exactly how to expose this film.

What do I do if there is so little light that the camera meter is off the scale?

One of the places I want to shoot is in the Oslo harbour, where there is a clock tower in the front and an old fortress in the background that looks nice in the night time.

Some time ago I shot a picture of the setting that I want to film, and I would very much appreciate your opinions on how to expose

this image

I have an external minolta auto meter IV F, but where do I measure the light? I can't climb the tower to take a reading there. At least i won't.

My nizo pro has an internal meter that works. Should I just put in the film, trust the internal meter, and shoot away?

On my Nikon R10, the meter is not working. Any suggestions?

Hope to learn from you wise people!

Regards, Bjarne Eldhuset,

Oslo, Norway.

Oron Cohen · September 17, 2006

Hi,

to get the look of the picture I would measure the places around the tower or in the tower with the biggest amunt of light and then over expose them a stop. so if you have in your highlight F2.8 so expose f2.

the probelm is that I don't know if you have the light out there in 200asa, maybe you will see that the palce with the most light out there still read lower then F1.4, I cant know this based on the picture because I dosen't know in which asa settings or film it was taken.

genrley in the future I would suggest you if you plan on shooting night exterior so go for the 500T 7218, it will be safer for available light outdoor shooting because you will have more chance of getting a good f stop reading.

Bjarne Eldhuset · September 17, 2006

Hi, thanks for the advice! The image was shot ditigal with a cannon powershot a5 camera, and I can't remember the settings. I guess it's smart to measure the lightest areas of the image, and let the darks go, eh, dark.

The light in the tower seems pretty strong, but I suppose i should measure it in some way. I could zoom in with my nizo and take a reading, but the readings seem to differ a lot when at long focal range as opposed to short focal range, so I don't feel I can trust that reading too much.

As for the film, I am actually going to use 500t, as i wrote in my first post :-)

Anyone else have advice or experience using 500t at night or in low light?

Regards, Bjarne Eldhuset, Oslo, Norway.

Oron Cohen · September 17, 2006

hi,

sorry about not notice this is 500T, how do you plan to use the light meter of the camera, I am sure there is no way the light meter of the r10 know that you are on 500asa film.

I think about that and its very hard to exsplain someone how to exspose right I figure you just have to try and learn by your self, I for sure would use a light meter and I try 2 or 3 diffrent exposures, one time go to the "over"(1 stop) one time to "under"(1 stop) and one time "correct", after this I would view the stuff I shoot and try to learn from my mistake this how I learn to measure light.

have a good shoot:-)

Alessandro Machi · September 18, 2006

hi,

sorry about not notice this is 500T, how do you plan to use the light meter of the camera, I am sure there is no way the light meter of the r10 know that you are on 500asa film.

I think about that and its very hard to exsplain someone how to exspose right I figure you just have to try and learn by your self, I for sure would use a light meter and I try 2 or 3 diffrent exposures, one time go to the "over"(1 stop) one time to "under"(1 stop) and one time "correct", after this I would view the stuff I shoot and try to learn from my mistake this how I learn to measure light.

have a good shoot:-)

If I was in your situation I would split my motivation between learning how to maximize what the camera can do with what I want out of the shot, especially since it appears you are shooting with available light only.

The first thing I would want to know is can I trust the camera when it is wide open f-stop wise to produce a sharp image. For comparison's sake, I might do one set of tests with the camera's f-stop wide open, then another with the f-stop set at f 2.8, perhaps if I am really curious, another one at f 4.0 (although for your specific situation shooting at 24 frames per second may become pointless at f4.0).

Additionally, I would consider doing a test at 9 FPS as well (assuming you are on a tripod) as this will give you an additional 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 additional sensitivity.

Bjarne Eldhuset · September 21, 2006

Hi again, and thanks for all your good advice! I had to delay the test-shooting till this weekend, but now I'm looking very much forward to it! One, or two, questions though, as I have seen various opinions about how my two cameras read the vision 2 500t film.

1. At which asa does the nizo professional read the vision 2 500t? Is it at 320?

2. At which asa does the Nikon R10 read the vision 2 500t? Some say at 400, others at 640. I need to know so I can set my external meter correctly, as the internal meter isn't working.

Again, thanks for all your help so far! Hope someone will bare with my basic questions for a little while longer :-)

Regards, Bjarne Eldhuset, Oslo, Norway.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Bjarne Eldhuset