Time lapse at night - help please

[Mike Currell]

Hi all and merry xmas

 

I am looking at doing some time lapse of the stars and moon.

 

So far my research has led me to the Bauer royal series of cams ie 8 and 10. These cams allow you to vary the exposure time for each frame. However I read thru a manual for the royal 8 macro and it seems that they will only allow you to do this for 12 secs of projection time at 18 fps and it seems that it is going to automatically adjust the aperture even tho the cam seems to have a manual aperture setting. I remember reading somewhere that you can overide the 12 second thing by gaffer taping a knob and stopping it from moving?? can't be good for the cam??

 

Has anyone got one of these german cams - they look like fun!

 

Also, does any form of the Nizo'S do this sort of thing ie time exposure with intervalometer??

 

Another thing....I have a new (new to me) 1014xls. What about pointing it at the moon with shutter (shutter will open to 220 degrees) and aperture wide open and using some very fast film.....do they sell 500 asa colour reversal anywhere? It seems that Pro 8's fast stuff is all negative.

 

Sorry to be full of questions....better than being full of sh%$#t!

 

Cheers all

[Alessandro Machi]

18 x 12 = 205 frames, that is actually a significant amount of time if you are truly doing time-exposure work.

 

I forget if the timer has a slip clutch or not. The auto function that is being talked about is probably the light sensor and not the f-stop. You can lengthen the light sensor timing by covering a portion of the sensor with black tape. Or, if you build a variable led inside of a black cover that goes over the light sensor, you can have complete control over the time-exposure duration.

 

I would advise not setting the f-stop any lower than a 2.0 / 2.8 split for purposes of sharpness. The wider the aperture the more the lights seem to look "fuzzy".

 

The Nizo 800 series offers time-exposure.

[Anthony Schilling]

I've done this a bit with the Nizo. There is an autoB function for auto time exposure, but you are also able to set your own intervals and exposure with the shutter open (1 sec-1min)... thats what I recommend. You can download an exposure table that gives combinations of time, f-stop, and film speed relating to different night time scenarios. Check out some night shots where I used time exposure for night skies and city streets in the 16mm forum, under "16mm demo reel"