Need some exposure assistance for a little project.

[Paul]

TOnight or Tommorow (wed or thurs) after dark, I am going to head to the midway at the Red River Valley Fair for some good afterdark slow speed action shots. I once saw a series of bulb pics taken on a tripod in the dark and when people walked through the pic they showed up as transperant ghosts in the picture. I am looking for that effect in a crowd of people with carnival lights in the back ground. I am kinda thinking probably 800 iso 55mm lense and a few second exposure. ANyone know the perfect recipe for this kind of shot? Aperature, ISO, TV?

[Steve Foss]

Hey Paul:

Experimentation will be the key. If there are bright carnival lights (well, there will be, obviously), I'd start at iso100 from a tripod with a remote shutter release. If it were me, I'd set the camera to aperture priority mode (Av) and let the camera decide when enough light has been gathered to close the shutter. You'll be able to dictate and change shutter speed to get what you want by altering the aperture settings.

You'll generally need an exposure of at least several seconds for a person walking through to appear totally ghostly, but it also depends on how fast the person is moving.

And, because you're digital and can review each image on the rear LCD, you'll be able to fool with the iso at will to achieve what you want. Even one or two excellent images will be a fine yield for such an experiment.

One note. Since the carnival lights will be the primary light source in the image, I'd make sure that people passing through your frame also are lit, which can be a simple as paying attention before you set up to which places have enough light to reflect of passing faces.

Good luck, and show us how you do.

[Paul]

Thanks Steve,

I was pretty much leaning in that direction but as you say experiment is key. I can take a lot of experiment with 4 gig of CF cards. Have you ever messed with IR photos?

[Dbl]

Paul take a look here http://www.fishingminnesota.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1078728&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Those settings will get you right in the ballpark, depends on how much backlighting etc. there is. Good luck. I have a paint with light shot with ghosting I will post tomorrow to give you an idea of the settings.

[Steve Foss]

Paul, what are IR photos?

[Paul]

infared. You use a infared filter on your glass, use tripod and long exposure time. You are shooting blind however bucause you will see nothing through the view finder till after you take the picture. This will only work on some cameras I guess due to their natural abiltiy to block infra red rays, but some cameras will let enough escape past to put some kewl pics together with 1-3 sec esposure times. Biggest problem is the Filters are $$$$$$ upwards of $100+ for a filter.

[Paul]

Hey DBL, those shots are sort of what started this little nite time experiment. I think that picture of downtown rocks. I work in the dark mainly so it would only be natural to take pictures in the dark I guess. In a high school photography class years ago my teacher had some pictures he took of an solar eclips with an airplane flying through. He did that with a tripod and a few second bulb shot with a combination of several UV filters and some color filter on Slide Stock. I have attempted to copy cat that but no sucess. That is what is nice about digital, instant resluts, pic sucks delete and you lose nothing. It was a hard bullet for me to swallow to quit using my 35 mm slr. But the digitals are getting better every year.

[Dbl]

Cool Paul, experiment away. Here was some fun experimentation. Set the camera on a tripod used the self timer and set to Av, ISO200, f2.8, 30sec exposure. Just walked in front of the camera with a small blue flashlight and spelled the name of a buddy that was with me. My walking in and walking out gives you the ghosting. It was a windy night, blur in the trees shows that but it was fun to try the shot.

You will also notice the blinking lights of an airliner in the background along with the landing lights. Try the same thing out at Hector with the airplanes on final and you get similar results. Again this is just a fooling around shot nothing technically great about it.

At the fair you will have a lot more light to deal with so I think your exposures will be closer to the 10sec to 15sec range, but see what happens. If you want a longer exposure for ghosting reasons just stop down and lower the ISO or add a filter to cut down on the light. Keep in mind longer exposures even with digital can do some color shifting and add noise, but that may be good.