Shooting slides at night?

[celerystalksme]

Alright...

So...I'm mostly a camera collector and hardly ever shoot. I'm not sure how that happened. Anyway...here's what I'd like to do...I want to take nighttime shots of buildings...I want to shoot slide...and I have mostly point-and-shoot cameras.

Will I encounter problems? I hear slides have very narrow exposure range...and I hear point-and-shoots can't meter worth a darn in low light or difficult lighting. At least...that's what some photo.net people said...saying it's practically folly shooting slides at night with a p&s. But I found a couple glimmers of hope...a couple photo.net people said they've done it with great success.

So what do you guys think? If it makes a difference, I have just about every modern high end point-and-shoot camera...in case one is better than another at exposure metering.

Thanks!

 

[kex]

Of coz u can,just need a tripod.

 

[Stoned]

spot metering would be useful when shooting slides at night, as would be some level of exposure control. If your PnS doesn't have a spot meter, get an external one.

 

[sabrewolf]

Can your PnS select manual shutter speed, if not, forget about it, most point and shoot will fire the flash due to the lack of light. Flash is of course pointless.

Otherwise get Provia 400F film and when process ask for push +2 stop.

 

[celerystalksme]

Can your PnS select manual shutter speed, if not, forget about it, most point and shoot will fire the flash due to the lack of light. Flash is of course pointless.

Otherwise get Provia 400F film and when process ask for push +2 stop.

nope, none of them offer manual shutter speed. i was planning on turning the flash off and using a tripod. someone else told me i'd want to dial in -EV to avoid blown out highlights from strong point source lights. but you're saying i want to push?

 

[celerystalksme]

spot metering would be useful when shooting slides at night, as would be some level of exposure control. If your PnS doesn't have a spot meter, get an external one.

how would i use the spot meter?

 

[kex]

highlights will definitely be blown off for nite scene if u want a balanced result,unless u dun mind a dark looking slide with well exposed strong light.

i would say put it on tripod and bracket a few shots with the + - EV and see how it goes.

 

[ricohflex]

Alright...

So...I'm mostly a camera collector and hardly ever shoot. I'm not sure how that happened.

Thanks!

welcome to the club

 

[Stoned]

how would i use the spot meter?

well essentially a spot meter helps you to get the parts that you want well exposed(not over/under) er.. well exposed. Sorry about how odd that sounds. Bracketing as Kex suggested is a very good method, but for me personally a little painful on the wallet. I guess if you can afford to collect a couple of bucks isn't gonna matter to you so yeah! meter on the parts you want well exposed and bracket 7 shots from -3EV to +3EV. You'll likely get the shot you wanted.

 

[sabrewolf]

pushing 2 stop on Provia 400F makes it into ISO 1600, since you cannot select manual speed your PnS might not go more than 1 sec exposure and you definitely need more than 1 sec.

Here is my rule of thumb at ISO 400: 2 second, 4 second, 8 second at aperture F8 for cityscapes. I always get at least 1 good exposure using that rule.

 

[szekiat]

i think the konica hexar or some of the contax and leica PnS allow manual exposure. That will help. Also, look at the exposure guide found on the inside of the film's box. It tells you how much compensation you need to key in for that particular type of film. This is key since the exposure time vs aperture relationship is not linear esp at low light levels.

 

[celerystalksme]

i think the konica hexar or some of the contax and leica PnS allow manual exposure.

Konica Hexar AF does have manual exposure, I believe. But the Leica CM and the Contax T3 do not have manual.

 

[ricohflex]

many years ago USA sold a night shot calculator
basically a reference guide. it is handy size and has guides on what exposure to use for what situation

fyi the olympus om4 can autometer for very long exposures accurately
the pentax LX not bad too
i think the gossen meter I used to have called mastersix can meter dim scenes up to many hours.

 

[alvinchuan]

Konica Hexar AF does have manual exposure, I believe. But the Leica CM and the Contax T3 do not have manual.

Hi
Leica Cm has a Manual long time exposure where you can manual detemine the exposure time from 0 to 99s.

Cheers

 

[megaweb]

How about list out your PnS cameras ?

 

[sweat100]

If you are worried of under exp and blown highlights. I suggest you take at dusk where there is still a tinge of blue in the sky. So that the highlights wont be blown and shutter speed will be ard 1/8s to 1s if u use provia 400. (If i am not wrong some P&S can go up to 1-2 sec exp) Should yield quite satisfactory results.

 

[celerystalksme]

How about list out your PnS cameras ?

I'm not sure how broad or narrow a definition of PnS I should use...but here are all my film, fixed lens (non-interchangeable lens), 35mm cameras:

Leica CM
Nikon 35ti
Minolta TC-1
Ricoh GR1v
Rollei AFM35
Contax T3
Yashica T5 (T4 Super)
Olympus Stylus Epic
Cosina CX-2
Lomo LCA
Minox 35 GT-E
Olympus XA
Canon Demi EE17
Agat 18K
Argus Model A
Canon AF35M (Autoboy)
Smena 8M

Could have sworn I had a couple others...but that's all I could find right now in my basement camera corner. Course, that's more than enough really...most of them never get used anymore. I tend to grab the GR1v most often...I just love its size, form factor, the SNAP mode, etc. Plus, it's already dinged up a tiny bit so I'm not worried about banging it around!

 

[ricohflex]

Get a hand held meter and a cheap & good rangefinder or slr that is fully manual where you control shutter speed and aperture. Must have "Bulb". A fairly good and light tripod.
Cable release with locking feature. You are in business. All can be bought second hand cheaply. Not need to splurge.

 

[celerystalksme]

Get a hand held meter and a cheap & good rangefinder or slr that is fully manual where you control shutter speed and aperture. Must have "Bulb". A fairly good and light tripod.
Cable release with locking feature. You are in business. All can be bought second hand cheaply. Not need to splurge.

Got it all. I'm not sure if I mentioned above or not...but I want to try to use a P&S camera. My goal is to be able to take some decent night/low-light shots with a P&S cuz I wanna be able to do it when I travel. And I only travel with my smaller P&S cameras. The reason I want slides is cuz I wanna do something with them (an arts and crafts project, if you will) once I get them developed and mounted.

 

[ricohflex]

your Contax T3 can autoexpose up to 180 seconds
your Rollei AF35M can autoexpose up to 60 seconds

if you want to use spot metering suggest you use it to measure a specific area
then go to manual mode to control the shot
have to be careful what area to measure with the spot meter
if measured area too bright or too dark you got problems

kex said bracket your shots since you insist to use point and shoot for night shots
this is sensible advice

you can buy (I think name is) Black Cat low light exposure calculator.
my old kodak exposure calculator has some recommendations too.
or you can just surf the net there will be a low light shot forum telling you best exposure combination of shutter speed and aperture (provided your point and shoot allows you to control both as the Contax T3 does)

the leica minilux point and shoot has an electrical cable release for "Bulb" mode shots.

Some useful links for all on night photography and calculating exposure.

http://abetterphotoguide.bizhosting.com/day_night_exposure_calculator.html

http://www.robert-barrett.com/photo/exposure_calculator.html

http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/sunny.html

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/moonlight.html

http://www.blackcatphotoproducts.com/guide.html