Various trucks, cans, detritus — by Joe Reifer

45 minute exposure at f/11 with Kodak E100VS slide film.
Mamiya 7II with 43mm lens (21mm equivalent for 35mm cameras).

The technique necessary to make a 45 minute exposure with a digital SLR would be either to:

1. Shoot for 45 minutes with noise reduction on, and then wait an additional 45 minutes for in-camera noise reduction to run
2. Shoot multiple shorter exposures and stack them in Photoshop (e.g., 9 exposures of 5 minutes each)

My shooting strategy for the last few years has been to use a medium format film camera for long exposures of 45-60 minutes, while shooting with a digital SLR for the more typical 5-10 minute exposures. Not only does shooting with 2 setups help with productivity, but the medium format film work provides an excellent guide to post-processing the RAW files from the digital SLR. During the 80′s, 90′s, and into the aughts, medium format film defined the look of color night photography. Slide film reads as night. Emulating the look of slide film when post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop helps the digital images read as night, too.

Calculating film exposures for images lit by the full moon is pretty easy. Start by taking a few test shots with your digital SLR — I typically use 10 seconds at f/4, ISO 1600 as a digital test exposure. If the histogram looks good, this exposure equates to 5 minutes at f/8, ISO 200 — or 10 minutes at f/8, ISO 100. When using Kodak E100VS, you’ll need to almost double the digital exposure time to help cope with reciprocity failure — about 18 minutes at f/8 during the full moon. When shooting at f/11, add another stop and a half — 45 minutes at f/11. Depending on the amount of shadow detail you’re trying to capture and the position of the moon in the sky, 60 minutes at f/11 may be more appropriate. With exposures this long, you have quite a bit of flexibility — the difference between a 60 minute and 45 minute exposure is only a 1/2 stop.

Remember these simple rules when dialing in the exposures with your favorite film:

1. When using slide film (E-6), overexposure risks blown highlights (just like digital) — when in doubt, underexpose for night photography
2. When using negative film (C-41), underexposure risks a thin negative with blocked up shadows — when in doubt, overexpose slightly for night photography

And remember — you don’t need a fancy camera to shoot long exposure night photographs. Even a $25 Holga does the job quite nicely. Give it a try next full moon!

RAW Conversion Comparison — Photo by David Dasinger

During the second afternoon of last week’s Pearsonville Night Photography and Light Painting Workshop, Troy Paiva and I critiqued 4 images from each participant — our goal was to help everyone make better photos the second night. Seeing all of the amazing work from the first night before shooting again was really inspiring. A lot of the photographers have uploaded images to the Pearsonville Workshop Flickr Group, and Troy and I have provided some further comments online.

During last Fall’s workshop, I offered to make a 16×20″ print of the image that Troy and I decided was our favorite from the first night. The winning shot was by Aaron Siladi, and the print is now hanging on his wall. Last week we upped the ante by providing a 16×20″ print and a Hostess Chocodile. I thought the Chocodile was extinct, but the Fastrip in Ridgecrest still has ‘em (although they no longer feature the Chauncey the Chocodile mascot I remember from my youth).

Anyhow, the image above by photographer David Dasinger was the Chocodile (and print) winner this time. David’s well placed addition of light to the underside of the hood was an extremely creative move that really brings out shape and texture of this mashed up beauty. Here’s a few words from David about how he lit the image:

Kept it super simple. 2 minute exposure, f/5.6, Stinger flashlight, just held it facing up under the hood crease and gave it about a 30 degree arc. The Stinger is so bright it was very quick. This one was about all that moonlight and the crinkly hood.

While working on the print over the last few days, I asked David if I could use his image as a split-conversion post-processing example and he agreed. Above are two different interpretations of the RAW file using the Virtual Copy feature in Lightroom. The warm version on the left is has a color balance of 4450K, and the cool version on the right is 3250K. I really like the orange against blue motif on the car in the warm version, but prefer the deep cyan sky of the cool version. Why not have the best of both worlds? Below is a step-by-step of how I combined the two versions of the file to make a print:

Quick Selection Tool Sky Masking — Photo by David Dasinger

1. Bring both versions of the file into a Photoshop CS3 file, with the cool version as the top Layer.
2. Use the Quick Selection Tool to select the sky (screenshot above), and use the Refine Edge tool to slightly feather the selection.
3. Select the Channels palette, and click the “front loading washer” to make an Alpha Channel out of the selection.
4. Go back to the Layers palette, select the top layer (cool version), and click the “front loading washer” to load the Alpha Channel as a Layer Mask.
5. The opacity of the top layer to was reduced to 50% to have the sky look saturated but realistic (see version 1 below) . The reduced opacity and feathered mask selection are both useful ensuring a smooth transition from sky to ground.

Crumpled Blue — by David Dasinger

After dialing in the sky and foreground balance, I flattened the file, converted to the ICC profile of my printing service, and sharpened for output. The sky and the hood looked great in the first print, but the sand in the foreground was a little too orange, and the tonal value of the car’s front grill needed to be slightly brighter. I made a few quick adjustments to the master file as follows:

1. Add a Curves Layer, increase the Green in the 3/4 tones — on the Layer Mask, paint in the effect in on the ground using a soft brush at a low opacity.
2. Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer, slightly reduce the Saturation of Red and Yellow — on the Layer Mask, paint in the effect in on the ground using a soft brush at a low opacity.
3. Play with the opacity of both Adjustment Layers until the foreground looks right.
4. Add a Curves Layer to increase the brightness of the grill and engine area — on the Layer Mask, paint in the effect using a soft brush at a low opacity.

If you are intimidated by Layer Masks, I highly recommend Katrin Eismann’s book Photoshop Masking & Compositing.

By neutralizing the ground just slightly, and bringing out the 3/4 tones on the front grill and engine compartment, more attention is focused on our main subject, the car. This effect is subtle on the web, but makes a big difference in a 16×20″ print. Going back and doing a second or third round of adjustments on a print until it looks right is a great learning experience, and an important part of finishing the work. Below is the final image.

Crumpled Blue (final version) — by David Dasinger

Many thanks to David Dasinger for allowing me to use his beautiful image for this post-processing demo. And thanks to all of the workshop participants for their spirit of adventure and creativity — Chocodiles for everyone, I am still dreaming of cars!

Pearsonville fire truck moonrise — by Joe Reifer

The image above was exposed for 90 seconds at f/11, ISO 100. I shoot most night photos at f/8, but stopped down to f/11 to give the moon a more pronounced star pattern. The exposure time was still short enough to minimize the moon movement. The lighting is a mix of street and road lighting, moonlight, and flashlight through the back window of the fire truck. Color temperature was set to 4450K for this blend of mixed lighting, and the tint was purposefully pushed towards magenta in order to mix purple and oranges in the foreground, and help give the sky the deep blue color.

Sometimes there are ways to make your image more technically correct that can ruin the feel of the image. A more neutral foreground could be achieved by pushing the white balance tint towards green, doing a separate conversion with a magenta tint for a deeper blue sky, and then blending the conversions together using a layer mask in Photoshop. I ended up really liking the what the magenta tint did to the purples and oranges in the foreground against the blue of the sky. Another post processing possibility for this image would be to reduce the hot area on the inner passenger side window by cloning from another part of the window. The small blown out area mirrors the blown out area of the moon, so I left it alone.

I used the HSL panel in Lightroom to make the following adjustments (screenshot below):

1. The red hue slider adjusted to reduce the amount of orange in the reds, which helped pull some of the sodium vapor effect off the front of the fire engine.
2. Orange saturation was reduced in order to counteract of the overall sodium vapor lighting. Blue saturation was increased to deepen the sky color slightly.
3. Red and orange luminance were increased to brighten the front of the fire truck. Playing with the orange luminance slider also helped me assess how much of the sodium vapor light was still in effect on the truck.

I hope these post-processing tips are useful. Look for more images from last weekend’s Pearsonville Night Photography Workshop in the next few days, and don’t miss the Pearsonville Workshop Pool on Flickr!