Hi,
Heat lightning is lightning that stays in the clouds, and results in
colored flashes of light instead of distinct bolts coming to the ground.
O.k., I see.
When all you see are only the flashes, and not the bolts, it becomes a lot
more difficult to get anything suitable.
The handful of star/traffic/night shots I've done (including the ones
taken in Philly that I'll be submitting for TOPE) have all been done
on auto, set to underexpose by 1 to 2 stops. What this gives me is a
scene that is, on the average 1 to 2 stops underexposed, with nice,
contrasty pinpoint lights.
Sounds intersting. I'll try that some day. Normally for night shots I use
Auto too, but without the exposure compensation...
For the latter case I wouldn't have a clue as to how to explain it.
That makes two of us!
So it's official now: we're both clueless! ;)
Well, I actually do have one clue (and I'll get to that in a bit)
If the positive looked completely black, that would indicate zero light
reaching the film, something I guess only would be possible if you left
the lens cap on your lens and shot a bulb exposure.
Since I have vivid memories of framing the shots (and moved the
camera a couple of times for different effects), I can rule out the
lens cap theory.
Yes. So then still by some other means virtually no light must have reached
the film...
Yes, that's the strange thing. 5-10 seconds is really short (if your lens
was stopped down a fair bit, that is)!
Not really - I shot @ f/8 (compromise between getting more time and
lightning and minimizing wind and ground vibration), and there was a
lot of heat lightning. My city shots were all less than a second, and
yielded good results, so 5-10 seconds seemed about right for out on the
farm.
Strange....
Normally when I shot night shots of cities at f8 or so the shutter seems to
be closed for quite some time (on 200 ASA film).
I can only imagine two things having happened:
1-The 2 stops underexposure + shadow compensation which if this will all be
added up, which may or may not be the case (does anyone know this?), would
yield something like a 4 2/3 stops underexposed picture (or at least a 2
stops underexposed picture if these two compensations are not added up). So
without any bolts (that have a high light intensivity) it might make sense
that you don't see anything. This to me seems to be the most likely
explanation.
2-Perhaps you did indeed lock a spot reading in memory that yielded highly
underexposed pictures?!??!?
the exposure in the memory?).
split between spot metered and set to shadow and auto (-2)
The way I read this, you used both compensations at the same time, right
(dunno if this is even possible)?
Perhaps matters would become clearer if you could provide the data that I
asked above...?!?
Maybe so.
Not really then. Still pretty much the same assumptions stand. I guess that
the camera was simply set to too much underexposure, and that that caused
the slides to look completely black... Just guessing though, as I don't see
any other explanation that makes sense...
Cheers!
Olafo
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