Uploaded February 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I really want to make night shooting work for me... it would be sooo much easier if I could do most of my shooting at night while the kids are asleep! So I took the 4x5inch camera out, loaded with a few sheets of FP4+ (and a couple of sheet of Portra which I hadn't planned to use, but did) and headed out for a night time wander.
All shots in this video are on the Toyo 45C with my Nikkor SW 90mm f4.5 lens on a recessed board.
I'm kind of happy with how they turned out. Subject matter and what works on him at night is something I need to work on, for sure. My FP4+ reciprocity failure tables worked pretty well. Maybe a couple of the shots were a little over exposed in the highlights, could have been a RF table issue or a metering issue. Something to watch for next time!
Things l learned? Number one is that super long exposures become a real pain with the RF times. I had a graph taking me up to 35s metered exposure, and that was a 3min+ exposure time. So if I wanted to shoot a scene longer than 35s then that exposure time is just going to go up and up. And I figure there must come a point where the reciprocity failure actually brings you to a standstill right? If it's an exponential curve then at some point the line must reach vertical and no amount of continued exposure is going to make any more difference to the film reaction?? Is that right? Who knows.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoy. More of this to come for sure.
I really want to make night shooting work for me... it would be sooo much easier if I could do most of my shooting at night while the kids are asleep! So I took the 4x5inch camera out, loaded with a few sheets of FP4+ (and a couple of sheet of Portra which I hadn't planned to use, but did) and headed out for a night time wander.
All shots in this video are on the Toyo 45C with my Nikkor SW 90mm f4.5 lens on a recessed board.
I'm kind of happy with how they turned out. Subject matter and what works on him at night is something I need to work on, for sure. My FP4+ reciprocity failure tables worked pretty well. Maybe a couple of the shots were a little over exposed in the highlights, could have been a RF table issue or a metering issue. Something to watch for next time!
Things l learned? Number one is that super long exposures become a real pain with the RF times. I had a graph taking me up to 35s metered exposure, and that was a 3min+ exposure time. So if I wanted to shoot a scene longer than 35s then that exposure time is just going to go up and up. And I figure there must come a point where the reciprocity failure actually brings you to a standstill right? If it's an exponential curve then at some point the line must reach vertical and no amount of continued exposure is going to make any more difference to the film reaction?? Is that right? Who knows.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoy. More of this to come for sure.
