Long exposure photography fascinate me. Check out for example Michael Kenna.
Oja in the south of the Stocholm Archipelago
Hasselblad 503cx, Carl Zeiss 50mm f/4 CF T* FLE, Kodak TMAX 100
ND-filters 16 stops, f/11, 5min 41s
Personal project
In the summer of 2016 I worked on a personal project to do long exposure photography. The final goal was prints of motives from the beautiful granite landscape in the Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden.
Gear
This was the gear I used:
Hasselblad 503cx
Carl Zeiss 50mm f/4 CF T* FLE
6 stop ND-filter
10 stop ND-filter
Circular polarizer
Tripod
Nikon cable shutter release that can be locked
Kodak Ektar and Kodak TMAX 120 film
All my filters are 77mm and I use step up rings to fit them to lenses with different filtersizes
Long exposures
In the previous post, #2 – On Photographing Waterfalls, I discussed shutter speeds in the range from 1/8s to 1s, to get the silky and dreamy look of a waterfall.
In this case, I was looking at movements of the sky and the ocean. After doing some research, I settled on an exposure of 5-10 minutes.
Such long exposures require a neutral density (ND) filter for a proper exposure. Say, for example, that it is a sunny day where the ‘Sunny 16’ rule applies. Thus, you would like your exposure settings to be 1/125s, f/16 at ISO 100. How many stops of light would you need to shut out with the ND-filters? Just start counting!
1/125s, 1/60s, 1/30s, 1/15s, 1/8s, 1/4s, 1/2s, 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 16s, 30s, 1min, 2min, 4min, 8min
That is 16 stops. Perfect, I just stack my a 6 stop and a 10 stop filters. If there is an overcast day, I can always open up the aperture. If I would like even longer exposures, I can always stack my circular polarizer (1 stop) and, if shooting black and white, my yellow (1 stop), my orange (1.5 stop) or red filter (2 stops)
Reciprocity failure
Shooting film, there is something called the ‘reciprocity failure’. Reciprocity in this context means that there is a linear relationship between exposure and density on the film. Thus, if you double the time, you get double the density. However, at long times this relationship does not work anymore. Kodak recommends in their Technical Data sheet for TMAX 100 that you should add one stop exposure at 100s, but beyond that there is no data available. I found a great smartphone app: The reciprocity timer. Someone has collected a lot of data for many different films and made an app for only $1.99. I choose to bracket my exposures -30%, 0, +30% with the recommendation from the app in the middle. It worked wonders.
For color film long exposures can also cause color shifts.
Oja in the south of the Stocholm Archipelago. Note the color shift of the filmdue to the long exposrue
Hasselblad 503cx, Carl Zeiss 50mm f/4 CF T* FLE, Kodak Ektar
ND-filters 16 stops, f/11, 6min 37s
The island Oja in the Stockholm Archipelago
Stockholm is sometimes called the ‘Venice of the North’. Well, you will not find any gondolas cruising around. However, the city is built on a number of islands between the Baltic Sea and the lake Malaren. As a curiosity, the water to the west is fresh and to the east is salt, divided by locks.
The Stockholm Archipelago consists of more than 24,000 islands and extends 60km east of Stockholm and is about 200km in the North-South direction. One of the southernmost islands is called Oja and has a large fyr that can be seen out on the ocean from 22 nautical miles away. This project was shot on this island.
Map of the Stockholm Archipelago
The shoot
I was spending about 3 days on the island to get the photographs I wanted. Most of the time went into scouting for locations. I did quite a bit of climbing around on those granite rocks, but I never felt tired, because it is such a beautiful place.
I used the Hasselblad camera, only the 50mm lens, a tripod and my filters. In addition, I had a cable shutter release with a lock from Nikon and I used my iPhone and Reciprocity Timer app to calculate the exposure time. I shot about one 120 roll of film of Kodak TMAX 100 and another one of Kodak Ektar for each subject. I bracketed each shot with exposure times -30%, according to the app and +30%.
My camera on the granite beach
Photo with iPhone 6
Developing the film
I let a professional lab develop the Kodak Ektar films and I developed the TMAX 100 by myself at home, using Kodak Xtol at 1:1 dilution for 8min.
Scanning, Printing and Framing.
I scanned the film using an Epson V700 flatbed scanner. The effective resolution is about 2400dpi, so you can print at 10” x 10” at 240dpi. I decided to upsize the file in Photoshop to print 12” x 12” at 300dpi. The prints were made on Epson Cold Press Bright paper at Bloom Pro Lab in Bangkok, Thailand. I let them mount the prints on a foamboard and I picked up the frames at IKEA.
Exhibition
The prints were exhibited in the fall of 2016 at a co-workspace in Bangkok and in December 2017 at the Sawadee Gallery in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Picture from the exhib
Good luck!
Oja in the south of the Stocholm Archipelago
Hasselblad 503cx, Carl Zeiss 50mm f/4 CF T* FLE, Kodak Ektar
ND-filters 16 stops, f/11, 6min 37s