Hi Mark,
In film photography, the variability of film performance creates difficulties in exposure. This is primarily due to reciprocity failure, film’s ability to maintain its rated ISO over many seconds or even minutes. I was using Kodak E200, a film known for its good reciprocity characteristics and color stability. I have tested exposures with this film under moonlight before and came up with a mental chart of what would be proper exposure for this film under the full Moon. Although I did not use it for this picture set, I have bumped into a handy calculator that may prove useful.
mkaz.com: Calculating Exposures for Moonlight Photography
An outline for exposure is also discussed here:
mkaz.com photography Exposures for Moonlight Photography
I have devised a chart (attached) to outline exposures for Provia 100F and Kodak E200. Provia is also known for its good reciprocity as well although I have not determined if the chart below is accurate for this film. Again, this is a guide. Bracket your exposures.
When I was exposing images at Schoodic Point I started the exposures and was looking at the scene to determine if 5, 10, 20 minutes (full stops) was going to be proper. I was using apertures of f/8 and f/11 primarily. Looking at the rolling waves in moonlight was a concern because they were very bright when cresting over the rocks and ledges. Of course, the opposite was true for the rocks, which were very dark, almost black in the moonlight. I felt it was better to overexpose the waves (which were only bright in cycles of the waves) and try to reveal the detail on the rocks. It worked.
Keep in mind that bracketing a 10 minute exposure would be something like this if exposing half stops (5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20 minutes) There is some slop in the film as well and overexposure may be preferable in dark scenes. Getting shadow detail can be difficult.
Finally, I recommend running a roll of film through your camera and get some experience with this type of work. I bet if you use the above information as a guide you will walk away with some keepers. It's lonely out there at night and if your in an environment similar to where I shot these frames, be careful, it's easy to misstep and hurt yourself.
Good luck and post your results. Nighttime was ment for photography just as much as daytime, its only harder.
Originally posted by tuco 
Post #13 by nightfly
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