# Anywhere from 1 day, to 7 days exposure.



## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

The title says it all. I would like to capture up to 7 busy days all in one picture. Surely some of you have heard of Micheal Weasly, who took a almost 3 year long exposure.I am about to buy ND filters. A family members birthday coming up in a month, and I would like to take a 1-7day long exposure as a gift. I know it's possible, and I won't get it right the first time. But I think if I get them now I might just get lucky. My question is, does anyone know how many strong ND filters I would need? And do I need different filters too, or only ND? Anyone who can help on this question, it would be really great, thanks!


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## sscarmack (Jun 16, 2014)

Who is Michael Weasly???? (Runs to google)


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## astroNikon (Jun 16, 2014)

I don'y know anything about multi day exposures
but here's info on ND filters .. see the chart half way down
Neutral density filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I also would think you would need the absolute best quality ND filters for super long exposures, anything less would cause image quality issues.


My longest shots at night/ND filters is around 30 minutes.

But I would venture to say Micheal Weasly uses a pinhole camera.  Similar to stuff I've used to observe the sun.
and probably film .. I think digital cameras sensors start over heating at 20-30 minutes.


but hopefully the experts will chime in


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## Braineack (Jun 16, 2014)

here's the first quote you should read about him:

"German photographer Michael Wesely *has spent decades working on techniques for extremely long camera exposures*..."


I'm going out on limb here to say you're not doing this on a DSLR.


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## sscarmack (Jun 16, 2014)

I'm sorry, but that website and work......Nevermind.....



Longest exposure I've done was 5 minutes, didn't turn out anything like I thought haha


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## astroNikon (Jun 16, 2014)

Yup .. and experiment of love.
There's alot of information out there if you just search around .... here's a few tidbits
The Longest Photographic Exposures in*History - The Latest - itchy i



> It took Michael months and months of experimenting to make sure the negatives weren't going to be over-exposed. He said, if you'd planned to expose for a year you would have to do an exposure of 6 months, and 3 months beforehand and so on. You would have to collect a lot of data and find solutions for a lot of detail problems.





> Michael started with pin-hole cameras (1988-1994) but then moved on to use large format cameras (4x5 inches) as these would provide images with a much higher amount of details.




http://www.bonuel.ca/blog/2010/01/06/michael-wesely-pinhole-photography/


> I uncovered a whole new field of photography I didn&#8217;t really know existed: Pinhole photography. Apparently, you can take photos were you essentially leave the shutter open for 2 to 3 years long (i.e. take the f-stop to ridiculous levels &#8212; f1120).


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

Braineack said:


> here's the first quote you should read about him:
> 
> "German photographer Michael Wesely *has spent decades working on techniques for extremely long camera exposures*..."
> 
> ...


I will be going Film AND DSLR. My longest successful long exposure at night has been 2 hours. During day time 3 minutes. That is without any filters. I know the Guy who did the 3 years took him forever and tons of work and so on. And my 1-7 day exposure is very likely to fail. But I still want to give it a go. I know I can do up to ten mins with 1 filter ( via watching various videos ). I was just curious if anyone here who might have done something similar . if I can accomplish this, it will be a huge leap forward for me. If anyone is interested, Benjamin Holthaus | 500px  <<--- my photos. I have been learning a lot this last few weeks. As you can see in the quality of the older photos to the new ones. Anyways back on topic. if 1 filter @ f/11 iso 200 = 2 seconds, what would F/32 and 10 filters =? (ND)

@ astro thank you


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## astroNikon (Jun 16, 2014)

I've used pinhole cameras before . and pinhole devices to capture movement on my old film camera but a *long* time ago.
i gave up because I didn't know enough and using film was just a waste of money back then (pre digital) for me.

nowadays I have ND filters up to 3.0 which is a 10x f-stop reduction.
I had a ND 0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.8, 3.0
you can also use small apertures, such as f/22  + ND fitlers.   I have some photos on my flickr account which show f/22 vs ND filters for water movement.

When you say "1 filter" .. one filter of what ??  ND filters come in a variety of reduction ... see here Neutral density filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


did you want to stack 10 filters ?


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## photoguy99 (Jun 16, 2014)

There are issues with long exposure and digital sensors. Film is actually a lot easier to deal with for this short of thing. Film had reciprocity failure which is a big help here, and digital sensors have heating issues which are a problem.

Rather than a single long exposure, I would take many exposures at intervals over the 7 days, and blend them in post.

But as a starting point, 7 days is about 3 stops more than 1 day.

1 day is about 4 and a half stops more than an hour. An hour is about 11.5 stops more than a second.

Meter during the day, meter in evening, meter at night. Guesstimate an average exposure. Digital should not exhibit reciprocity failure, I think, so you shoot just be able to stack up the stops. I'm pretty sure that your image disintegrates into a pile of note after a while, though.

Good luck!


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## astroNikon (Jun 16, 2014)

here's a good read - about filters in general.  And the difference betwen cheap and good filters.
LensRentals.com - Good Times with Bad Filters


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## Braineack (Jun 16, 2014)

Stacking ain't a bad idea.  Underexposing a large number of images through the time period, stacked, could result in something similar to what Weasley created on film in one exposure.  From what I understand he used an extremely small aperture to reduce the light significantly so only the longest exposed elements really showed up more than a ghost.


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

Thanks guys. That's a great idea with stacking. Although I have not yet done stacking, I have been learning and reading up on it. I was going sto art sometime this weeks. So i'll defiantly give that ago. Because than instead of stacking ten filters ( which would be very hard to do without problems because the cheaper the filter, the less quality. Same with macro filters, each time you stack them, every dust particle get more and more and more noticeable, so stacking ND's would cause similar problems) I could take 500 pictures and stack them all into one. Correct? I did not know that sensors heat up. I'm glad you told me that! Because tbh I might just have to reconsider doing 2 hour long exposures even at night.. Thanks for the info guys!  

(and yes I have been considering stacking 10 ND's, but they would all need to be of the highest quality).  I think even thought my post is scrambled, I have answered any questions of my plans? Also does anyone have more info on stacking? I use photoshop Cs6 and and curious if you know of any way to do it "best" Thanks


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

Any exposures that long that I've heard of have all been with pinhole cameras, and I believe Michael Wesely's large format camera may still be a pinhole. I've also heard of people putting filters on pinhole cameras.

Here's an image of a year-long solargraph made with a pinhole camera, no filters: A year long solargraph | I N F I N I T Y????becky ramotowski

You might have better luck here with film than with digital simply because of the reciprocity failure of film. It will allow you to take longer exposures without overexposing the image. What is Reciprocity Failure? | Film Photography Project

For example, here's a picture I took with a pinhole camera. I had ISO 200 film and I metered the scene. It would have taken a one minute exposure at f22. My pinhole camera, however, is f125. That plus the reciprocity failure of the film meant that I needed a 7-hour exposure:




Xmas Tree by limrodrigues, on Flickr


I'd suggest looking more into pinhole photography and starting with exposures of a couple of hours, slowly going to longer and longer exposures until you figure out how to get the results you want. There are also pinhole adapters/caps for digital cameras if you want to experiment with that.

Here's another article about Michael Wesely if you're interested: In Depth Photographer Wesley


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## astroNikon (Jun 16, 2014)

That one article I quoted .. listed f/1120


some interesting calculations here .. briefly looking at it
Depth of Optimum [Archive] - F295


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> That one article I quoted .. listed f/1120
> 
> 
> some interesting calculations here .. briefly looking at it
> Depth of Optimum [Archive] - F295



Yeah, I saw that - it's got to be very difficult to get a hole that small. The smallest needle I have still only gave f168, so to get to f1120, you're probably talking about special equipment.

But yeah, it would definitely get you your long exposures. According to this website: Pinhole Camera Exposure Guide, the exposure at f16 is 2 minutes and 8 seconds. At f1120, it's 5689 hours and 53 minutes. That's 237 days.

Actually, OP, if you ARE interested in pinholes for your exposures, this is a great website: http://www.mrpinhole.com/index.php


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

Very good info limir. I'm looking up pinhole adapters for my DSLR right now. Right now my Inet is at like 60kbs so the website "http://www.mrpinhole.com/index.php" Is taking a while to load. But I am defiantly very interested in the whole area of pinhole photography. I'll be looking into that a lot more. So let me get this straight. With pinhole photography, You can not only boost the exposure to hours when using (example) f/199, but also get insane DoF? I could google this, but just for sake of asking here, do you know it's possible to get an adapter And still put filters on it, to get even longer exposures? Even if I don't get this right now before my brothers birthday, I can still take a lot of images and then stack them. But then I will at least know and I can start practicing. Any idea on where to find a pinhole adapter anyways? Althought i'll probably have to use my film camera for that art if I want to do it correctly


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

Life said:


> Very good info limir. I'm looking up pinhole adapters for my DSLR right now. Right now my Inet is at like 60kbs so the website "http://www.mrpinhole.com/index.php" Is taking a while to load. But I am defiantly very interested in the whole area of pinhole photography. I'll be looking into that a lot more. So let me get this straight. With pinhole photography, You can not only boost the exposure to hours when using (example) f/199, but also get insane DoF? I could google this, but just for sake of asking here, do you know it's possible to get an adapter And still put filters on it, to get even longer exposures? Even if I don't get this right now before my brothers birthday, I can still take a lot of images and then stack them. But then I will at least know and I can start practicing. Any idea on where to find a pinhole adapter anyways? Althought i'll probably have to use my film camera for that art if I want to do it correctly



Yup, with a pinhole essentially everything is in focus. Depending on the focal length, there is some distortion, though.

There are a lot of DIY instructions for turning your body cap into a pinhole, and I imagine you could jerry-rig some filters on top of that. Just use rubber bands. Essentially, go low-tech with the high-tech camera 

Or...you could get a Holga pinhole "lens" at B&H for $25: Holga Pinhole Lens for Canon DSLR Camera 298120 B&H Photo Video (they have one for Nikon as well - that's just the first one that came up.)

and the filter adapter: Holga Lens/Filter Holder 147120 B&H Photo Video

And for a little eye candy, check out this guy's work: Paul Mitchell ARPS
and ipernity: Pinhole by Paul Mitchell


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

As tight as money is today, and the reviews on the nikon are not impressive... I think it would be a safer bet to buy a pack of body caps and experiment with those? I still will get into it with my film camera, but I also would like to see results with my DSLR. So, ir your opinion, would you spend $25 and buy the pinhole lens, or would you DIY one, as you said there are many tuts for that?


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## astroNikon (Jun 16, 2014)

Don't forget to cover your viewfinder eyepiece otherwise you'll get green/purple haze on everything due to light leakage with things more than 30 seconds (in mild daylight) and things above 4 minutes (in the darker evening) ... I have examples if you want to see  lol

I was thinking solar filters might help you too .. but the ones I looked at cost more than your entire camera setup.


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

Life said:


> As tight as money is today, and the reviews on the nikon are not impressive... I think it would be a safer bet to buy a pack of body caps and experiment with those? I still will get into it with my film camera, but I also would like to see results with my DSLR. So, ir your opinion, would you spend $25 and buy the pinhole lens, or would you DIY one, as you said there are many tuts for that?



I'd do it myself. I think it allows you more control over the set-up, especially if you are going to figure on filters as well. And honestly, the Holga accessories are convenient, but then they just suck you in to one more adapter, one more filter turret, one more...you name it. Lomo sucks you in that way so it's probably best to stay away from that wormhole unless you are clear on exactly what you want to get from them, nothing more. 

Get some body caps and keep a soda can to cut up for the actual pinhole. Also get some black tape. Lots of info - just google "pinhole dslr body cap" or something along those lines.

Plus it's more fun to do it yourself  My first pinhole camera was made from a box I found in a junk shop for $5 and I develop the paper in a homemade developer based on instant coffee. Can't even tell you how exciting it was to get my first good image from that


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

Just ordered 2 caps. Before I go drilling away..  On a tut they say to use a size 7 needle. Couldn't I use a smaller one if I have one? after all the smaller the better right? I'll also fix myself up with some strong ND filters so I can keep it open for a long time  Thanks a lot for the great input.


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

Yup, you can go as small as you want. Though there are "optimal" hole sizes depending on the distance between the hole and the sensor (or film). It doesn't mean that you won't get images, but perhaps that the distortion or vignetting might be exaggerated. You can find the optimal size hole on the Mr.Pinhole site, and then if you have a way of measuring your needles, there are also calculators to determine its f-stop and  exposures. Mr. Pinhole pretty much rocks.

Good luck and have fun! Post pics when ya have 'em


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

So it's on bulb right now with the pinhole. The first 30sec exposure was quite too dark. That's a good sign. but the problem is the focus. Could you tell me by chance, is the body cap to close, or too far away. If it's too far way, I can fix this really easily. So if you know which it is, it would be really helpful. thanks.


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

Well. There's always an element of chance with a pinhole. Mine don't even have viewfinders so I have to sort of guess what's in the frame. As for focus, you don't really need to worry about it. Everything will be more or less in focus. Not really sharp as a tack, but in focus.

Here, I found this for dslr pinhole shots: Pinhole photography: how to take the perfect digital pinhole photo | Digital Camera World

I have never done this with a dslr - don't even own one - so I don't know the best way to do about it with more high tech gear or what factors will be different trying this with digital as opposed to film. But even so, as I said, there's always more of an element of chance with pinhole photography than there is with 'regular' photography.


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## MartinCrabtree (Jun 16, 2014)

Find a machine shop with a laser. And an owner willing to help a guy out. The 'net is your friend here.


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## Life (Jun 16, 2014)

Sorry I haven't replied. the login button has been broken for hours  But how's a laser gonna help me out here..?


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## limr (Jun 16, 2014)

Life said:


> Sorry I haven't replied. the login button has been broken for hours  But how's a laser gonna help me out here..?



A laser-cut pinhole will be nice and clean. Sometimes the pin itself can warp the hole or leave fragments that can affect the image. A machinist might also be able to make a smaller hole than you can yourself with a pin, even if he or she is using a drill instead of a laser.


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## MartinCrabtree (Jun 17, 2014)

You could pick up these dril bits and this pin vise if experimenting is your goal. Enjoy.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 17, 2014)

Drill a largish hole in the cap. Cover that with tinfoil. The pinhole goes in the tinfoil. Or the copper sheet or whatever. The point is that the body cap is not the thing with the actual pinhole. Maybe you're way ahead of me tho.


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## theHomelessJedi (Jun 20, 2014)

It would be more feasible, on the camera and the wallet to do several exposures everyday then put them together.  Multiple days is going to tax the processors in any camera, not to mention fill up even the largest card.  ND filters + f/22 would still be a must, but I'm think even the strongest ND filter at the most closed down aperture is still going to produce an overexposed photo.  Lots of good info from these guys ^^. Good luck! I'm excited to see the result.


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