GF1 playing about with long exposures

[Tobers]

I'm known to like my long exposure shots of water and suchlike. The GF1 allows up to a 60 second exposure before you get into bulb mode. Not having a remote cable release yet, I was stuck with 60 secs whereas I'd usually look for 3-4 minutes. Anyway, it was just a try-out to see how the picture-taking process went.

Firstly, I had the camera on a medium gorillapod with a small Manfrotto head and quick release plate. I had the 14-45 lens on, and stopped it down to f/20 or so. Onto some step-up rings went a BW ND110 filter, then a Lee wide angle filter holder ring, then the Lee filter holder with a Lee Pro Glass 0.9ND in it (it was VERY bright!). I also set the camera to manual focus. Happily, the sensor can "see" through all these filters to compose and allow manual focus to take place, not something you can do on the 1D or any other viewfinder camera where pretty much all the light is shut out meaning you need to focus and compose before putting the filters on.

Here's the setup shot. Ignore if you can the wonky horizon - it's an iphone shot dammit.

To take the picture, in manual mode I put the aperture to f/20 and twiddled the shutter speed to 60 secs which was happily what I'd filtered the lens to achieve. I then manually focused about 1/3rd of the way into the picture and put the camera on self-timer and hit the button. Off it went, and after a minute it clicked and then did another 60 secs of what I assume is long exposure noise reduction.

A bit of tweaking in Lightroom and here's the end result.

Now the location wasn't exactly the best, but I was just after getting a feel for how this would work. With bulb mode, a better location, and less harsh direct bright sunlight I'll be very happy to leave the big SLRs at home and just have a wee bag with the GF1, a bunch of filters and a gorillapod or lightweight tripod. Result! Of course the Lee "Rangefinder" filter set might be even better, but only if you dont already have the investment in a big-boy set.

One thing though, viewing the LCD to check exposure & sharpness is quite tricky in very bright sunlight, but then I guess we all knew that anyway. Small price to pay for such a compact and competent package.

 

[Spiritflier]

Awww, dammit... Now you've gone and tempted me into buying a GF1!

The exposure's nice but I'm not too sure about the set of steps in the bottom right hand corner! (I know it was a test shot). Good to see that the little Panasonic can manage shots like this though. What sort of noise were you getting from it?

Cheers,
Si

 

[ohood]

Lovely stuff.

I don't know whether it's just me, but the GF1 surprises me all the time with how competent and forgiving it is. I think it was expecting it to be harder coming from a just a P&S camera to something with actual settings and modes.

 

[grum]

That's really nice, and a very handy write up - nice one.

By the way the Clearviewer is imo a really good cheap solution to the reflective screen issue. Used mine today and it worked a treat.

BTW I've got a cheap remote off ebay that will do bulb mode on the GF1 without you having to hold down the button.

Would the BW ND110 be a good investment for trying out stuff like this? I thought that was a pretty extreme filter, didn't think you would need to use additional stuff as well.

 

[grum]

Well I got one...

 

[DaGuido]

I've had a bit of a frustrating experience with my beloved GF1 a couple of weekends ago while trying to shoot some "starry night" images; the light was great and and the lens was luminous and worked a treat. I was using the 14-45 lens on a tripod with a Pixel remote shutter that I bought online; was timing the shots and the camera shutter would close somewhere about 4 minutes 20 seconds on every shot (bulb settings; balanced exposures). I was hoping to be able to shoot a minimum of 7 minutes.

Have any of your tried exposures this long with a GF1? I was able to get some great shots; but really wanted to be able to expose longer and have a more productive night, and tips?

 

[Tobers]

I haven't tried anything longer than a couple of minutes. Maybe there's a max time it'll stay open for.

 

[grum]

I think I read that 4 mins is the maximum.

 

[amnesia]

I think I read that 4 mins is the maximum.

It say's 'about 4 minutes' in the G1 manual... can't imagine the GF1 is any different.
I guess it's probably something to do with the long exposure NR function.

Daniel.

 

[DaGuido]

Yeah, I just read the limit was just over 4 minutes (4:16-20ish to be exact) and I came across a correction on a review site where it mentioned that it was a bit ambiguous in the initial specs published. Sadly I used that review site as my main basis of decision to buy this camera, and quite frankly wanted BULB.

Now honestly; I love my GF1 and have had no issues with it at all, it's a versatile work horse, but hey BULB is BULB; there is no time limit to the term BULB in photography. At first I thought it could have been the inexpensive cable release (Wrong! Worked great!) but then after digging online I realised this was the case. The GF1 simply has no bulb as advertised.

I haven't yet tried any long exposures without the noise reduction feature, but with it the image takes as long to save as it does to shoot, which is a bit on the annoying side considering that these were 4 min plus exposures and one is trying to make the best of ONE clear night out ! Considering that the only true "fix" or troubleshoot to try and correct the lack of BULB would be to take another exposure and layer them together is defeated by this extremely long processing time. I am using the CAT 6 SDHC as recommended, but that's the way it goes....