Some very long exposures

554 seconds at 19 mm f8 - 50 ISO

I am trying out some long exposures tonight.  The subject matter is a little boring, the view from a window.  So far it has been interesting.  I set my camera at 50 ISO and f22 just to see what I would get.  Needless to say after a couple of minutes I got very little.   I changed the settings to 5 minutes.  A bit better.  I then changed to f8 at about five minutes.  The results got a little bit more interesting.  I changed the time to around 8 minutes.

I then gave the sensor a rest and a chance to cool down.  This, apparently, may be the cause of the noise that comes with long exposures on a digital camera.

Disregarding the subject matter the results were interesting.  Clearly, there is a limit on the amount of time a sensor can be exposed before noise becomes an issue.  From the results I have got it would seem that the limit is somewhere in the region of 7 minutes.  Having briefly read some of the view/experiences on forums and websites about the noise problem this would be about right.  So what does this mean about the development of the photographs for the project?  Well for a start it means I have to set up a photograph with the time restrictions in mind - no Michael Wesely for me - well not with digital anyway.  This is a balancing act as increasing the ISO will no doubt increase the noise at a much shorter exposure.

Ultimately this has been an experiment.   I will have to think about the results over the next day or so.  But one thing is for sure, this is a fascinating way to make a photograph and so long as you know the restrictions then you can use these for creative purposes.