WARNING:- These are initial reflections and they may well not reflect what I finally feel about the subject (I suppose you could say that about most blogs - especially this one!) plus This post does contain traces of Star Trek
That's the warning out of the way I thought I would now set down on the screen some initial thoughts about the experiments I did last night. I suppose the main thought that comes to mind is that of controlling exposure. I suspect that this is not as crucial as sub second exposure. There is a world of difference between 1/1000th and 1/100th of a second but I suspect that is not the case in long exposures. This does give you certain leeway. Obviously there is a difference between 30 seconds and 90 seconds (one is 3 times as big as the other so you would assume that 3 times more light is exposed). However, when you consider the difference between 390 and 420 seconds the orders of magnitude are tiny. This does give you more leeway.
The 7 minute barrier also is an interesting concept to work with. Is the photograph you are trying to make capable of being captured in the 7 minutes? If it is not why not and what will the effect be? These are all creative decisions that you, as the photographer, need to think about when considering what you are trying to make.
And what about the photographer in all this? This might seem strange but what do you do with yourself in the seven minutes? Now some times you may be trying to illuminate a certain area, however, other times you are just left there standing waiting for the time to elapse. This can lead to a temptation to tamper, to try and rush matters - all things that could impact on the photograph.
In the end I suppose we are entering the strange world of electro magnetism and space/time. These are subjects that my son would no doubt love to talk about, being a physicist and start trek fan, but they are not the usual topics of conversations between photographers. I suppose it always comes back to e = mc2
