Last summer, i read an article in NY Times about an artist named Atta Kim exhibiting in the International Center of Photography (NYC). He was exhibiting a series called ON-AIR; and was about time-lapse photography- photographs that were taken over extended periods of time; sometimes in broad day light.
A while back, i remember watching a TV episode from “The Outer Limits” that had a person somehow acquiring a skill that made him move so fast in time, that everything all around him seemed to move very slow – in a way; Atta’s images showcase this theory.
I had always wondered about how a person from outer space (think – a different space-time continium) would feel like if they were to observe us (our daily life) from out there. Atta’s image of NYC’s 57th street on a busy weekday morning is just exactly it.
What really happened here is the fact that since his exposure was soooo long, the people and traffic on the busy streets were so fast compared to the exposures that everything was just a blur.
Now, the reason i decided to blog about this is that i recently got myself a 10-stop neutral density filter (B+W #110) with the only thought of taking such pictures.
According to the many forums and “experts” on this subject all around the Internet, Atta used a large format camera with a 16x ND filter. Now i am not sure how this works out – but a 16x only means 4 stops, and we all know that any given sunny day – the exposure follows sunny 16 rule. There is no way that a 4 stop filter could have given him an 8 hour exposure – so, its quite obvious that either he stacked several 16x filters or used some other technique (maybe a pin hole camera or very low ISO film or an incredibly small aperture (f64) or some combinations thereof).
Obviously, he used film; and we all know about the recriprocity failures (a phenomenon wherein for very long exposures and chemistry of film doesnt permit sunny 16 rule anymore) – which may have aided him in this experiment as well.
So, how in the world do we do this in the digital world? I do know that there is no reciprocity failures for CCD/CMOS sensors – so this is not an issue. However, noise may be an issue – thank god for Noise Ninja!
The one other issue with DSLRs is “Amplifier Gain” (a.k.a “AG”). Lets just say that this phenomenon is responsible for some “red” glow on the edges of image – Nothing that a bit of cropping or photoshop can fix.
Here is a handy reference i developed – for your pleasure. Feel free to drop a line if this was useful. I will post my experience in one of the future “Stories” section.
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