Re: Tesla Coil Photography

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Tesla Coil Photography
From: Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 20:43:07 -0600
Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme
In-Reply-To: <E119oFA-0001HY-00-at-nemesis.clara-dot-net>

Hi All,

Many thanks for all the fine and detailed information on how to setup a
camera for Tesla coil photos.  I had too slow of film, not enough aperture,
and probably not enough exposure time.  I will go to ASA 400 film at f1.4
and run through a bunch of different timings form 1 sec to 16 seconds which
should pin down my situation well.  

Apparently, if the room is dark, the exposure time only determines how many
streamers are captured.  The film speed and aperture really determine how
bright the sparks are in the photo.  Thus, you can get a few streamers or
many depending on how long the exposure is.  I never realized this before...

Since I am a bit far away from the coil (15-20 feet) I will go for larger
apertures to be SURE something gets captured.  The exact streamer
brightness and distance play into all this too, so some trial and error is
still needed.  However I will now be pretty close to begin with.

I'll switch to my older Minolta XE-1 which has double exposure capability,
longer preset exposure times, is made of solid metal, and is "expendable"
:-)  It has a minor light metering problem but that does not mater in this
case.

Many many thanks for all the help!

	Terry