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Re: Tesla Coil Photography



Terry, you might already know this but the "longer" a lens you use, the
more light that will be required to get the same brightness (ie you'll
need to increase exposure time if you keep everything else the same).

-Stan

Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Original Poster: Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-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