My first SteemitPhotoChallenge Entry, for #8 - Long Exposures

This first image I took a while ago, so not specifically for this challenge, but I always thought it was one of my better long exposures. My friend Benoit wanted me to take a photo of him with these lights he has on his bike called Monkey Light, and I thought I could make something cool out of it. The exposure time was 5 seconds at f4.5 and I think it was at 200 ISO using a 50mm f1.8 lens. It took a few times to get the timing right but eventually we figured out about how fast he should ride to make the lights on the wheels look cool. I set the camera on a tripod and put the shutter on timer. It was a cold night so I told him I was going to get him to exhale heavily when I signaled, I then ran across the bike path holding a flash and told him to start riding past. As he rode past I told him to exhale and at about the same time I manually popped the flash unit (i was just holding it in my hands) then ducked behind the grass so I hopefully wouldn't be an artifact in the final photo. All in all I think the photo came out pretty cool

My second entry is this film shot I took just two days ago. For this photo I was using a Mamiya RZ67 Pro ii camera with 110mm f2.8 lens. I used Ilford PANF Plus 50 ISO film. The exposure was 8 seconds at f32. I developed the film myself (in my bathroom, haha) for developing I used Blazinal (the Canadian version of Rodinol) at 1+25 dilution, 20 degrees C for 6 minutes. They were scanned by myself as well using an Epson Perfection V550 photo scanner. I then did minor adjustments in Photoshop, cropping for composition and dust removal. It's basically just an experiment shooting long exposures on film. I know the basics of it in digital, and I can tell you its a heck of a lot easier to come out with a usable image when you are shooting digital. I'm going to keep experimenting with film though. I feel like this image would be a lot better at a shallower depth of field, maybe f8, and a much longer exposure, maybe like 45 or 50 seconds. Anyhow, these are my two entries for the photo challenge, hope you like them!

As always if you like the post feel free to toss me an upvote, and be sure to follow me @dexter-k on Steemit to see more original work all the time!

Dexter