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inetnebr news - 08 Jul 2004 23:36 GMT

This year we have a bumper crop of "lighting bugs". Early evening I can sit
and watch my backyard look like a blinking bunch of neon mini-lights. I had
some Fuji 400 speed film with about three pics left to finish of the roll.
So....I set my lens wide open (2.8 in my case) and took three photos at
different time durations. When I got the film back I had some sort of nice
pics of my backyard, but no lighting bugs showing up anywhere. The heck of
it is the backyard was full of the bugs. I know they blink very briefly but
I have seen pics that had some in them. Is there a method to this madness or
is it just luck? What would I use for film? Thanks for any help rendered.

Jim Atkins

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Bakechad - 11 Jul 2004 03:30 GMT

> This year we have a bumper crop of "lighting bugs". Early evening I can sit
> and watch my backyard look like a blinking bunch of neon mini-lights. I had
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Jim Atkins

Assuming your yard is pitch black and you do not have a ton of light
pollution, you could set the shutter on bulb (with a tripod) and leave
it open for several minutes. That may or may not work becuase as you
pointed out the "blink is very brief". If the bulb setting does not
work, I would try higher speed film, 800 or 1600. These speeds will
absorb the light much quicker than 400. Also, you might be better
using slide film, because most labs use too much color correction on
night shots. I use Kodak Elitechrome for all of my night shots.
Elitechrome only goes up to 400, but you can get variable speed
Ektachrome that can be pushed as high as 3200.

Chad

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Travis Porco - 11 Jan 2005 02:20 GMT

How long you should leave the shutter open depends on how bright the yard is.
As Chad says it should be 'pitch dark' for an exposure of several minutes.

What matters is how bright the lightning bugs are relative to the background
(yard, say). A shorter exposure with a wider aperture will get you fewer bugs,
but they will be brighter. Longer exposures will get more bugs, but they
will be dimmer relative to the background. When I tried this, I metered
off the grass, then chose the aperture to give a 5 second exposure, then
stopped down doubling the exposure. More than 30 seconds gave me ugly colors
with Kodak Gold 400, since another severe problem with long exposures is
reciprocity failure. I got some pictures back with grass that turned a sickly
shade of mauvish pink when I tried this.

>> This year we have a bumper crop of "lighting bugs". Early evening I can sit
>> and watch my backyard look like a blinking bunch of neon mini-lights. I had
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>>
>> Jim Atkins

>Assuming your yard is pitch black and you do not have a ton of light
>pollution, you could set the shutter on bulb (with a tripod) and leave
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>Elitechrome only goes up to 400, but you can get variable speed
>Ektachrome that can be pushed as high as 3200.

>Chad

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Rod Smith - 12 Jul 2004 05:11 GMT

> This year we have a bumper crop of "lighting bugs". Early evening I can sit
> and watch my backyard look like a blinking bunch of neon mini-lights. I had
> some Fuji 400 speed film with about three pics left to finish of the roll.
> So....I set my lens wide open (2.8 in my case) and took three photos at
> different time durations. When I got the film back I had some sort of nice
> pics of my backyard, but no lighting bugs showing up anywhere.

I tried photographing fireflies a few years ago with no luck, too. I think
they're just too dim to show up on anything but very long exposures, and
of course they move, so you'd get an insufficient point-source here, an
insufficient point-source there, and so on. I suppose if you could get one
to sit still for long enough, you might be able to get something, but
short of that or some extraordinarily fast film and very wide lenses, I
don't think you'll get much.

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Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

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hbrownin - 24 Jan 2005 19:04 GMT

though i have not tried photography lightening bugs, but i have tried t
photograph things such as rainbows, with little or no luck. photograph
these sorts of things is difficult to do with out the use of hig
quality photography lens, because they are so dim. - Heather Browning

inetnebr news Wrote:

> This year we have a bumper crop of "lighting bugs". Early evening I ca
> sit
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Jim Atkin

--
hbrownin

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