Photocraig

I just love to see you excited. Post your project. Cable release and mirror lock up for starters.

Eight minutes seems a little extreme. ONE minute is a long time to hold your breath, so if you are longer than 30 seconds you are buying into some motion. Second thought is keep tha aperture small, which you'll have to do, to keep the DOF.

Does the light behavior you're referring to and like happen in Digital or are you thinking of experiences from film? Becaise film ahs a "reciprocity faliure" whicch means that it stops behaving in a linear fashion (1 stop-1x light) after a few minutes exposure--generally.

Nightski

I think 8 minutes is extreme for me too. I am going to start with something a bit shorter. I might graduate to 8 minutes .. but for now I think less will be better.

I started out doing long exposures on water like everyone else ... then I discovered something in the woods. I was trying to shoot mushrooms. I kept going back to this one little patch of mushrooms every day at sunrise, trying to capture them when the rising sun hit them .. which I did .. but I wasn't happy. They died. So ... I knew where another patch was in the woods and I brought my camera that day thinking I'd try with them and it was raining. I almost didn't get my camera out, but I was so worried those would be gone too. So .. I grabbed my tripod and a raincoat and went to photograph them. When I saw my results I was amazed. It was the glow I had been going for. The ones I took in the direct sunlight .. even though it was golden hour sunlight ... they were contrasty.

Here is a link to the contrasty one.
http://500px.com/photo/73383919/fungi-family-by-sandra-nightski?from=user_library

The LE one practically glows. It was a light bulb moment for me.

Eight second exposure in the rain

(Download)