B&W, Color slide/print film for long exposures

[stevco]

Hello,

I'm interested in doing long exposures with medium format KIEV 80 with 65mm 3.6 and 90mm 2.8 lens. I'm about to do some landscape/lake/sky/afte sunset shots, and I'm wondering about what kind of film i shood use. I'm aware of reciprocity failure and loosing the sensitivity of light when using film for this kind, but i want to give a try. Still this woulbe be around 30sec (soon i'm planning to buy ND filter).

First I'd go for B&W films so which B&W film would be best for this, i've read about ILFORD PANF 50, FUJI NEOPAN ACROSS, maybe some KODAK..?

For Color slide films here is a comparition between FUJI ASTIA and PROVIA http://www.flickr.com/photos/gullevek/2564784650/, and from the shown the both films gives great results, or FUJI VELVIA 50/100?

I'm not sure about the quality of the print film for long exp., also the slide film is tricky for getting right exposure and smaller latitude.

I would do this also with 35mm film, so what do you think, should i go strickly with the medium format, would it be much better?

Thank you,
Stevco.

 

[Konical]

Good Evening, Stevco,

Try T-Max 100. Most of your exposures for city skylines, downtown areas will probably range from about 30 seconds to 2 minutes (f11 or 16). You'll probably have to experiment with development/developers. Technidol is ideal for reducing contrast, but it's hard to find anymore. Photographers Formulary has a substitute, but I haven't yet tried it. Lots of people have also found Fuji Acros excellent for long exposures, and I'm sure that some will chime in here. A rock-steady tripod is really the critical item.

Color slide film designed for duplicating works very well for long exposures. It tends to be low in contrast and tungsten-sensitive. ". . . slide film is tricky for getting right exposure and smaller latitude"--actually night shots have an advantage because the eye or brain tends to make allowances more readily than for daytime exposures. In addition, duping film seems to have a fairly generous latitude. With slide film, a double exposure often works best. One exposure of several seconds is made around 25-30 minutes after sunset; the second exposure of several minutes comes after there's no longer any natural light in the sky. That's assuming a film with an E. I. of around 8 (e. g. Kodak Duplicating Film) and an aperture of f11 to 16. The biggest difficulty may be finding any E-6 duping film, especially in MF.

Konical

 

[stevco]

Konical,
Thank you for the recommendations.
I'm reading some reviews for KODAK T-MAX 100, which appear to be good too. The bad thing is that I would develop the film in a local photo lab, not by myself, and for B&W films the negative is resulting of the different developers, temp, etc..

About duplicating film I really have no experience, and i think i can't find it here in Macedonia.

 

[weldong]

I have had great results with long exposures with Astia 100F, Velvia 50, even E100VS and Rollei 400IR films for long exposures. For color shots after sunset, my choice is Astia 100F (both MF and 135). I like how it works with the blues and purples of the setting sky.

For very long exposures and for general long expsosure use, I like Velvia 50. After 20m or so, it is a little more sensitive to blue but overall, the colors are pretty much together. I found that a shot that meters at 20mins will need another stop (40mins)

When you get an ND filter, realize they all do some sort of color shift. Better ones less so. This will be up to your preference...for me, the NDs I have, the shift is pleasing. But when you find one, do some research and see if it is okay with you.