Fuji NPZ or Kodak Portra 800 for stage events?

[film_guy]

I'm helping out with photos of a local gathering for Christians. Everything will be indoors. There'll be some low-light stage mini concerts with medium-sized stage lights, small group gatherings in rooms with tungsten light, and general large events photography. This is the first time I'll be shooting entirely film for this event, so I'm just wondering what type of 35mm color film I should be getting?

My current choices for

available light:

- Fuji NPZ 800
- Fuji Press 800
- Kodak Portra 800
- Fuji Superia xtra 800

with a bit of flash:

- Fuji Press 400
- Fuji Superia xtra 400
- Kodak Portra 400NC
- Kodak Tri-X

How to I balance for tungsten lighting? Which film above works best under tungsten conditions?

 

[benjiboy]

I'm helping out with photos of a local gathering for Christians. Everything will be indoors. There'll be some low-light stage mini concerts with medium-sized stage lights, small group gatherings in rooms with tungsten light, and general large events photography. This is the first time I'll be shooting entirely film for this event, so I'm just wondering what type of 35mm color film I should be getting?

My current choices for

available light:

- Fuji NPZ 800
- Fuji Press 800
- Kodak Portra 800
- Fuji Superia xtra 800

with a bit of flash:

- Fuji Press 400
- Fuji Superia xtra 400
- Kodak Portra 400NC
- Kodak Tri-X

How to I balance for tungsten lighting? Which film above works best under tungsten conditions?

I think in these circumstances since the colour temperature of the stage lighting is an unknown quantity I would use the Fuji NPZ 800, the current Fuji neg. films have a fourth layer that make it more tolerant to tungsten and mixed lighting and will give an acceptable result, it's not as if you're shooting studio portraits, and need to produce perfect skin tones.

 

[film_guy]

Is Fuji NPZ similar to Fuji Press 800?

 

[afsmithphoto]

In my experiece, Fuji films have far less grain at higher speeds than their Kodak counterparts so I would advise using one of them. I do not have much experience with NPZ, though I know it is more of a portraits film like the NPS or NPH. The slightly muted color pallette of these films will make any difference in color temperature less stark, so that is probably the way to go.
Unless of course the stage lights will be colored (Gelled) and you wish to emphasize the lights, in which case I would recommend superia or press. (As I understand it, the press is very similar to superia, only with better quality control.)

If you're going to be using flash (daylight) put a full CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gel on it.(Full refers to strength of the color, not size of the gel) This will balance the flash to tungsten. It will slightly reduce the output of your flash, but it will balance the color.

Do not worry much about the fact that your film is daylight and your light sources are tungsten, there is enough room in negative film to balance the colors back to where they should be. If you want to see some examples, all of the live performance shots on this page

http://afsmithphoto.tripod.com/Polymer/index.htm

were shot with daylight film under tungsten lights. Don't even bother with an 80A, its not worth the speed it costs you. Good luck. -Adam

 

[Fuji]

I would use a combination of Pro 800Z and Pro 400H. These are the latest versions of the NPZ and NPH you mention. Both have subtle colour reproduction so less stark with saturated stage lighting but will cope well with mixed temps.

 

[Neal]

Dear film-guy,

I would stick with the NPZ or Portra, but more importantly, go out and test. Find something similar and experiment. Good film won't save bad exposure.

Neal Wydra