Help with options for low light night time street photography

[dbbowen2]

I am giving a second go at low light street photography where the area is illuminated by a few street lights and some flood lights. No other light sources available and no flash.

Last week I tried shooting Reflx Labs 800T at box speed and got somewhat decent results but had to shoot my lenses wide open, and at slower shutter speeds… which resulted in a lot of missed focus and shaky images.

The 35mm lens I actually want to use goes down to f2 and unless the conditions were perfect, the light didn’t allow for wide shots.

I have an 85/1.2 that I had to switch over to, but even then I had to shoot at 1.2 or 1.4 which didn’t give me the dof I was looking for. And I had to back up pretty far to get any usable shots


This weekend I am hoping to try one of these 3 options:

Portra 800 pushed to 1600
Portra 400 pushed to 1600
Portra 400 pushed to 3200


Does anyone have any experience with these? I’ve never pushed film before and could use some tips or guidance.

My thought process with pushing the film is I can get back a stop or two of aperture or ss to either allow the use of my 35mm lens or get better dof and more of the scene in focus and not blow focus so much. The downside is I think the shadows will be super grainy and won’t have much information in them?

Thanks in advance. I’ll be shooting at a protest at night time so I want as much info is as I can get

 

[joho]

just a tip the wide angle a 24mm on a 135mm camera at 1/15 s and if you are very steady you can hand hold at 1/4`s [1/20`s is normal for a 24mm lens as a guide 50mm=1/50`s _80mm =1/80`s ]
"35mm lens or get better dof and more of the scene in focus and not blow focus so much"...better a 24mm, and the Portra 800 at 3000asa just me 2 cents.
All this if you will not use a tripod.

 

[Agulliver]

I cannot imagine needing faster than 800ISO with f2 and larger. What shutter speeds were you having trouble with, and what shutter speeds do you aim for?

 

[koraks]

My thought process with pushing the film is I can get back a stop or two of aperture or ss to either allow the use of my 35mm lens or get better dof and more of the scene in focus and not blow focus so much. The downside is I think the shadows will be super grainy and won’t have much information in them?

I assume that you will scan the negatives and then go from there digitally, not optically print them on an enlarger - correct? In that case, push processing for 1-2 stops using color negative film is virtually useless. Pushing film effectively means underexposing and then overdeveloping to make the final curve end up occupying about the same contrast range so the negatives can still be printed easily. With scanning, this contrast adjustment through overdevelopment isn't really necessary anyway if you're going to underexpose by a stop or so; you can simply boost the contrast digitally (provided you make reasonably good scans).

Nothing will ever make up for the loss of shadow detail due to underexposure. Keep this in mind.

With night-time street photography, the main challenge is the large contrast between the illuminated areas and the shadows. The latter require generous exposures; generally a second or more even at large apertures, and often several (dozen) seconds depending on film speed. There's no way around this if you need information in those areas. Use a tripod, expose for the shadows and reel in the highlights digitally (when optically printing, through pre-flashing, local burning or masking). The alternative is accept that the poorly lit areas will be solid black and frame your compositions in such a way that this doesn't hurt and the focus is on the brighter areas.

The long & short of it is that push processing isn't going to help you much either way. The only real solutions are avoiding the problem by focusing on more brightly lit areas, or shoot digital on a system that allows clean output at very high ISO's. Film just wasn't made for this, sorry.

 

[gary mulder]

I second Koraks, You will be pushing beyond the limits. Contrast will be your enemy. This example was photographed with Delta 3200 & a 24mm/f1.4

 

[Saganich]

Agreed, pushing the film isn't going to help much in that situation. It's best to find a night street situation with more stray light sources, then the images will look like what you have in mind. In Brooklyn there is lots of stray light at night and I can shoot TriX f2 at 1/60 on the street, but the variation of the lighting is more like a stage, which results in the images looking shadowy and moody. The images look like film noir, but in reality the street seemed more evenly lit to the eye.

 

[Chan Tran]

Forget about high speed film. Just use ISO 100 film, use tripod and pick non moving subject. I gave up shooting low light with film hand held. Fast lenses give no depth of field. Fast film is terrible yet not that much fast.

 

[dbbowen2]

@koraks you are correct, scan negatives and then from there digital

I almost exclusively have to shoot handheld. All with moving subjects. Last weekend was my first go at it, and i can post some examples below. I tried using Reflx Labs 800T film because its supposed to have great exposure latitude, but i was unable to use my 35mm f2 lens i wanted and had to switch over to using my 85mm f1.2 which did not give me the wide focal length i was hoping to use or depth of field i wanted. I also dont like the light halations i was getting from the film.

I did get some okayish photos, but I missed focus a lot and some of the results werent great. There IS a good bit of light though but its still wavering between the very bottom of my light meter the whole time.

I have a digital camera that shoots 12,800 iso that im using as well, but i was really more interested in the film photos.


35mm f2 wide shot, not enough light

35mm not enough light

35mm too much motion for the SS

More light as you get closer to the street lights , but must run wide open aperture

Blown focus from wide open aperture

85mm 1.2, focus is limited because of the aperture

Portrait was okay, because of the single subject in focus, but you lose the background detail

mirrorless at 12,800 iso

I dont mind the additional grain and loss of shadows, I was just thinking i could get at least a stop more of aperture at 30 or 60th of a second SS to help out, but it seems like what im going to end up with is just underexposed images?

 

[dbbowen2]

just a tip the wide angle a 24mm on a 135mm camera at 1/15 s and if you are very steady you can hand hold at 1/4`s [1/20`s is normal for a 24mm lens as a guide 50mm=1/50`s _80mm =1/80`s ]
"35mm lens or get better dof and more of the scene in focus and not blow focus so much"...better a 24mm, and the Portra 800 at 3000asa just me 2 cents.
All this if you will not use a tripod.

Unfortunately, in this scenario tripod use is pretty limited. I do have a 28mm prime but thats as wide of lens as i have

I cannot imagine needing faster than 800ISO with f2 and larger. What shutter speeds were you having trouble with, and what shutter speeds do you aim for?

Ive been trying to stay at 1/60 or 1/30 if possible since its all handheld

 

[Chan Tran]

There are a number of film camera that has VR or IS and that would help.