Night time film

[winjeel]

I love long exposures and natural lighting (and dof, and macro, and portraits in the 70-200mm range, 50mm in low light, among other things).

Tonight, my err... (how do I say it) 'other' camera seemed to have died. Probably the high humidity rendered it unconscious, or that flu that's been going round. Terrible timing, it died in the first ten minutes of an hour long fireworks show, and it was a night that threatened sudden torrential rain (which it did often all day), so I thought I should leave the Seagull at home. However, also, tonight is the local town festival, but the only film I had was the Velvia 100 ("Daylight"). [/sob story]

The problem is is that the electrics in the Seagull don't work, and so I had to guess the exposure time, and used the Bulb setting. That was fun, now I'll have to see how they come out. I'm sure the portable shrines will mostly look good, and with lots of blur of people walking about.

But this got me thinking, what is a good night time film, especially for long exposures. I'm sure everyone's experiences, contexts, and purposes are different, so it'd be interesting to hear how things turn out with various films, I suppose.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The Minolta SR-1, SR-7, SRT-101, SRT-102, ... [all the mechanical Minoltas] are , based on my experience, superb for night photography. I am sure that any machnical camera - Nikon, Canon, Leica, Rollei, Hasselblad, [fill in the usual suspects here] would be good.

Steve

 

[mike c]

Winjeel,in black and white I've heard that Fugi Arcos asa 100 is good for long exp. supposedly having less problems with recipitory failure. .

 

[insertclevername]

I'll second Acros as a good film for night photography. For most purposes, it has no reciprocity failure. After several minutes (correct me if I'm wrong) it has less than one stop of failure.

 

[winjeel]

Thanks for the ideas. I haven't heard of Acros, I'll look out for it.

 

[2F/2F]

What do you mean by saying that you love depth of field? You love that it exists?

Good long exposure films that I know about are Fuji transparency films, especially T64 and Provia (unsure about Astia or Velvia), Kodak T-Max 100, and Fuji Neopan 100 Across. I also like Kodak Portra 100T, Fuji NPL, and Kodak 160T.

 

[winjeel]

By dof, I love experimenting with dof and making the most of the bokeh from my lenses. Anyway, there's a number of things that I enjoy, and one of them is night time stuff and long exposure photography.

I'm currently using Velvia 100, and have seen Provia locally.

 

[keithwms]

Fuji T64 is (was) an excellent night film.

 

[mooseontheloose]

Andrew, what part of Japan are you living in? Most Yodobashi and Bic Camera stores have an ample supply of all kinds of film, including Fuji Acros,T64, and Provia.

Generally I prefer to use Provia for my night shots, including virtually every fireworks display I've ever photographed -- it's better than Velvia in terms of reciprocity failure and colour casts (I think). There's nothing wrong with using it in any night shots as long as you don't mind a warmer colour cast to your photos. I also like using tungsten film for fireworks -- it gets away from the overly red and yellow casts that show up using regular film, and it's essential when shooting anything involving fire at night. In terms of black and white, like some of the other posters below, I love Acros for night time work.

I suppose not having a hand-held meter is your biggest obstacle, but if you've been shooting a lot at night in various lighting conditions I'm sure you have a good idea of where to start in terms of settings. Unfortunately, Japan is not the place to get used equipment cheaply, but maybe you might come across a hand-held light meter for a decent price. Even though all my cameras (save the holgas and TLRs) have meters in them, I prefer to use the handheld meter for any night work.

 

[winjeel]

I'm in Nagoya, but I try to keep away from stores like Bic Camera, the temptation is too good. I have looked for a second hand light meter, but I think the starting price was 50,000 yen, of which I can get a new XD-700 for less! (my Seagull's internal light meter isn't working, so I did check out other cameras)