what is a good ISO to shoot a Balloon Glow

[Bobby L.]

Been trying to figure this out, my thinking was 1600 because of shooting at night, but a few tell me 100 to 800. Since that is so much differnce in the ISO speed, thought I would ask here.

What would be a good iso film to shoot for a balloon glow at night?

 

[cotdt]

what is balloon glow?

 

[randyB]

I would use a 400 speed film, a good compromise of speed and grain.

 

[kevs]

Hi Bobby,

There are no wrong or right answers to your question. That's why you've been given several differing answers. Any speed film will record an image, but they'll be very different styles of image.

So you should really ask yourself a couple of questions.

1) What is your intended subject? The balloons? People in the crowds at the event?

2) What results do you want to acheive? Are you hand-holding the camera? In that case, the faster the better. You'll be able to hand-hold effectively at 1/30 at f2.8 or narrower aperture at about 1000 ISO in artificial light. You'll have limited depth of field and grainy images.

Or maybe you'd like to experiment with longer exposures and have less grain. Do you intend to use a tripod, cable-release and/or self-timer? Lens cap? You could use a 100 or slower film with multi-second exposures. Moving people will vanish, the balloons will blur if there's any wind at all. You can use a narrow-ish aperture, say f11, to keep everything focussed. Images made with this technique can look surreal. This is the option i'd choose.

3) Will you be close to the balloons, or far away? If you're right up close, you'll be able to use a faster shutter speed / narrower aperture. You might even be able to hand-hold a 100 ISO film and obtain sharp results. if you're miles away, you'll get less light coming through the lens.

As an example, this link gives an idea of what you might expect to achieve from a hand-held camera without flash at around 200 ISO (rough guess that...)

As you see, it's difficult for folks here to answer your questions when we don't know your intentions. IMO, there's no 'best ISO' for anything really - you just need to decide what results you want before anyone can really advise you.

If all else fails, use f8 and be there!

Hope that helps,
kevs

 

[Bobby L.]

mostley the balloons and probably a little bit of the crowd depend on where i'm at when i compose the shot, most of the shooting might be done by hand, but I will have access to either a tripod or a monopod, because my brother is taking his canon eos 40d and his tripod and monopod with him, and this will give me a chance to use a different lens than the 28-80 lens i have, there's one lens he has i can't use because it's a EF-S but the others I can use.

I'll be shooting without a flash, if there's a shot i need the flash then i'll borrow my brother speedlight to get the shot. Going to take shots up close and a little bit of a distant, but not allot.

I'll have a combination of color and B&W films with me. after i finish a roll of color i'll put in a roll of B&W and keep switching between the two.

 

[AgX]

Me too: What is a balloon glow???

 

[GeoffHill]

Balloon Glow is when hot air balloons start up early in the morning or late at night,

You are going to need a tripod, I would have thought, and the balloons are unlikely to move about much.

I would go for around 100 to 400 iso film. Shooting with flash will be a total waste of time, leave it at home

 

[Bobby L.]

k thanxs GeoffHill, nice pic of a balloon glow. Of all the pics i sen of balloon glows, I'll have a combination of 100 and 400 with me of B&W, not worry about color, because my brother will have his 40D and both of his CF cards, and I'll be using one of them, and transfer the pics from it to my computer. I'm more curious to see how the Balloon Glow looks in B&W.

 

[kevs]

Hi Bobby,

The ISO 400 film should be fine for hand-holding if there's enough light. Tri-X can be pushed two stops to 1600 EI with good results. You apply this rating to the whole film (there are ways around this, but it involves scissors and darkness!) Then extend development as per the box instructions.

For 100 speed film, you might want to keep that tripod / monopod handy, although near the glowing balloons you should be fine to hand-hold. Having said that, motion blur and camera shake can have their merits.

Good luck with it, and happy photographing,
kevs

AGX and cotdt, a 'balloon glow' is where hot air balloons inflate at night, on the ground, and use their burners to illuminate the fabric.

 

[Bobby L.]

k thanxs kevs