What film for different situations

Get some basic Kodak Ultra 400 or Fuji Superia 400 Xtra, both are good general purpose films that are widely available in most supermarkets or chemists and can be processed at pretty much every high street shop in the country.

The only ones that might be a bit difficult without flash is the indoor low light as unlike with a DSLR, you can't just turn up the ISO to 3200 and shoot without flash unless your using a tripod or have extremely steady hands. Night time will mean the same thing.

For specific films for those individual situations my favourite negative films would be:

Indoor, well it: Kodak Portra 400
Indoor low light: Fuji Pro 800Z
Outdoor night time: unsure but I'm sure that Kodak TMax 3200 or Ilford Delta 3200 would be suitable, but if you want colour Superia 1600 (possibly pushed to 3200 although a high street shop won't do that for you).

Outdoor well lit: there are tons of suitable negative films for this job but either Kodak Ektar 100 or Portra 160VC/New Portra 160 would be my choice.

Transparency film:

Indoor, well lit: Fuji Provia 400X (remember that you have to use the relative colour correction filter though if shooting in Tungsten/fluorescent light or there will be a colour cast, the filter will however reduce the effective film speed to about 125 so you may have to consider exposing at ISO 800 and push processing, with colour negative film though they just correct it after scanning)
Indoor, low light: Same as above but exposed at 1600/3200 and push developed

Oudoor night: difficult, will definently need a tripod and likely the same above.

Outdoor well lit: multiple choices for me:

  • For landscapes only: Fuji Velvia 50 for its intense colour saturation but don't take any peoples pictures as they will look like their sunburnt
  • Fuji Velvia 100: a stop faster for a little less saturation than the 50 and a little more suitable for people but not the best.
  • Kodak E100VS: for saturation but much more subtle/natural than Velvia so it can be used in many more varied situations
  • Fuji Provia 100F: for a more narural/neutral image and very fine grain.
  • Kodak E100G, similar to Provia 100.

Some shops like Jessops do E6 transparency film processing but many need to send it away and it takes about 3 weeks with questionable quality. The best places to get them processed are sending them to a pro lab like Peak Imaging or The Darkroom.

In case you don't understand what push processing is, is where you extent the development time to compensate for underexposure for example where you have exposed ISO 400 film at ISO 800. It does however increase the image grain and contrast and reduce the resolution. You do need to use a pro lab though to do this who may charge a small fee for doing it.
Pull processing, which is a lot less common does the oposite by shorting the dev time to compensate for overexposure by shooting ISO 400 at 100 for example and has the opposite of the effects of push processing.
 
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^epic answer. if your ever in london - pint on me. Mainly looking to do some street stuff outside and some indoor shots / restaurants / friends etc

I went Jessops and picked up:

- Illford Super XP2 400 B&W
- Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400
- Fujifilm Superia X-Tra 800
- I got 3 rolls of Fujifilm xtra 100 with my body purchase

Thanks once again!!
 
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Depending on the film, you may have to increase the exposure time for night time / long exposures due to reciprocity failure. I don't know enough about it to give an epic answer, suffice to say Google is your friend:)
Film manufacturers often have film data sheets online and these will give an indication of how much you need to adjust the exposure for.
 
If you don't know what reciprocal failure is, its basically where the film exposure stops following the standard recipocal curve and starts needing even longer exposures from what is metered as the emulsion loses some of its sensitivity. This can also lead to colour shifts from the longer exposures, especially with transparency film where Velvia 50 as an extreme case requires magenta colour compensating filters for any exposures of 4 seconds and up to 30 seconds where its recommended you don't go past as the green shift is uncorrectable.

Unfortunately reciprocal failure data is something that Kodak never seem to publish with their newer films, they usually just say its safe for 1/10000th to 10 seconds and to make tests yourself to find what its like longer than that. Fuji on the other hand still publish a table with their film and include data for any colour compensating filters is their needed.

Most black and films (including Kodak TriX and PlusX) fortunately do publish the data but it can to extend way way more than you think, if I remember a 60 second shot with TriX is supposed to last 512 seconds or something if you compensate!

Do you have any colour filters for your B&W BTW? If not then there will be little contrast and the pictures may/will look pretty flat. If you get a cheap yellow filter then your sorted and if you want dramatic black sky effects then a red is the way to go! (Although this absorbs about 2.5 stops of light). I find an orange filter a good compromise. Most people with B&W keep a yellow filter on the lens at all times.
 
s162216 said:
If you don't know what reciprocal failure is, its basically where the film exposure stops following the standard recipocal curve and starts needing even longer exposures from what is metered as the emulsion loses some of its sensitivity. This can also lead to colour shifts from the longer exposures, especially with transparency film where Velvia 50 as an extreme case requires magenta colour compensating filters for any exposures of 4 seconds and up to 30 seconds where its recommended you don't go past as the green shift is uncorrectable.

Unfortunately reciprocal failure data is something that Kodak never seem to publish with their newer films, they usually just say its safe for 1/10000th to 10 seconds and to make tests yourself to find what its like longer than that. Fuji on the other hand still publish a table with their film and include data for any colour compensating filters is their needed.

Most black and films (including Kodak TriX and PlusX) fortunately do publish the data but it can to extend way way more than you think, if I remember a 60 second shot with TriX is supposed to last 512 seconds or something if you compensate!

Do you have any colour filters for your B&W BTW? If not then there will be little contrast and the pictures may/will look pretty flat. If you get a cheap yellow filter then your sorted and if you want dramatic black sky effects then a red is the way to go! (Although this absorbs about 2.5 stops of light). I find an orange filter a good compromise. Most people with B&W keep a yellow filter on the lens at all times.
Click to expand...

The more you speak, the more stuff clicks into place - in aperture 3/photoshop when applying black and white you get asked red/yel/green/orange/blue filter etc!! a little "ohhhhhhh" moment for me. After getting 5 version of the smae photo, I think yellow is about right...

one of these?

http://www.jacobsdigital.co.uk/p-37176-jacobs-digital-cokin-p002-orange-filter.aspx

EDIT: orange looks a good shout aswell....

im mainly going to be snapping indoors - semi well lit to dim light and the occasional homeless guy 'street photography' shot on a 50mm f1.8 / 135mm f2.8
 
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to be honest with filters I just picked up the hoya circular screw filters of the correct size for my lenses from fleabay... Yellow is pretty much only removed from the camera to make way for a orange/red or polarising filter when i'm shooting B&W film.
 
If you want P square then thats the sort of thing to go for, for screw in you can get a yellow/orange Hoya filter for quite reasonable prices.

Remember though that an orange filter absorbs about 1 1/3 to 1 2/3 of a stop so it might be best to get a yellow to start with as its the sort of filter that has a more subtle effect and doesn't absorb too much light (1/2 to 1 stop) so you can keep it on all the time and use an orange/red when you want a little more contrast with dark/black skies etc.
Of course you don't have to worry about exposure with TTL metering but with a red filter check what your camera is saying your exposure will be with it on and off as the red can confuse the meter, it should be about 1 1/2 to 2 1/3 stops darker with the filter on. It can also be worth doing the same with an orange as well.

You might want to look at SRB Griturns own range of P-square filters, although you may think they'd be rubbish as their own brand, I brought on of their own brand ND grads the other day and their actually Hi Tech filters, not bad for £12.50!

http://www.srb-griturn.com/srb-individual-square-filters-103-c.asp

Heres a yellow:

http://www.srb-griturn.com/srb-individual-square-filters-103-c.asp
 
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