Appropriate 35 mm film for low light handheld fine grain

Hi, I am going to a friend?s wedding reception on Friday night and I want to

take some interior shots with very little light and no flash. I Will use a

Contax G1 f2 - f22 rangefinder. Preferably B&W although I am willing to listen

color film suggestions as well.

 

Usually I shoot with Ilford HP5 400 forced at ISO 200. I like the film when I

process and develop on my own, but if I scan the film I usually get coarser

grain than I like. (Once I process the film I usually take it to scan it in high

rez.)

 

Maybe TMAX is a good option? Should I do 3200 and shoot at 1600? (I was trying

to avoid having to buy new chemicals...) I usually use D76.

Fuji Neopan 1600 is an excellent film. But shoot a few test rolls and develop before shooting an important event. If you can't do that before Friday, then shoot test rolls afterwards under similar lighting and exposure. Develop the test rolls prior to working on the important rolls.

There's always Ilford Delta 3200.

A fast film like Delta 3200 shot at 800-1600 and developed in Microphen, DDX or comparable developer will provide good speed and reasonably fine grain.

 

D76 should be okay too as long as you keep Delta 3200 or T-Max 3200 to 1600 or less. But, having tried it for this purpose, it wouldn't be my first choice.

 

I've used Ilford XP2 Super at 400 without flash and gotten good available light results in ordinary indoor lighting situations. But if the light is really dim you'll want something faster.

I don't think you can beat Tri-X in Diafine at 1600 for finer grain at a high speed in fact you can get away and make printable negatives with it at 3200.

 

Larry

If you're taking normal interior shots at a reception (as opposed to a murky church interior) with a f2 lens, then HP5 will be fine. Just push it by one stop to ASA 800 (in say XTOL 1:1) and shoot handheld at 1/30th to 1/60sec. There's plenty of latitude in HP5. Handholding down to 1/15th should be no problem with a rangefinder.

 

Charlie

I use HP5 quite a bit because I like it's "look", but it's scans (at least on my scanner) do show more grain than a lot of other films, especially when pushed. I still like it though.

 

I've also had good results with Neopan 1600, and found that Neopan 400 and 1600 both scan well (but I don't like the 400 as much as HP5 in general). The last wedding I went to I used a mix of HP5 (rated some at 400 and some at 800), and Neopan 1600, and they all came out really well.

 

I've heard good things about Fuji's Press Extra 800 (not sure if that's the exact name), if you fancy doing colour (neg).

Not that I've used all the films suggested, but I would wager most of the suggestions (minus

XP2) will have more grain than HP5 @ 200. Just so you know.

 

Personally, I think Tri-X at 1250 or 1600 in Diafine is a great way to go. I also like TMZ @

1600 or 3200, but its grainy...

I'll voice my opinion on TMZ @ 1600 in D76 - don't. I've done it and was very disappointed with the results. Better to use Xtol, IMHO.

 

Not too long ago, I did everything in D76. Nowadays, I've found a love for othr developers such as Rodinol, Xtol, and Pyrocat-HD. Definately consider Xtol.

Guys.

 

Two things.

 

One. Fast film = big grain. There's no getting around it. The faster the film, the bigger the grain.

 

Two. Image silver bearing films do not scan as well as chromogenics.

 

Three. Fast grainy B&W films do not scan as well as slow B&W films.

My suggestion is to shoot HP5 f2.0 at 1/30 but meter carefully to find out what e.i. that equates to. Then you can decide after the fact how to process the film. Fortunately the Zeiss 45mm Planar is incredibly sharp when wide open. Just don't decide how much you are going to push the film until you see what the light is. That's putting the cart before the horse.

 

Fortunately you are scanning. I've found you can pull things you would not believe out of some really thin negs with the proper scan.

 

I'm partial to Neopan 1600 in DDX but everyone has their own favorites. But then I've found Neopan 400 pushed a stop is almost as good.

I tried to do something similar with Delta 3200, Tmax P3200 and pushed Tri-X a couple of months ago. It didn't work out nearly as well as I thought it would.

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First, the light was far dimmer than I anticipated - I can't shoot reliably at 1/15 without camera shake, rangefinder or SLR, I've found - the light was extremely dim, and even pushing to 6400 or higher I needed to use that speed at least most of the night.

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Second, there was an open bar at the wedding I was at, and frankly most of the guests wouldn't have noticed or cared if I was using a flash :p

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So, if/when I do this again (and this was just for fun, so no loss), I'll do a few things differently, namely:<br>

- for flash-less pictures, bring a monopod. Less obtrusive/easier to carry than a tripod. My cameras only do aperture-priority automatically to 1600 ISO, so in a really dark room at a slow shutter speed it should help quite a bit.<br>

- go handheld w/o the monopod, but use flash. Unless you're taking dozens of pics/minute most people at the reception won't care - and will likely pose more the more drinks they have in them :)

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Good luck :)

I like the suggestion of shooting everything at 1/30, f/2 and figure it out later, but obviously that limits you to a certain shallow depth of field, which may not be desirable/useful.

 

This is why I suggested a monopod, which, depending on the light, may let you shoot more stopped-down, but, of course it means bringing extra equipment along.

Relative newbie here. I love Tri-X for the 'look', but pushed results have been so bad (due to the lab) that I have postponed further use.

 

I don't do my own processing (yet), but Fuji Neopan developed by the local lab has surprised me. Not that much grain, scans very well. Contrast is a bit too dramatic for some I guess.

I know you are trying to avoid getting different chemicals, but for the purpose you are suggesting (while D76 is perhaps the most flexible and adaptable soup out there)you may want to invest in a more suitible developer. My favorite combo is TriX at 1000 in acufine - but there are other developers more commonly available that would be more suitable than D76, such as the afore mentioned microphen or DDX. I think you may be well served by going to one of those for this particular use. Mind you, as Mr Schifano has pointed out, any claims of fine grain with fast film pushed or otherwise are at best relative.

Frank, faster film will have larger grain, but, then, wouldn't pushing a slower film also increase grain-size?