Night photography - C41 or E6?

I have an interest in night photography which is the preferred way?

 

 

Other than being preferred can they both be used and obtain satisfactory

results? Velvia is not too strong?

 

Thanks.

Exposures have to be just right with slide film, while with print you usually have a bit more leeway. I don't really know myself, but I'd love to hear some opinions, as I do long exposures for about 1/2 my photography.

Ray I like shooting at night with B&W film. Someone once told me that if you shoot color and have it developed you should ask them not to try and "correct" it during printing. I started developing my own color recently and I'm getting better results.

 

What it looked like to me when someone else developed my film is they tried to correct color and exposure, it actually looked horrible. I hope a better night shooter than me weighs in, it would be interesting to know.

 

To answer your question I think I would use that C-41 Fuji HC400 stuff.

<p>I have only used E6 for night shots, like this one:</p>

 

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/6926667-lg.jpg" alt="Booth"/>

 

<p>I considered Velvia but for some shots during this series exposures reached 10 minutes, and Velvia would suffer from reciprocity failure at those times. This was taken on Sensia 100, which is much more forgiving in that respect, but still has strong colours and fine grain.</p>

 

<p>I haven't tried similar shots with C41 but as others have said, machine prints from such shots may not be that good - if you're planning on getting the prints done professionally, or just want the negatives, I don't see why you'd have any particular problems. </p>

 

<p>One other thing that pushed me toward E6 is that I wanted to get some deep black areas, with isolated illuminated areas - I found it much easier to meter for transparencies (ie for the highlights) at night. Not that I expect it would really be any harder with negative film (and you'd certainly have extra latitude), but that was a factor for me. In the end I just bracketed and it worked well.</p>

I love shooting color negative film for long exposures. The latitude is such that I can just

count the exposure (one-one thousand, two-one thousand...) in my head and as long as I

expose enough, the results are fabulous.

 

If I'm shooting a two minute exposure, I don't want to be bracketing slide film and negative

film's increased latitude means that it's easier to color correct for some man made lighting.

Ditch Velvia- the contrast makes it about impossible to scan, it has horrid color shifts and its reciprocity characteristics are poor. 2 rolls was enough for me.

 

I bracket exposures on Sensia 100 slide film and like it a lot. I used Provia 100F and it is good but goes a bit cyan.

 

I also recommend color negative films like Fuji 160C which can be a boon for scenes with a wide dynamic range. If you want B&W, just avoid Tri-X. It has terrible reciprocity characteristics meaning you have to make unreasonably long exposures with it.

I think C41 can look a little flat at night. I am not a night photographer but have used my minolta x700 on auto and have had great results with velvia50 projected. The tungsten and sodium lighting give a beautiful warmth to night shots and I have never worried about street lights being blown out. If i spot metered I would probably try to shift the exposure a little to keep the highlights but that would be a mistake, centre weighted has been just fine.

 

Richard Harris.

Kodak E200 works really well for night shots. Good reciprocity and neutral color. Grain is very sharp.

To follow Richard's respone- I guess it means what you mean by "night." The X-700 on auto is okay for dusk and urban shots but can't properly expose for any sort of real night photography as it can only shoot for 4 seconds in auto modes.

 

When I say night I mean 1-5 minutes and Velvia falls part then with green shifts and a need to seriously lengthen the exposure to get a decent shot. 160C is easier to deal with than less contrasty negative films, I've found.

 

Here are a few long exposure (2 min range IIRC) with Sensia 100 and EliteChrome 100 and my X-700.

http://jingai.com/singapore/index.php?gallery=./%20Roger/Sunoco%20Refinery%2C%20Philadelphia

I have gotten good results with shooting Kodachrome 64 at night. The photos were scenes with bright objects on a black background and were probably shot with a shutter speed of about 5-10 seconds at f2.8, so reciprocity failure wasn't much of an issue. Scanning though, can be tough. I had to really tweak the color balance to get the Kodachromes to scan properly on my Coolscan V.

 

If you'd like to see some of these Kodachromes... I have some here: www.paullewisphoto.com/photo3.htm

Been shooting a lot at night over the years.

 

Good results can be obtained many ways, depends partly on your goals. C41 or E6 can both work well. So can other films. Big thing is using them, and getting to know their characteristics. With really long exposures, colors can vary a bit, and reciprocity failure means you're rarely certain when you push the button, exactly what you'll get.

 

Automated machines scanning C41 rarely give you as good an image as what you recorded. I tried that route back in the early 1980s, thought I was really screwing up, and switched to slide film. In recent years I've scanned some of those negs that I thought were failures, and found I had some really good images. All the darkness in the image results in the automated machines thinking you messed up, and printing poorly.

 

So at that point, I switched to slides, so I could get what I shot without machine interference.

 

To really really learn correct exposure, slide film is good. Unforgiving, but when you get it right the results are incredible. The lightning shot below would be a good example. But to get that shot, I'd already gone through a bunch of film in the months prior, learning the exposure from that spot.

 

In modern times, scanning the stuff myself has worked out really well, whether b/w neg, color neg, or slides.

 

If I had it to do over again, I'd do a couple things:

 

1. I'd start with "Fred Parker's Ultimate Exposure Calculator", a free spreadsheet for difficult lighting situations that I've not found any errors in, and which has allowed me to get shots when I couldn't meter. Google it.

 

2. I scan my own stuff, regardless of which medium used.

 

Samples below.

 

Ice show, Plymouth Michigan, Kodak T-Max 400, 35mm neg film:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard-uploads/00OC5p-41351684.jpg

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard-uploads/00OC60-41351984.jpg

 

 

Lightning over Phoenix, 1982, color Kodachrome 25, 35mm:

 

http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/4086911-md.jpg

Roger,

yes I did mean auto but if a shot needed more than 4 secs at f4 ish using a prime lens then I would use B and calculate from the displayed metering ie 1 second at f2 by the meter so I would use 8secs at f5.6 This would be for night time townscapes, so light levels are quite high. I would not be using a tripod, just jamming the camera tight on a brick wall or similar. If I had a tripod with me I would have had a spot and ambient incident lightmeter as well.

Richard.