Best B&W Films for City Night Photography

I've read over the archives but not found much in the way of recent

recommendations for B&W specific to city night photography. I'm

looking for best film choices that balance small(ish) grain and good

contrast (is higher or lower better at night?) and tonality. I'd

appreciate any developing advice also.

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There will be narrow streets lit by window light and street lamps,

with people in and around entranceways and sidwalks. I'll be

hand-holding a 35mm camera with a 35/2 lens, so maybe 1/30 sec max.

I'm not sure what speed I'll have to rate to reach this, but maybe

around 1600 (let me know if you have better thoughts on this). Thanks!

Metering is almost aways problematic with night time street photography. You often have very bright light sources and deep shadows. An averaging reflection meter can be overly influenced by the bright light sources. A spot meter can be problematic as well, since you really need to meter both shadows and highlights and then figure out just where you want your midpoint to be - not a terribly fast process. The same can be said for incident metering. So what to do? What you need is a film and developer combination that will give you the speed you want (EI 1600 is not unreasonable and a good place to start for handheld night photography) with as much latitude as possible. I think you might find the Tri-X/Diafine combination will fit your needs. You can hold shadow detail pretty well with this and still keep the highlights in check. A little bit of fill flash to lighten up the shadows can also be helpful.

Hand holding a camera for night time photography, why take the chance. A tripod, buy one, rent one, find a friend who has one or make one. You could lose the shot of a lifetime due to motion blur.

 

Best film for City Night Photography. I've had great luck with Ilford Delta 400 pushed to 1600 and developed in Xtol.

The Delta's can be very nice. I've had good success with Fuji Acros too. I also often prefer XP2 for it's lower contrast. Sometimes can work better for such scenes, but be sure not to underexpose it. You will have a challenge getting small grain nor good contrast if you shoot something at 1600. This attachment was XP2 hand-held at 1/30 and f/2.0. The XP2 was developed normally and scanned.<div></div>

I do a lot of nighttime photography and push processing. In my experience the most important element is finding that perfect combination of light, form and subject matter. The three seldom seem to come together.

 

Anything from an ISO 400 film like Tri-X to a nominally 3200 film like Delta 3200 will do for nighttime, handheld photography. It just depends on your tastes and how steady your hands are.

 

You might think this is an easy question to answer but it isn't. It's about as open-ended as asking "Hi, I like b&w film, what kind should I use?"

 

Are you willing to push process or would you prefer to shoot at or near the film's true speed? Do you understand the differences between the two practices?

 

To sum it up (IMO), pushing sacrifices shadow detail in exchange for improved midtones where most skin tones are. That's usually an acceptable compromise to me.

 

What I often don't want are blown highlights from extended development. So I use certain speed enhancing developers and techniques that tend to minimize this problem.

 

If you prefer full tonal range and shadow detail you'll need either extremely steady hands when using a 400 film like Tri-X (or a tripod) or use Neopan 1600 rated at around 800, or TMZ or Delta 3200 rated at around 1000-1600. Neither of the latter is a true ISO 3200 film tho', in my experience, Delta 3200 pushes very, very well. It's only real vice is popcorn-like grain.

 

It's also important to consider matching film and developer. Some combinations work better than others.

 

Familiar developers such as Rodinal and D-76/ID-11 are not particularly good for push processing. My favorite push developer is Microphen. Other folks use and recommend DDX, Acufine and others. Even HC-110 is good for moderate pushes.

 

Diafine is an odd duck. It's a speed enhancing developer with some films and not with others. For example when using Diafine I rate Tri-X at 1200-1250. But TMY seems limited to around 500-600, hardly any better than the box speed of 400. And I've never gotten a single good roll from TMX in Diafine at any speed. Pan F+, supposedly an ISO 50 film that never delivered better than 25 for me in other developers, works beautifully at 50 for me in Diafine. Delta 3200 works just about perfectly at 1600 in Diafine tho' the grain, again, is popcorny.

 

Diafine's main advantage is amazing ease of use and extremely long keeping properties. Read up on it in the many threads on this forum.

After you start shooting at night, you will conclude what "look" you are seeking. It's not obvious like shooting in the daytime. You will probably come to seek something with a lot of dark area lacking any detail. That's good because you will have an incredibly high contrast range in most scenes. Then you'll know if you want to meter / expose for the highlights or midtones. You will always lose the shadows. Use that to your advantage to your images don't look like they were shot in the daytime.

 

Only then will your decisions about tripod or not & necessary film speed become apparent. You may find you can use iso 400 on a tripod or may need to go to 1600-3200-6400 if you want to shoot hand held.

 

Personally, I love the look of high contrast grainy people shots. But that's not for everyone. I like Neopan 1600 pushed a stop in DDX to get it from it's real speed to 1600. Quite forgiving. My best images come from just shooting wide open at the slowest speed I can hand hold and see what I get. YMMV

BTW, I have a print of Richard Sintchak's "Union Square, San Francisco" image above. The JPG doesn't do it justice, you have to see the print to really appreciate it.

Hi Lynn, thanks for your nice comments on my image. Usually for most of my night photography I am quite deliberate in my use of a tripod and in metering, almost always using a spot meter. But that shot above, and the one I attach here, are both from the same roll and were taken after a business meeting I had downtown. I was walking up to Geary Street to take the bus home and happen to have my Contax G2 in my briefcase. So I thought I'd take a few hand-held shots along the way. The results were surprising and pleased me very much. I have come to trust the meter in my G2 as it has proven quite accurate, even with slide film, even though it being nothing more than a simple center-weighted meter. I set the aperture for f/2 and let the speed fall where it may, the flower stand being 1/30th, the wet street shot 1/15th. The G2 shutter is incredible smooth and being a rangefinder with no mirror can be hand-held down to 1/15 if one holds their breath and hopes for the best. I cannot remember if I set the camera for 400, or for 320 which I usually shoot XP2 at. But XP2 has such good latitude that unless underexposed it does well in such scenes. For developing, as it's a C-41 film, I just had it developed as a typical C-41 film without any special instructions to the lab. I think it worked quite well in these shots since even though it was night the downtown is fairly well lit, and it was a wet evening which makes everything shine more than typically.<div></div>

I strongly recommend a tripod. I have found that the biggest problem for night photogtaphy, aside from the obvious lack of light, is the excessive contrast. I use Tmax, overexpose the heck out of it and underdevelop it like crazy. Of course, this makes pictures of people difficult to say the least, so it may not answer your questions, but I just love this effect.

 

I am attaching a shot of the Coors brewery taken at night a couple of months ago. It was about a 5 minute exposure at f11. I used my Mamiya 645 and 210mm f4 lens. I scanned it from a print, so it's not the best, but you can get the idea. I have to give credit to the person who taught me this, Chris James in Denver, who is an amazing night photographer.<div></div>

If you are going to use a tripod and long exposures then reciprocity failure becomes a big factor. I know it's counter-intuitive but TMax 100 is the "fastest" film I know of once you get metered exposures beyond about 15 seconds because of it reciprocity charactersitics.

I'm not aware of any dramatic changes that have taken place in the world of high-speed b&w film or developer technology in the past several years, so the information in the archived threads you found should still be quite relevant.<P>

My own preference is for Delta 3200 at 1600 (one-stop push) if there's sufficient light or at 3200 (two-stop push) in darker conditions. At 1600, shadow detail and tonality are excellent, contrast isn't too high, and grain isn't excessive. At 3200, grain and contrast increase, but shadow detail is still decent.<P>

If finer grain is important, HP5+ will work at 1600 (two-stop push), but contrast will be high and shadow detail poor (worse than Delta at 3200). I try not to push HP5+ above 1000 because Delta 3200 looks so much better at the higher speeds.<P>

For both films, I develop in Xtol diluted 1:2.<P>

Your estimation about the shutter speed/aperture/film speed is on target. Streets with a lot of bright signage and well-lit display window will give you another stop or two.<P>

<center><img src="http://mikedixonphotography.com/korsnowphone01.jpg"><br>

<i>Delta 3200 at 1600, 50mm at about f3.5</i><P>

<img src="http://mikedixonphotography.com/tootsies01.jpg"><br>

<i>Delta 3200 at 3200, 50mm at about f2.4</i><P>

<img src="http://mikedixonphotography.com/noparade01.jpg"><br>

<i>HP5+ at 1000, 50mm at about f2</i><P></center>

Thanks for the great and educational replies folks. I was hoping a consensus would emerge, but your suggestions of Tri-X/Diafine, Delta/Xtol, Acros, XP2, Neopan, TMZ and HP5+ are plenty to get started. I'll probably end up following Bob's guidance and find the look I like after several attempts. And the posts are great: Mike, that middle shot looks like a painting!

When Mike Dixon gets great shots like these, I'll do whatever he suggests! He clearly puts

his camera where his mouth is, or somethin' like that! As many folks suggest in many

places, also consider tri-x at 1250 or so and diafine.

Anybody going to ask David S if he's going to scan or print his images?

 

If he's going to scan, I'd still rather shoot 800 speed print film and desaturate. XP2 kind of qualifies under this category.

That's an interesting thought Scott. I do want to scan at some point, though I don't own a scanner as yet. I'll have to dig through the archives to learn more about higher-speed color print film choices, how they compare to the recommendations here regarding grain and contrast, and the best home-use film scanners. Is your preference based on having the option to present in color or because of better characteristics (say, improved shadow detail)?

Paul, that Coors shot is amazing. Would you recommend similar fstop to catch night time

car tail light blur?