best film for night-time, outdoor pictures

Warning: long and somewhat rambling.

With several new-ish contenders on the market, please give me your

opinions on the best color film(s) (negative or transparency) for

shooting at night. My conditions put the light levels in the vicinity

of 0 to 5 EV (e.g., ISO 100 film, exposures 30 s at f/5.6 to 1 s at

f/5.6, respectively). I�d really rather not resort to filters and/or

exposure compensation. I want to use a reasonable aperture for depth

of field and lens performance (say, at least f/5.6). It seems to me

that recording a reasonably wide range of brightnesses is perhaps

most important; following that, important are apparent sharpness,

grain, and color fidelity/saturation (hate the muddiness some low-

light colors); and finally, to some extent important is actual

resolution. Do you disagree with these priorities? Why or why not?

What are your priorities?

It appears that there are only five choices that meet my criteria:

Fuji Provia 100F (good for exposures up to 128 s, per Fuji AF3-036E),

Fuji Provia 400F (good for exposures up to 32 s, per Fuji AF3-066E),

Fuji Astia 100F (good for exposures up to 60 s, per Fuji AF3-149E),

Fuji Velvia 100F (good for exposures up to 60 s, per Fuji AF3-148E),

and Kodak Portra 400UC (good for exposures up to 10 s, per Kodak

E190). Between the Provias, I am inclined to discount 400F, since

100F will work in plenty low enough light with presumably better

grain etc. (Yes, I�ve heard good things about Kodak Ektachrome E-100G

and E-100GX, but the maximum uncompensated exposure times are 10 s,

which is just too short, given their speed.)

Specifically, I�d like your opinions on both what to use and on the

following observations. (I just skimmed the data sheets and can--

maybe! somewhat!--interpret them, but I haven�t tried any of these

films yet, except Provia Fuji 100F.)

Comparing print and transparency films seems to be apples and

oranges. I�d expect the print film to have both more latitude itself

plus the ability to produce prints with more range than the

transparencies would. On the other hand, I�d face the problem of

getting someone to print them properly. My past experiences with

prints from negatives of night-time shots have been disappointing.

Among slide films, from what I can tell from the Fuji data sheets:

Velvia 100F is the most contrasty (as log exposure increases from �

2.0 to 0.5, density drops from 3.25 to 0.35), and Astia 100F (for the

same range, it is 2.90 to 0.45) and Provia 100F (again, same range,

2.85 to 0.35) are very comparable. This really surprised me because I

understood that Astia was less contrasty than Provia. So round 1 to

Provia 100F and Astia 100F?

In terms of resolution and sharpness, it looks like Provia 100F might

have the highest apparent sharpness (MTF response 110% at 10 lp/mm

and 90% at 20 lp/mm), followed by Velvia 100F (105% and 80%,

respectively), and then Astia 100F (90% and 70%). In terms of

ultimate resolution, the situation somewhat reverses itself. Provia

100F is worst (35% response at 50 lp/mm and no response at 100

lp/mm), Astia 100F is in the middle (35% and 20%, respectively), and

Velvia 100F comes out on top (45% and 25%). So round 2 to Velvia

100F, with Provia 100F in second?

In terms of color fidelity and saturation (and yes, there is some

tension there, and taste plays a big part), I would expect Astia 100F

to have the best fidelity but the lowest saturation, Provia 100F to

be in the middle, and Velvia 100F to have the highest saturation but

the lowest fidelity. So no clear winner there?

So my analysis suggests that Provia 100F remains the night-time

champ, and that Velvia 100F and Astia 100F have narrowed the gap a

lot, but remain more niche-type films than (relatively) general-

purpose ones. Portra 400UC would be a good choice when prints are the

object, but of course getting good prints might take multiple

attempts.

What do you think, and why?

You can see a few nighttime shots I took of Independence day

fireworks at <a href="http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/prettypics/fireworks.html">

http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/prettypics/fireworks.html</a>

<p>

I used Portra 160NC for the top 6 shots shots on that page,

and Provia 100F for the bottom 4. Exposures were around

1 minute at f8, except the first shot on the page was

closer to 3 or 4 minutes.

<p>

I scanned all my film myself, so I had no worries about

an automated lab messing up the results. The Portra definitely

recorded more shadow detail (but it's 2/3 stop faster,

and I made no allowance at exposure time for this).

The Provia was easier to scan, simply because dust

usually fell in dark areas, where it was

unnoticable. Beyond that, the two films have different

"looks", but I couldn't clearly call one an absolute winner

over the other. I was shooting 120 (6x6), and film resolution

wasn't really a critical issue.

<p>

I think I prefer the increased shadow detail

of Portra, along with the greater dynamic range, giving me

more options at scan time for setting the levels without

blowing things out. But good results are certainly possible

with the Provia.

<p>

I've always thought of night photography as more of a black

art than science, with a bit of guesswork, which

becomes much better as its backed up by

experience. In other words, you'll learn much more by

shooting a few rolls than by analyzing published

data about the various films.

I've been using Provia 100F for low light for the last few years. I have to say I greatly prefered the palette of E100SW for long (~30 sec) exposures, but I couldn't deal with its grain.<P>

A couple of months ago I tested the crop of new contenders - I had high hopes for E100GX especially, thinking it might combine the palette of E100SW with the grain of Provia 100F.<P>

I shot the same twilight scenes with Provia 100F, Velvia 100F and E100GX at 6 sec, 20 sec and 30 sec (unfortunately I didn't have a sample of Astia 100F yet; I'm experimenting with that now but haven't had a chance to do a controlled test yet).<P>

The winner was Provia 100F.<P>

The E100GX was almost as good, but the beautiful colors of E100SW are gone; it looks like Kodak decided to produce a clone of Provia 100F (and did a pretty good job of it).<P>

The Velvia 100F was far and away the worst of the three, suffering from extreme contrast buildup at 30 sec (but it's still way better in terms of reciprocity failure than Provia 50) It looks like Fuji tried to clone E100VS here; they did a pretty good job of it and greatly reduced the grain as well. But I never liked E100VS anyway...<P>

So the best remaining options seem to be Provia 100F, E100GX, E100G and Astia 100F. Someday I will scan and post the images from my tests (hopefully including the Astia 100F), but it will be a while.<P>

I've never found faster films to be much use for long exposures. By the time you finish adding CC filters and increasing exposure to compensate for reciprocity failure you end up pretty close to an effective ISO 100 anyway. And you've still got the high-speed grain.<P>

Incidently I think you're trying to read too much into the data sheets, especially when you try to compare Fuji films to Kodak films. For example, the data sheet for E100GX says "No filter correction or exposure compensation is required for exposure times from 1/10,000 to 10 seconds. At exposure times of 120 seconds, add CC10R filtration."<p>

You interpret that as "maximum uncompensated exposure times are 10 s", which is not the same thing at all. And there's a much bigger difference between Velvia 100F and Provia 100F, shot at 30 sec, than you'd ever guess from reading the data sheets.<p>Karl Lehmann <a href="http://www.lostworldarts.com/new_page_3.htm">Lost World

Arts</a>

C.D. Courter has done extensive testing of the reciprocity of various films. Here's his website

http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/technique/reciprocity.htm