Slide film at night with flash

Hi, I am going to photograph people at a party where it will be very

dark. I would like to use slide film and a powerful flash, but I have

never managed to get good results shooting with slide film and flash

at night before. I will used a 100 film. Any good advice?

Will you be shooting indoors or outside "at night?"

Hi, should have said that. I am shooting indoor

Hm. I think we probably need more information. What has been the problem with your previous results? What do you need to fix? I'm sure someone will question why you want to use slide film. I like slides, but for this kind of shooting, it's a reasonable question given that print film has greater latitude and greater tolerance for mixed lighting sources. As for good advice, it's probably all of the stuff discussed in the wedding and social event photo forum, plus some. A single, powerful flash may provide enough light, but the direction and quality of the light may be lacking. Getting the flash off-camera and softening it somehow may make more pleasing portraits. Good luck.

On-camera flash has the problem that one distance is correctly exposed, closer is overexposed, and further is under-exposed. No amount of power can fight this, the light falls off as a high power (square? cube?) of distance.

 

The much higher contrast of slide film than print film accentuates this. You really have to make sure there is nothing in the frame closer than your subject, as it will become a distracting blown-out highlight on slide film. (At least you have a hope of using the dark background as a compositional element.)

 

Ways to fight it:

 

Bounce flash, if the location is suitable. This is how I used to do flash with Kodachrome II: Honeywell Tilt-A-Mite flash (tipped up) holding M-3B flashbulbs. This can be made a lot easier with a modern flash with bounce capability and TTL metering.

 

Low contrast film, such as print film, particularly the portrait films (Kodak Portra or Fuji NPS & NPH).

 

Or, forger the flash, use a fast prime lens and Fuji NPZ. If you have that combination, the results will be much more natural looking, like they looked when you were there.

Mona,

 

As much as I use --And love -- E6 slide film, this is one place where I don't recommend it; and here's why:

 

1) You'll have mixed tungsten and flash lighting, or worse, fluorescent lighting thrown into the mix -- Whether you use flash or not. This will yield white points all over the map; and if you try to compensate for it with filters you'll have a weird color balance;

 

2) Exposure latitude: You have to nail it pretty close with E6 film, which means you'll be firing your flash twice: Once for metering, and then the second time for the actual exposure... And there go your candids down the toilet;

 

3) Color print film doesn't suffer nearly as badly from these issues; and the darker the room, the more it favors C41 film.

 

By the way, I love E6 so much I process it myself! )

 

Cheers!

Dan