Tungsten-Balanced Film for Night Photography

Not so much a question (except at the end) as an observation -- I just

picked up my first roll of tungsten-balanced film from the lab and the

results (from several nights spent along the South Bank of the Thames)

are just amazing (the film's results, not mine ;) ).

I had come across several references to T-balanced film in various

forums but had found it difficult to locate any to shoot since your

standard little shop doesn't seem to carry it at all. What finally

drove me to go out and really look for some was a passing reference in

the Edward Burtynsky book to the quality of this type of film,

espeically at night. For UK-reference, I managed to track some down at

Silverprint in London.

My only question is this: in *some* night shots, areas that were lit

substantially more than the rest of the frame appear to blow-out

completely. So a well-lit brown wall *can* actually turn bright white

even though the rest of the photo remains 'well-exposed'. When

exposing tungsten film do you meter for the highlights and go with a

dark photo overall, or do you have rule for finding some kind of

compromise exposure that really opens up the the dark areas without

blowing out the light areas completely?

Also, where else have you found this type of film to come in handy?

Cheers,

jon

Quote:

"My only question is this: in *some* night shots, areas that were lit substantially more than the rest of the frame appear to blow-out completely. So a well-lit brown wall *can* actually turn bright white even though the rest of the photo remains 'well-exposed'. When exposing tungsten film do you meter for the highlights and go with a dark photo overall, or do you have rule for finding some kind of compromise exposure that really opens up the the dark areas without blowing out the light areas completely?"

I take it you are using Tungsten-balanced slide film and not negative film, right? If so, accept that point light sources will likely blow out completely in order to get the rest of the image out of the shadows. Unless you have a meter which works in very low light and have a table to let you know how much to correct the exposure, as it isn't quite linear after a few minutes, the best advice I can give you is to bracket like crazy in hopes that one of the shots will be just what you envisioned.

Outside lighting at night can be extremely contrasty; you'll often have to choose what part of the image to let disappear into darkness or brightness (I often prefer underexposing to overexposing large parts of the image).

If you have a decent light meter (better than an in-camera meter that usually stops metering below EV1, sometimes without warning that light levels are too low) you can get away with no bracketing.

With some practice, however, you can estimate the proper exposure time night shots quite accurately without a light meter. For example, for me, an overcast sky gives roughly 50% grey at about 6 minutes at f/8 and ISO 64 (this is without taking exposure compensation into account, and probably varies from city to city, or even from neighbourhood to neighbourhood).

Yep, it was tungsten slide film from Fuji. I stupidly discarded the box so I'm not sure the exact 'mark', but some quick research suggests that it must have been "Fuji RTP Tungsten 64 - 135-36".

It seems like you both use external light meters -- this is something that I've been considering for quite some time since I know that they provide superior performance (including real spot metering) but the costs seem to be all over the map... any suggestions for a first meter?

jon<div></div>

The only real rule in existing light situations is what works. You can get lots of different looks out of the same scene depending on how you expose it. Roger Smith had the best practical advice (Bracket like crazy and hope something comes out.)

One rule that works to give natural looking results is to expose normally down to about 7 foot candles. This is equivalent to 1/30 sec at f/2 with ISO 400 film. As the scene gets darker, don't expose any more than this. The reproduction will be dark, but it will approximate the original scene. If you expose enough under moonlight it looks like sunlight, but it doesn't look natural. This terminal exposure concept was the basis for existing light movies in the 1970's (except it was ASA 160 film with an f/1.2 lens).

This terminal exposure rule, in my experience, lacks some shadow detail in some scenes, but more exposure makes the overall result too light. One way around this is to make multiple exposures and sandwich the slides. This requires a tripod of course. Try a night scene shot at 1/30th. sec and 1 sec and sandwich the slides. If you have a very dark room and a short throw to the screen you can get dramatic results. Unfortunately, this is the only way to get the full effect. The dynamic range on the screen can approach 6.0 and no other display system (AFAIK) can match this.

I actually don't have a meter that works in these situations, otherwise I'd meter off the sky and bracket minimally.

The previous poster's advice is solid, but shooting such short exposures will make your subject look pretty dark, maybe darker than is aesthetically pleasing. I made a few shots of the Hiroshima A-bomb dome on a tripod both with my Yashica T4 and 400 speed negative film (exp. time 1 second @ 3.5) and again with a SLR from 30 sec. to 3 minutes with Provia slide film.

http://www.jingai.com/singapore/index.php?gallery=./%20Roger/Back%20to%20Japan%202005/Hiroshima

Which rendition do you like better?

Under a full moon using 100 ISO slide film, try exposures starting at 3 minutes at f5.6 and bracket from there. If you're shooting scenes with mixed moonlight and artificial light (buildings, etc), there may not be an exposure that looks acceptable. For situations like these I've started using negative film. With neg. film like Fuji Reala, overexpose to correct for reciprocity failure (if you keep the time the same, open up a stop or so to a wider aperture). I start with 3 minutes and go up from there. Negative film has a wider latitude and as long as you give the shadows enough light, the highlights should fall into place. It's hard to overexpose negative film.