Film recommendation for (historical)city photography

[screeny]

I will be visiting North italy, among the mountains I'm planning to

visit some of those lovely Italians cities: Verona, Trento and of

course Venice. What would you experts recommendations be for what

film(-s) I should take? Both color negative and slides? I want to

capture soem of the ancient, medieval and historical atmosphere of

those cites (without getting too cliche using B/W or Sepia).

I'm a bit worried about the light as my last trip to italy i got a

lot of this kind of photo's where I had trouble with bright

sun/shadows..something hard to avoid in narrow streets/historical city

centres. Anyway, point is what would be some good film from your

experiences?<div></div>

[mark_man]

I do a fair bit of photography in European cities, and Italy is one of my favourite places. If you like saturated colours, with good skin tones and fine grain, Reala is for you (as it is for me). Only trouble is it is a bit slow for dimly lit situations. A lot of people recommend NPH but I find its colour saturation too bland for cityscapes. You're right that contrasty lighting conditions can be challenging, the bottom line is you have to frame to avoid the extremes. Not even colour negative film has enough exposure latitude to cope with contrasty Venetian alleyways. I find the piazzas are often the best place to capture the natives in their natural habitat. Have a great trip!

[jamesp]

in my experience, Reala is VERY good at dealing with harsh midday light. That film has loads of dynamic range. If you're using a tripod, that and Sensia for slides should do it.

[edgar_njari]

With the risk of geting anoying with weding films, I'd recommend 160NC and its fuji friend NPS, both are designed to withstand the contrast of mans suit and womans weding dress, so they have large latitude, which could help in situation like that street you are showing as example.

 

You might want to scan the film yourself and cheat a bit on the highlights by not blowing them to a proper print contrast, thus retaining some detail that is "supose" to be either cliped or compressed in proper printing

 

Though I have very little experience with sensia, I think it is a good slide alternative to a soft portrait film, it certainly looks like a printed portrait film to me.

 

But you can't use that cheat option with slide film. In slide you get what you see by eye.

[edgar_njari]

ment to say what you see with your eye when looking at the transperency, not the scene

[david_henderson]

There are two possible approaches to this. The first route is to select your compositions to avoid harsh contrasts. I suspect most people's photographs of Venice in particular are adversely affected by a bright band of sky visible between two relatively dark canal sides, and of course that sky reflects into the water too. But all these canals have an unlit side and a bright side and provided you aim at one or the other on days with sun or a bright sky there's no reason why you can't control the contrast in your scenes to the extent that you can use whatever film you want. Personally I use Velvia and Provia in Venice and compose to avoid harsh contrasts, which I measure with a spot meter.

 

Alternatively you can decide to photograph exactly where you want accepting the high contrast and try and cope with it. In my view you're going to find it difficult to do this using slide film unless you use a film like Astia which you might consider makes things look a little dull; and if it were me I'd be using Reala and NPH.

[LenMarriott]

M.I., Have a look at Michael Seewald's folder. He has many fine samples of the conditions which you will likely encounter. Favorites of his include Portra 160 NC and 400 NC. Best, LM.