Hey old timers......

[wade_thompson]

<p>How in the flip were you able to shoot night or indoor sports with your old SLR cameras when film speed was 400 at best?<br>

Just like to know how you did it because I wasn't shooting in the 70s and 80s.</p>

[bob_sunley]

<p>Big horking electronic flash with a TLR or rangefinder. With a narrow beam reflector, f11 at 50 ft with Tri-X, way back in the 60's :)</p>

[acbeddoe]

<p>We also pushed the film to 800 or 1000.</p>

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p> "shoot night or indoor sports with your old SLR cameras"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Indoors: . . . with two cameras a fast 85mm and fast 35mm<br>

Outdoors . . . three cameras a fast 85, 135 and 200 or if you were first to the lens pool you'd grab the 300. Run a lot along the sideline.</p>

<p>Tri-X would / could go to 1600ASA, but yes agreed 1000 or 1250 was better.<br>

Actually Night time was easier in a way because at night time, at least the stuff I did was usually telecast - so the EV was better.</p>

<p>Pre focus technique was especially popular for Football - scoring a try - or BBball for the layup, as two examples.<br>

WW <br>

Not so much of the OLD timers . . .</p>

<p> </p>

[wade_thompson]

<p>that's cool. was the ASA800 film grainy?</p>

<p>any tricks in developing the negatives or printing to make it brighter?</p>

[William Michael]

<p>Tri - X was rated at 400ASA. Pushed to 800ASA was a breeze, and as for the Grain - well that often just enhanced the clash of heads or the tension of the sport in the print, IMO, also many of these photos were printed in newspapers, so grain was not that relevant.</p>

<p>I still like “Grain” it is “Meaty” - especially for some particular circumstances - like a “big” vs. “little” battle and I think the inclusion of a couple of old “newspaper style B&W” does not hurt a sports coverage – even if the competitors are adolescents (pls. see below – maybe the “grain” is not as obvious on the low res image but I think you’ll get the idea) </p>

<p>I found that raising the Dev Temp was generally better than Lengthening the Development time, for Tri –X – but there was lots of discussion on that and maybe (I haven’t looked) the Film Threads here would have some of those discussions in their archives. Maybe I was always in an hurry.</p>

<p>If printing I would use Grade 3 glossy paper usually.</p>

<p>I would sacrifice shadow detail for the sake of acutance (edge detail /sharpness on adjoining tones).</p>

<p>WW </p>

<div></div>

[daverhaas]

<p>Tri-x pushed to 1600 ASA (Not ISO) and prayer. </p>

<p>Shooting High School Sports under dim light - a good time was had by most. </p>

<p>We also prayed that we could get the shots we needed early in the season when it was still light out at the start of the game. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p>"Tri-x pushed to 1600 ASA (Not ISO) <strong>and prayer.</strong>"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Hahahahahahaha - made me laugh - thanks for that, David.</p>

 

[chuck_m2]

<p>Ah Tri-x Pan. So many memories! Back in the mid - late 70's we had one home football game each year in Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands. We would get 99% of our yearbook shots from that one game. Usually shot at it's rated 400 ASA. We had a nationally ranked girls BBall team that played several game each season in Madison Square Garden. The lighting there usually let us shoot somewhere between 400 - 800. For everything else under the lights we "pushed and prayed!"<br>

Chuck</p>

[ivo_miesen]

<blockquote>Big horking electronic flash with a TLR or rangefinder. With a narrow beam reflector, f11 at 50 ft with Tri-X, way back in the 60's :)</blockquote>

<blockquote><br /></blockquote>

<p>The old Metz ones ;).<br>

The bigger your flash, the better your access, you looked pro not by having a white lense but by having a huge Metz flash next to your camera. I did some speedskating photography in the old days, what I remember most is indeed pre-focussing and taking a lot less risks with your shots. So nearlyonly overview shots and hardly any close-ups.</p>

[jan_jenggie]

<p>great thread. Can any of you guys post examples if you have any?</p>

[wade_thompson]

<p>Did you guys and gals ever think there would be a day when you could have ISO 25,600 or higher???....and the camera wouldn't even have film??? LOL!</p>

[dave_wilson1]

<p>Reality check, lol... I almost always used color film regardless of printing most in B&W. Mostly 400 Fujicolor and later 1600. Sometimes I had to shoot it at 6pm, have it one-houred and dropped off to the editor by say 8pm. If it was later football, then TriX, run back to my darkroom and soup, make a few 5x7 and deliver to night press before cutoff, sometimes 11pm. Night Homecoming, I would shoot a bunch of Polaroids on a big old "Grey Monster" with a flash connection I rigged myself. Lenses for dim light were 50-135 f3.5, 24 f2, 85 f1.8 and f2, 50 1.4, 200 f3.5. My personal long lenses were only good for daylight, I used a 100-300 f5.6 Nikkor on an F3 and a 60-300 f4.5/5.6 Tamron SP on a Canon F1. The reason for two system bodies was for the occasions I would do bigger pro-level assignments I could use the pool lenses which were 300 2.8, 400 3.5 and occasionally the 400 2.8 which I never liked, it was a monster and don't forget all these manual focus. For the Canon they had those old Flourite lenses which were killer sharp. Maybe tommorow I could scan up a few but they're newsprint so they'll look "interesting".</p>

[henkelphoto]

<p>At the newspaper where I worked from 1980 to 1987, we used to push Tri-X to about somewhere in the neighborhood of 6400 or so. We really didn't know what the ASA rating was because most cameras stopped at 2000asa. Our benchmark was that we had to be able to shoot at 1/250 at 2.8. So we just came up with development times that worked for our stadiums and gyms. For instance, we used to process in HC110 at 85 degrees for around 5 minutes. Normally you'd process at 68 degrees for 3 minutes. Also we would use a 1-16 dilution of Rodinal at 75 degrees for about 20 minutes, if we had the time. That would give us much less grain than the HC110 would have. Of course, we would use the 85 1.8 or 35 2.0 if possible, but night football was a real problem due to having to use the 200 2.8 (notice no zooms at that time). </p>

<p>Once we had to get out prints from a basketball game so quickly, we could only stay five minutes after it began, that's 5 minutes of real time, not game time. Today, we have such a luxury of time due to digital it's really not at all unusual to be able to stay an entire game. </p>

[mark newcombe www.mcnphoto]

<p>You could push the crap out of fuji press i shot it at 1600 a few times and lived.</p>

[William Michael]

<p> . . . nice to hear from you again Mark.<br>

Best to you,</p>

<p>WW</p>

[mark newcombe www.mcnphoto]

<p>Hi William,</p>

<p>still fighting this cancer so i have not been on here much not out of the woods yet but still hoping.</p>

<p>Cheers<br>

Mark</p>

[bikealps]

<p>and those old cameras were manual focus!<br>

I used TMX (100) in daylight and TMZ (1600) in low light. When I got back into photography 2 years ago, I had all sorts of trouble getting pictures in focus with a modern DSLR.<br>

On my wall, I have sharp b/w prints taken in 1993 when I was shooting bicycle races, including one where the mud on the cyclocross racers face is so sharp you can almost see grains of sand in it. It was taken with a Minolta X-700 manual focus camera and a Sigma 70-210 zoom, which I think was f3.8-5.6.<br>

sports pictures with a Rangefinder!?! the mind boggles!</p>

[Marc453]

<p>I stumbled on this thread while browsing the forums. I used to shoot for newspapers in Boston, Richmond and Chicago. I used Ilford HP400 shot at 1600, processed in Edwal FG-7 with 1 oz of Sulphric somthing. Grainy photos, but they held up for the newspapers. In Chicago, I worked for the Chicago Daily Defender. Made $7.50 for every published photo. I had to buy a paper and tear out the picture and send it in. After awhile I just sent them stuff for free just to get in the games.<br>

<img title="Michael Jordan and Julius (Dr. J) Ervin, March 1988." src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/80973-sm.jpg" border="0" alt="Michael Jordan and Julius (Dr. J) Ervin, March 1988." width="173" height="199" /></p>