Ilford XP2 daylight people photos at high altitude--filter required?

[erik]

I'll be doing a fair bit of shooting at my brother's wedding. No,

I'm not a pro, and i'm not ever trying to be one--and yes, I'll be

staying out of the way. In fact, I'm trying to shoot quite different

stuff, focusing on B&W as the pro will largely be shooting color. Of

course, I have the advantage of being there for days rather than only

hours :)

 

In the past, I've had good results with portraits and candids using

xp2; it isn't too contrasty and it looks promising (any disagreements

there?).

 

But that said, I've never shot at altitude before, and I understand

the light is different. We'll be pretty high up, close to 10,000

feet (it's at the Alta base lodge in Salt Lake City, UT). Do I need

to use a special filter? UV blocker? Yellow?

 

Equipment available is an old F3 and a few older Nikon primes (50/1.4

and 1.8; 20/28 i think; may be a 24 I haven't used it much, and an 80

and 135 that I recently traded for)

 

Thanks

[jimvanson]

No, it does not require any additional filters. And if it's a filtered look you want I find I prefer achieving the look in post...(I find you can usually recreate any filtered look except for the #25 Red / Polarizer sky shot). I prefer not to use a filter on the initial exposure because I loose too much valuable light.

[m0002a]

When shooting at altitude you actually need less filtration than at sea level because there is not much atmospheric haze to cut through, and the sky is already a deep blue. If you do use a minus blue filter (yellow, orange, red) at that altitude, the effect will be stronger and you should use a slightly higher filter factor than normal (and more than a TTL meter indicates).

 

For landscape shots where you want a very dark sky, an orange filter is more than sufficient at 10,000 ft. But for a wedding, I don't think you need any filters. I would shoot at no more than 200 speed to ensure good shadow detail. In bright sunlight, the contrast range is quite wide, so XP2 is a good choice because of its latitude.

 

If you get there early, you might want to try a test roll and send it to a 1-hour photo lab before the wedding. Experiment with a few things and keep good records of each exposure so you know what works and what doesn�t.