What kind of 35mm color film would work well in dim lighting situations without flash?

Question

What kind of 35mm color film would work well in dim lighting situations without flash?

Answer 1

Hi Sophia, great question and I'm sorry that you have not gotten any concrete answers from anyone. I have a couple points I'd like to make to help you out.



1--The films you're going to want to use are Kodak Gold 800, Kodak Portra 800, Fuji Superia 800, Fuji Pro 800Z and Fuji Superia 1600. The Fuji 800 and 1600 are often not available anymore in the US but there are still canisters on eBay etc. Fuji Natura 1600 is the Japanese replacement for Superia 1600 and is expensive. Another thing you can do, is push process a film like Kodak Portra 400 to 800, 1600, or 3200 ISO. I often simply rate Portra 400 at 1600 and don't bother to push and it works out great. If you want big grain, consumer grade 800 ISO films like Gold and Superia will be perfect.



2--I am an available light 35mm photojournalist so I totally get what you are trying to do and I admire it. Flash spoils candid moments and film can add a beautifully compelling feeling or atmosphere to an otherwise commonplace scene. The problem is, however, that there are no still photography print films made in tungsten balance. There are some tungsten balanced E6 films but they are pretty slow and are unlikely, even when pushed to get as fast as you need them. If you are unfamilar with white balance, you basically need to know that most colour films are balanced for daylight. So they look great when shot under sunlight but shift to orange when shot in most types of artificial lighting. Film companies expect you to get the correct colour by using a flash, using a filter or allowing the wide latitude of print film to get the colour pretty close through editing. It's very very difficult, however to get accurate colour on film without a flash. For these reasons, many film shooters use b&w in dimly light situations or just rock the funky colour.



3--Don't forget that the rules all change if you are willing to use a tripod or drag your shutter. You can use 100 ISO film in the middle of the night if you are okay with motion blur or bracing your camera. And has also been said, a fast lens is useful but then you have to deal with crucial focus being potentially lost. I use a 50mm 1.2 and nothing slower than a 105mm 1.8 in 1600 - 6400 ISO lighting conditions. But I try to stay off the widest aperture unless absolutely necessary else, I'll focus on a nose instead of an eye.



4--I truly understand and appreciate your passion for film photography, however, to say that clean, well-exposed, finer-grain film photos look like digital photos is rather silly as there is just so much more to film photography than poorly exposed images that are gobbed up with grain and weird colours. For me, I am for clean, correctly executed images and then allow the chaos of the moment to define the photos that I fall short of this goal with. And to me, this is where film is fun, knowing that even the mistakes or failures can look great. If you want things to look "bad", all you have to do is use common 400 ISO film like Gold 400 and rate it at 3200. Your colours will be drab, your shadows will be grainy and your contrast will be flat. And if this works for what you are trying to say as an artist, great! But I just encourage you to also look beyond that and see what quality film can also be capable of.



5--The photo you shared was taken with a 400 speed print film. The colours shifted to yellow/orange for the reasons stated above about white balance. Beyond that, there is nothing unusual about this image. The photographer simply found a situation where the lighting was good enough in a dark situation to get by with this photo. They may have used a tripod or sat the cam on a countertop to steady it and use a slower shutter speed.



6--Here are some examples that I have taken that I think you may find appealing/useful.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/8298827591/in/set-72157623882514305

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/8401833282/in/set-72157623882514305

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/350920958/in/set-72157625149345465

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/4437816232/in/set-72157625149345465

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/3657225103/in/set-72157625149345465

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/5619727912/in/set-72157625149345465

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/5329950435/in/set-72157625149345465

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/5449781335/in/set-72157622920616526

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/4416440528/in/set-72157624287322185

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnymartyr/4524819051/in/set-72157622920616526



That last shot is at a Starbucks



Please email me at [e-mail] with any questions!



METAL AND MANUAL! FILM FOREVER!

Answer 2

A film which has a high ISO number, such as 800 or 1600 or even higher. Note that you might get a degree of graininess when using high ISO films. In many indoor situations (maybe Starbucks) you can get away with 400 ISO film to reduce grain. Note that lamps can give an orangey cast to the photos, and fluorescent tubes a greenish cast. That sort of colour cast is often taken care of automatically in a digital camera.



Remember to use your lens at maximum aperture, small number such as f2.8, or f1.8, not f11.

Answer 3

The lesser light you shoot with, the higher the ISO of film you should use. The higher the ISO used, the more grain the picture will have. That's the trade off.



When shooting in the dark, use flash. That's the best way. Pictures looked like that with flash in the dark even before digital cameras came into being. There is no such thing as a digital or film pictures. There are only pictures.



You already know about skill affecting picture quality the most. Control the flash to get better looking pictures in the dark. You'd be surprised. The power of the flash can be controlled simply by just stepping forward or backward.

Answer 4

The effect you see is caused by daylight-balanced film in artificial lighting - the grain is the result of slight under-exposure.



Any film ever made can be used to take bad photos - film cameras were producing images, 'Looking like they were taken by a digital camera,' before you were born.



There are a number of ways to age images, and a number of developing techniques to enhance grain, but bad results are the result of bad photography, not bad film.



Additional;



And I'm trying to tell you that it's not the film, it's either poor technique or manipulation of the final image.

Answer 5

A lot will depend on how fast the lens is. Tripod ? You can get film up to ISO 3200, but you'll get grain with it.

It would help if you could post a link we could click on.

Answer 6

http://payload76.cargocollective.com/1/7/227324/3826970/31.jpg



If you have a fast prime lens such as a 50mm f1.4 then I'd suggest ISO 400 film. If not then use ISO 800. If you use daylight balanced film indoors with either incandescent or fluorescent lighting you'll get a color shift which you may or may not like. Incandescent lighting with daylight film will give an orange-ish red tint while fluorescent lights will give you a greenish yellow tint. An 80A filter can be used when shooting daylight balanced film with incandescent lighting and an FL-D filter will correct a lot of the tint caused by using daylight balanced film under fluorescent lighting. However, either filter will require either a longer shutter speed or faster aperture. You can, of course, simply not use any filter - IF you have Photoshop. Just scan the negatives and correct the color.