shooting without flash in low light

rymus

Dusted off the old Canon film SLR a few days ago and considered taking up the ol' stalking hobby again. I'd like to pick the brains of any fellow stalkers or private investigators here by asking what film & camera settings give the best results in very low light conditions?

Using a very slow shutter speed isn't an option before anyone recommends that solution. I'm talking about photographing moving people without a flash, at night, from a black Ford Focus, possibly parked under some kind of evergreen tree or behind some shrubbery.

Cheers

Sleipnir

Will you have pants on?
If not, you could use the light reflected from your pasty, pale Irish legs.

There are other stalking related advantages to this method that I can't really go into here.

Merrion

You can get infa-red film . It's expensive stuff but good for wildlife photography

If not then a 1600 BW film should give you enough detail for most of the tabloid press.

rymus

splendid gentlemen... I shall try the 1600 B&W before venturing onto the infra-red.

And Sleipnir, I'll have you know that my Irish legs aren't pasty, or at least the pastyness isnt viewable through all the hair.

Keep your eyes on the news of the world

One more question while I'm here about the IR film.. I presume it needs to go thru a special (and therefore different) dev process? If I choose to go down this road, can the likes of Spectra (even if I have to get it sent away to their lab in Kerry) process the film?

Ohh and, what shutter speed / aperature do you find works best for "wildlife photography"?

bigred

Load 1600 ISO but push the ISO to 3200 on the camera. The extra stop will let you double your shutter speed, and it isnt that hard to get a 1stop underexposed image looking like is was shot on a bright afternoon, especially on B&W film

rob1891

Can you get 1600 C41 b&w film? C41 can be done at your local 1hr photolab which is very handy & cheap, but regular black & white (that you can get that at 3200) will need to be posted to somewhere in most crappy labs.

You can also push process, set your camera to under expose a 3200 film by 1 stop (or just set the film type to 6400 if it can go that high), then when it is developing, leave it in for a longer than the specified time to compesate for the underexposure. However, you are getting into chemistry here and you'd probably want to be developing the film yourself and experimenting a bit (i.e. spending a lot of time at it!). Some details for pushing ilford 3200:

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Times/D3200/d3200.html

I was trying to find scans of pushed film, but I don't see any. I once had a lab push 800-1600 colour film, it was expensive and probably not worth it, but b&w you can do yourself.

rymus

pants.. pity I'm not working in a photo lab anymore then I knew that job would come in handy for something sometime.

If I use a 1600 B&W film at 3200, what shutter speed can I realistically hope to get away with and still come out with something that looks someway respectable?

Valentia

But remember, at 1600 or 3200 there will be plenty of grain. I like grain but many don't. Don't think Spectra will push the film. Have a look at this film . It sounds like what you want.

Valentia

rymus wrote:

If I use a 1600 B&W film at 3200, what shutter speed can I realistically hope to get away with and still come out with something that looks someway respectable?

It depends on the light available. Take a meter reading from your hand outside, set the camera to manual at the reading that you get and fire away.

rymus

I think I'll get a roll of the 1600 b&w over the weekend and spend a bit of time doing test shots...

rob1891

delta 3200 is £2.25 on 7dayshop and remember that when they charge you 8 euro in town! If you are going to be doig a lot of experimenting, buy in bulk now.

FinoBlad

Kodak T-max 3200

DotOrg

ilford delta 3200 is the best fast b&w from my experience.

as for cameras, anything with a fast lens, but they are very expensive if you want a long lens with wide aperature