Film speed

Hi,

After some advice on chossing a film speed. Off to Africe soon on a safari and really want to make the most of the opportunity to take some amazing shots. Its there summer at the moment so there will be pleanty of light.

I'd love to here some of your opinion's and if you have any recomended onlin suppliers, it would be helpful!

Kind regards

Being that I live stateside I can't really help you with where to get your film, but I can tell you that slower speeds are best for detale, and faster speeds are best for stopping action and low light.

If its going to be bright then you might want to consider some 100-200 ISO, and carry along some 400 ISO incase you want to shoot some action.

HTHs :)

What, nothing like 50 ISO for landscapes?
I suppose unless you're carrying a few bodies you can't afford too many film speeds.

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Originally Posted by SmartWombat

What, nothing like 50 ISO for landscapes?
I suppose unless you're carrying a few bodies you can't afford too many film speeds.

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Hey Paul, good point there. 50 ISO is not very common here stateside. You can get it, but you pretty much have to go where the pros go, and it ain't cheap. At any rate, due to the scarceness of the stuff, it was not the first choice to come to mind for me. I have only used it a few times myself. Plus it's all trans film, and I wasn't sure if the original poster planned on using slides or film.

I thought carrying the bulk in 100-200, and some 400 for unexpected situations would be best.

OK, I'll ask - are you shooting slide or negative (print) film? :)

Since you didn't specify I'd assume that means that you're shooting neg film and if it were me I'd just use ISO400. Lots of reasons for this, mainly because there isn't much out there that's slower (lower speed) than 400 and a lot that I've tried really isn't much better. 400 has come a long ways from years ago and it works fine even in bright daylight although that's not the best light to photograph anything with, on any film...

Also, you won't have to worry about having the right film in the camera. I shot a few weddings and only used Kodak Portra 400NC for these reasons - because I didn't want to have to think about one more detail. Worked well for me too. This is a pro film and hard to find - if you do use it you'll want to take it to a lab that is used to working with it, not a one-hour sort of place.

Like anything else, there is a downside to it. The faster the film, the more accurate exposure has to be. 400 is still pretty tolerant but neg film in general can handle a one stop over exposure better than any amount of underexposure. What will happen is that the lab tries to lighten the print and then you get a lot of grain. I used to set my cameras to ISO250 which was giving the film a 2/3 stop overexposure. Again, it was easy and it worked.

If you have fast lens, F:2.8 or - I'll go for 50/100 iso film considering that you are going to be shooting on a 'plenty of light' situation.

Does anyone even make ISO 50 film anymore?

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Originally Posted by Erik Stiegler

Does anyone even make ISO 50 film anymore?

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Good question...!
Adorama don't have them and B&H have few rolls B&W only, no even in eBay you can get them...
Color 50iso film are no longer made... sad.

I think if you aren't accustom to the lower speeds I would stick with 400 and maybe some 200. Lower speed film takes a little getting used to. Or it did for me. If you do shoot low speeds be sure and have a tripod and a shutter release and a fast lens would help too. I have a roll of iso 50 Velvia, slide film, but have yet to use it. I think that I would have two cameras for sure, with different film in both.
Greg

Fuji still makes Velvia in iso50.

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Originally Posted by masdog

Fuji still makes Velvia in iso50.

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I think you can get slide only on that one.

I think AV summed it up pretty well. ISO 400 would be my film of choice for all the reasons he mentioned.

I'm planning a photo safari trip to Africa myself, and I will want a faster speed to stop the action of moving animals.

Velvia 50 is a great slide film, but not something I would use for action shots. I have pushed it to ISO 200 before with good results, but I wouldn't do that all the time. A good ISO 400 speed film would be the way to go for me.

...still wondering if it's color neg, b&w neg or slide film that you'll be using...

If you had two camera bodies, using one with a slow speed slide film for landscape shots and one with ISO400 neg film (or Provia 400F slide film) might be a good way to have the best of both worlds. With one body, I'd still stick with ISO400 - especially if it's neg film.