 Monica R. Weit |
Which film speed When is it best to use lower film speeds (50,100,200), and when is it best to use 400,800 etc.? I've always used 400. How do you choose which speed you will use?
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Terry L. Long |
Monica, It depends on several things for each situation on what film speed to use. Normally, the darker the lighting conditions the faster the film speed you want to use. Darker could mean late at night or indoor under darker conditions than outside during daylight. The film speed (ISO rating) will have an effect on what your shutter settings and f/stop settings will be. An example would be: Let's say you're outdoors and taking a picture of a flower but, it's breezy and the flower moves in the breeze. Also, you have ISO 100 film loaded in the camera. You shouldn't have a problem because you'll probably want to have a shallow depth of field which means the f/stops will be close to wide open. However, let's say you want to take a photo of several flowers spaced apart by a few feet or more. With the ISO 100 still loaded in the camera you'll have to increase the f/stops to increase the depth of field which means you'll have to slow down the shutter speed. Because of the flower movement caused by the breezy conditions your image might not come out clear. With ISO 400 film loaded in the camera you can still stop down the f/stops but have a faster shutter speed resulting in a clearer image of the flowers. I normally shoot my scenic/landscapes with nothing but ISO 100 transparency film. A general rule of thumb is the slower the ISO rating the tighter the grain structure of the film which means the clearer the image when enlarged. But, film has come a long way in the last 10 years or so. ISO 200 is supposedly just as good as ISO 100 when it comes to grain structure. ISO 400 is just slightly more grainy and ISO 800 is what ISO 400 used to be 10 years ago. There's a lot more involved and I've just touched the basics here. Maybe somebody else will contribute with other examples.
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Steven Chaitoff |
I would always stick to lower speeds and try to shy away from higher speed films unless you really need them. Most professionals use lower speeds; the colors are much more vivid and saturated compared to 400 & 800 speed, and also, the higher the speed, the physically larger the halide grains on the film are, so when you enlarge high speed shots to sizes around 18x24 and up, you can actually see those grains - thats when a print is "grainy" and you don't want that. So basically, you can make lower speed prints bigger if you have the need. The advantage to higher speeds is that they react faster to light, you you don't need your shutter open as long or your aperture as wide as you would with lower speed films. So if you really require a faster shutter (for sports per se,) or a little more depth of field, (smaller aperture,) or your exposure is just too dark because there isn't enough light, use faster film. Otherwise, on sunny days, portraits, landscapes, not-very fast action & basically general shooting, I'd stick with something around 100 or so. Hope that helps
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