i’m writing to have the community weigh in on their thoughts regarding film speed with a location.
i’m going to be traveling to a location that has relatively sporadic forest-shade and large areas of sunlight, making the choice of using a lower ISO film stock (100-400) the “easier” choice. When i experimented with higher ISO film like 800, during a a light snow and found that the grain issues with 800 speed film in daylight are less severe, than i had anticipated. i’m leaning into using 800 speed on my trip instead of the normal preference of using 160 speed.
what are your ideas or views on this kind of thing and what might you choose to use in my situation?
I usually tend to stick to 200 or 400 speed as my go to for daylight with the aim to slightly over expose. I feel like thats a good middle ground for sharpness and grain.
I agree with this. 200-400 is a really good all around film speed. Gives you lots of options for lighting. I typically only go to 100 or 800 if I have a specific use in mind.
If your go-to is ISO 160, I assume you normally shoot Portra?
It’s easy with B&W; I shoot almost entirely Ilford HP5+ and can meter it anywhere from ISO 100 to ISO 1600, as long as I mark the canister and adjust my development concentration and time.
With color you can still push/pull process and accomplish something similar, but it’s much more likely to give you a wonky result. Plus, it screws with the standardized C41 process timing so labs are likely to charge more, if they push at all.
You might want to go with an ISO 400 film stock if you’re doing color, and pack an ND filter or two to deal with sunny days. If things get really gloomy you can probably push a roll or two to ISO 800 without much trouble.
