Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/01

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] B&W film stock questions
From: Zeissleica@aol.com
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 21:00:06 EDT

Hi all...

Now that I have my M3 kit back and fully operational, I've been shooting like 
mad and having a ball in the process.  I'm trying to capture one legit shot 
per day, but am finding it somewhat difficult, though it is getting me back 
in the habit of looking at everything as a possible composition.

Having not exposed any interesting film stock since I was in college (a 
1,000,000+ frames of dupe film and a couple hundred rolls of regular Kodak 
Gold print film since then don't count), I am experimenting with any stock 
that catches my fancy.

That said, my family is getting in on the game now and are making desires 
known; chief among them, my brother and his fiance want me to shoot B&W 
available light, informal, candid, handheld photographs (no tripods) at their 
wedding in November (they will have a professional shooting color for the 
formal stuff).  They know the results will be "artsy", but that's what they 
want.  I visited the church with them last week to take some meter readings 
and test shots.  

So far, I have tried HP5 (at EI 400) and Delta 3200 (at EI 3200).  The HP5 
looks real good but is too slow for this particular environment; the Delta 
3200 is scary fast but hideously grainy at 3200 (both were shot wide open 
with my Noct).  Readings are perfect for EI 800 at 1.0/250 to 1.0/125.

My question is thus:

Is the Delta 3200 (EI 800) significantly better to justify trying it (I 
haven't shot it at that speed yet)?  Or should I look into another film stock 
altogether?  The EI 3200 exposures are just too contrasty and grainy for me 
to use.

BTW, according to the tests I've done so far...

- - Royal Gold 100 is okay
- - Portra 160VC is better
- - Velvia 50 (shot at EI 40) is awesome, stunning and superlative (WOW!)

I'm planning on getting the best of the bunch up on the Web within the next 
couple of weeks.

/Mitch