film developing question

I have DX 35mm film that says “400 for color slides.” When I have it developed, can I specify photos instead of slides?

What film should I use for taking photos of Paris at night? (Or can I do that with my camera?) It is a Nikon 150 Zoom Lite (35mm-150mm). It’s mostly a point and shoot camera.

I am a total newbie to photography.

Slide film is direct-positive film*, meaning the image is recorded on the film in the original colors and light levels, not as a negative. Your corner photo developing place will most likely not be able to make prints from them. Any decent photo lab can, however, it’s almost certainly not worth the expense and loss of quality from making internegatives. (If they go with direct positive paper, it would be even more expensive.) Instead, just get some plain negative color film. Pros and serious amateurs sometimes like to shoot everything on slide film, but don’t worry about that unless you’re ready to make a serious financial and time commitment to your newfound hobby.

For taking pictures at night you should use a high-speed film, either 400 or 800 should be fine. Don’t use your flash to take pictures of things that are further than 20 or 30 feet away. For shooting indoors under incandescent lights, consider picking up some tungsten-balanced film for more accurate colors. They also make film for shooting under gas street lights, if you want to do that.

You will be tempted to use your fancy zoom lens a lot. Try to keep it around the middle (a 50mm focal length is close to what the human eye sees (for 35mm format film)). Instead of zooming in on something, go closer if you can.

Doh! I forgot the footnote:

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“Direct positive” is a bit of a misnomer. There’s actually a kind of negative-positive process that goes on within the film during development.
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Slide film is better quality than “print” film, especially with regards to strong colours, but it is more expensive to end up with a set of photos to go in an album.

Here in Britain, sending your print film off for normal (“C41”) processing to give 36 7x5" colour photos costs around £5. The cheapest good quality slide processing (“E6”) equivalent which mounts your slides and makes 36 photos from scanning them digitally is dlab7, costing around £13. What I do is ask for just the slides and a a high resolution digital scan CD, which I can fiddle with and print from myself for 25p a picture in any photo shop, all for the same price (£13).
For night shots, you really need long exposures to bring out streetlights, preferably a few seconds or so (can your camera do this?). For that you also need a tripod, or at least a beanbag you can place on a wall. Remember the “slower” the film (the lower the ISO number - I use Fuji Velvia 50 rather than 400) the finer the grain, but the longer the exposure required. A good guide to preventing camera shake is always to use a beanbag or tripod if 1/(the exposure time) exceeds the focal length of the zoom in mm (eg. wideangle, 28mm: Anything less than 1/28 s is OK. Zoom lens, 90mm: 1/28 s would cause camera shake, so drop time to 1/90 s or less instead). You can see that for decent night shots requiring a few seconds, no lens is wide enough for camera shake not to appear if hand-held, so use a beanbag.

All good advice so far.
But I’d like to suggest another alternative.

Cross Processing.

You can get some very interesting results by devoloping slide film in chemistry intended for neg film.

Slide film is normally developed by a process known as E6. By using the C-41 process normally intended for negs, you will end up with negatives from your slide film, and can then have them printed. The results will depend on the type of film used, but generally you end up with very surreal colors. It’s popularity is beginning to fade, but this technique has been quite trendy in the fashion photography industry for a number of years.

Google “cross processing” for more info and examples. There are quite a few websites out there devoted to this technique.

friedo, I’ve been a professional photographer for quite some time but am not aware of a film specifically balanced for gas (mercury vapor?) lights. Instead, I’ve always relied on filtering.

Can you point me to a source?

Many high street processors won’t do this, for fear that it will contaminate the chemicals - I’m not sure how grounded a fear that would be, but I used to have enough trouble getting them to develop Ilford XP1 (later XP2) - a monochrome film specifically designed for C41 processing.

friedo: I’ve taken notes on what you’ve said. It is interesting that you were the first to respond. My camera was shipped from Queens!

Nyah! I know that means it’s not a “real” camera. :slight_smile: I love the art of photography, but I’m too absentminded to do it well.

I do have a tripod. I set it up today for the first time. This time I intend to be in some of my photos of Europe. (I do have a timer and may get a remote.)

Since Mangetout said that might be difficult, I will check around to see if I can find someone who will do it before I go. If not, I will turn it over to my granddaughter who is taking a photo class. She’s going with me to Paris.

Which reminds me – Any tips for photographic portraits of a pretty sixteen year old?

True. I’ve known several shops who’ll do it no problem, and thus I assume it causes no damage to the chemicals. You can always tell the processor to throw in your roll as the last roll before they change chemicals, if they’re paranoid about it.

Aren’t XP2 and Kodak T400CN just amazing. I swear, it’s 400 speed black and white at about 100 ISO grain AND you can develop it anywhere. I pushed the Kodak to 1600 routinely and I cannot believe the results. I swear, it looks no worse that 400 film.

Anyhow, for the night shots, I will give you one word of advice. Most great night shots are not made in the middle of the night. Rather, take your night pictures when there’s still some color in the sky. Just a hint of dark blue…anything but pure black. Pure black is dull, uninteresting, yuck. Take a look at those great night shots in National Geographic, and more likely than not, you’ll see they were taken just on the cusp of night.

Stick with the lowest speed film you can. Don’t be fooled by the idea that you have to use a high-speed film for night shots. You only need high-speed film if you’re hand-holding night-time shots. If you’re going to use a tripod (as you should), knock yourself out and shoot on Fuji Velvia. I would suggest bracketing your exposures as well. This means take a light reading, take a picture at that speed, then one with half as long an exposure, and one with twice as long an exposure. Unless you have a lot of experience, it can be tricky getting just the right exposure with night shots.

That’s another reason taking pictures at dusk is key. When it’s pitch-black night, there’s way too much contrast going on in your photo. With the bright lights and the dark buildings, your film is not going to be able to record all the detail your eyes see. At dusk, there is still some light hitting the buildings, the street lights are on.

Here’s an example of what I mean by a dusk shot (On one of my monitors this shot is dark; on the other it’s fine. Make sure your contrast and brightness are set correctly.) That’s on Fuji Velvia 50ISO film.

Fuji Velvia is my favorite film in the world. But it’s slide film, so keep in mind the previous posts about processing it.

Photog - I think I was mistaken about the gas light-balanced film, I was confused with something else I think.

It’s all about the lighting. (OK, it’s not, but a good portion is.)

If you want a nice head shot or head and shoulders shot, there is a quick and easy way to get a better-than-average picture – even professional quality if you know what you’re doing.

It’s called a window.

Turn off any artificial lighting in your room. Place your subject near to a window, with her body at a 45 degree to the window. She could fact out the window, or be directly looking at you. (You should position pretty much against the window or wall as well.

Now, use a moderate telephoto lens (an 85mm, 105mm, or 135mm would be ideal). If you have a 35-70 zoom, use it at the 70mm setting. Otherwise, use your 50mm lens. Do not use wide angles if you want flattering portraits.

To compose, fill your frame. Don’t be shy, get close. Set your focus on the eyes. I personally like portraits shot at very open aperatures (f2.8 or lower.) This gives the picture a low depth of field and leads the viewer directly to the eyes (provided you’re correctly focused.)

Play around with her positioning to the window a bit. Look at how the shadows fall around her eyes. You don’t really want shadows cutting into her eyes, so pay attention to that.

Otherwise, if you want good portraits outdoors, cloudy days tend to work better than sunny ones. If you’re going to try to take good pictures in the sun, wait til late evening (or wake up early), to catch the sun while it’s still fairly low in the sky. Winter should be a decent time for portraits in Paris, as the winter sun stays low in the sun pretty much the whole day round, so you’ll have plenty of time to take those shots. You just have to be able to recognize nice lighting when you see it. Be careful, though, as most subjects will squint if the sun is slightly overpowering.