Taking photo's in tunnels

[Logix]

hey guys just wondered if you could give me some tips for taking photo's with a film (400iso) based camara. any help would be appreciated. :thumb

[Raddog]

Oh God! Speaking for myself I'm just a digital photo goon, as are probably 60% of the people on here. I mean even on full manual my DSLR still virtually tells me the settings to use!

Most of us are explorers first and photographers second. This is a good thing as most of the photo websites I've ever seen are full of all-the-gear-and-no-idea "pro togs" or whatever the wankers call themselves that just spiel out F-stop and shutter combos like that makes them cool.

But to answer your question, mostly in dark tunnels I'd be using 10+ seconds exposure, but keeping my ISO on digital down at 100. Your film is probably going to be more sensitive and as well as that you need to get a feel for the output of the torch your using if your lightpainting. Best thing to do I reckon is buy some cheap films and go play. Good Luck

Here's one I made earlier:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b176/Raddogextreme/DSC_1799.jpg

[Derelict-UK]

as your in a tunnel, no doubt you will have time to burn so as Raddog says don't go for ISO400 film, try to go as low as possible, ISO100 would be good to keep the grain of film to a minimum. Time lapse would be (for low ISO films) about 30-60 seconds as film is less sensitive than digital (I have worked with both at the same location in the dark and found that film needed to be exposed nearly double the time of digital). try to light the area with a torch but do not light the foreground too much as you may 'burn' the light into the image too much.

Best thing to do is get a test roll of film and turn your bedroom lights off and do several test shots at different times and different F stops, after each picture write in a note book the results, eg: picture 01, F11, 30 seconds etc etc and then you can see what result work best so you are not messing about with trial and error on site, especially as when you use a roll of film, usually there are only about 5 or 6 really good pictures in there.

[Logix]

cheers for ur help guys, my dads given me his old Praktica bcc camara, so i gotta use up the rest of the film that's in their.

so am i right in saying if i take a 10sec exposure on a ISO100 film, then it would be the same as a 2.5sec exposure on a ISO400 film. or i might just be barking up the wrong tree :p

[Derelict-UK]

I would do it to slightly more than that, with film there is quite a bit of room to play with times so it doesnt matter as much.

[AndyM]

I use both film and digital, but only tend to use digital for very low light stuff. From what I know, film suffers from reciprocity law failure at long exposures - basically you have to expose it for longer than the meter indicates. How long for depends on the type of film - best bet is to download a data sheet from the manufacturers website and see how much extra to give it. I think with some of the more modern emulsions, there's little or nothing to be added.

[Logix]

cheers all for ur help :thumb , i'm heading to South Willingham Rail Tunnel near Louth this weekend to have a look around. So i'll have a bit of an experiment with the camara. i'll be posting all the attempts made so keep ur eye's open, thanks again for ur help :D

[Brick_Man]

theres a lot that you can get away with on film that you can't on *some* digitals.
and as has already been quite rightly said the lower the iso the more you will get away with. it also means you get a lot more time for playing around than with a higher iso.
as for lightmetering, a LOT is just guess work, which is where digi comes into its own.

I tend to take both a digi + a film, take pictures first round on digi, then if I see anything I REALLY like, will return to that place (time and security allowing) to get it on film, and then tend to use the digi as a lightmeter/ experimental shot, then put them settings + lightpainting into the film shot.

other wise you end up spending a fortune on film + dev to find film upon film of crap. and when you do get stuff that comes out alright, you have forgotton settings already, unless you got a digi back on your film cam

[Doodlebug]

Keep the iso down

To keep a wide range of focus turn the aperture right down so its tiny, but you will need a long shutter speed.

(The same goes with macro close ups)

[MOFO]

this has helpt me out too thanks

[Alias]

for an example of what works I use Fuji 160 C and expose for around 5 minutes underground, the benifit with film is you dont lose highlight detail as easily.

[dsankt]

Impending camera wank

Write down everything for each shot in a notebook - shutterspeed, aperture, film, rough estimation of how many seconds of light you added, or what power your handheld flash is on (if you're using one). Few things suck more than getting your film back from the lab and not remembering what settings you used for that one shot that turned out perfect.

Bracket bracket bracket.
Using slide film: If you estimate that 30s @ f8 will be the right exposure then also shoot 15s and 60s @ f8.
Using print/negative film: Same as above but bracket 2 stops. Using that example shoot 8s and 120s @ f8.

Like Alias I've had good results underground with Fuji 160c and being a print film it's a little more forgiving.

This can be a very broad topic once you get beyond the 'take a spotlight and blast the scene' level.

[snappel]

I concur. Next time I'm in a tunnel when you're taking pictures on film, I'm bringing by sleeping bag and having a nap! ;)

[northcave]

I'm bringing by sleeping bag and having a nap! ;)

http://northcave.net/gallery/underground/Croesor%20Mines/large/zb.jpg

[danensis]

Cave photography is very similar - except that you are usually cold and wet as well. Its worth having a look at some of the cave photography web sites for hints.

The biggest problems I found when doing cave photography were keeping the grit out of the camera, and stopping droplets of water from settling on the lens - especially when under a waterfall like in Gaping Gill main chamber.

John