Recommend good inversible film for night long exposure photo?

[darkkavenger]

Hi, I'm planning to do a series of night shots with morphi in Prague this week. I was thinking to use ISO 100 inversible film such as Fuji Velvia 100, with long exposures. Do you have any recommendations on inversible films for such purposes?

I'm open to your advices!

Thanks,
Max

 

[kohturah]

Velvia (RVP 100) is my favourite film for long exposures, I find it handles artificial light well and keeps its great colours and sharpness. It's reciprocity charactertistics are reasonable too, no change required up to one minute to +2/3 of a stop after eight minutes. Sensia and Provia and are other slide films I like for long exposures. T64 is great if you can find it and use it appropriately.

I find that slide film is preferable to C41 for long exposures as there is far less tendency for processing to attempt to 'correct' the dark areas common in long exposures, which results in washed out browns instead of blacks.

 

[thegman]

Agree on Velvia, it goes very purple of course, as is the Velvia way, but that tends to look good at night I think. If you want to try C41 though, Ektar and Portra 160VC look great for artificial light in cities, I find.

 

[darkkavenger]

Thanks for your advices, I was specifically looking for slide film, I prefer the tones compared to C41 films. I will give a try to Velvia 100 in this case! Thanks again 🙂

 

[sevo]

Provia 100F (RDPIII) is easily the best long time exposure film ever - it has long time characteristics at least as good as any specialized "Tungsten" long time exposure film while being fully short time capable.

Earlier generation film is not quite as reciprocity resistant, but The "F" generation Fujis and Ektachrome E100G are nonetheless pretty good. If Velvia colour characteristics are desired, RVP F is much easier to handle than RVP 100 - the latter tends towards a green cast in the shadows, the former (as well as Astia) has much less obvious and better manageable warm casts.

 

[kohturah]

RVP F is much easier to handle than RVP 100 - the latter tends towards a green cast in the shadows, the former (as well as Astia) has much less obvious and better manageable warm casts.

Velvia 50 can tend to green, or at least it did last time I used it, I've never had RVP 100 do it.

100F I find to be a dog of a film for very long exposures. It seems to fail faster than 100 after a certain point and develop a strong reddish/brown cast for me. It seems ok for shorter exposures (a few minutes instead of tens of minutes).

Interesting to hear about different experiences with these films for long exposures. I'm keen to thaw out a box of 100F to see if I can find either a sweet spot or a better experience than I have had in the past generally. Thanks sevo 🙂