handheld shots in the dark

I love to experiment with cool things and I love to try the unusual. About a year ago I got an unusual assignment and I used the opportunity to explore the realm of insane ISO's; both digitally and with film. I shot a series of images for a local entertainment magazine that required me to shoot models editorially in street traffic at night. The client liked my architectural night work and he unrealistically felt that this must translate into excellent editorial night work. Luckily, even though the two kinds of photography have totally different equipment and shooting requirements I didn't feel totally in the dark (pun intended).

I knew that my D2X could shoot at ridiculous ISO's (1600) but I had never used super fast black and white film of the same ISO to know if the grain was worse than the digital noise I got from my digital camera at those ISO's. So I loaded up my F100 with Ilford Delta 3200 35mm black and white film and I used my D2X at ISO 1600. The people told me at my pro shop that Ilford Delta 3200 is actually an ISO 1600 film that is easily pushed to 3200 and beyond. In fact the guy told me that he had used pushed as far as ISO 12800!!!! I don’t know if that's true..Im only passing on the info. I shot the film at its box rating of 3200. If you let the camera use the DX coding to auto detect the film speed it will select 3200.

Here is some info from the manufacturer:

DELTA 3200 PROFESSIONAL is an ultra-speed black and white film, ideal for fast action and low light photography such as night time, sport, or indoor architectural applications where flash photography is 'forbidden'.This is a genuine high speed film with an ability to record highlight detail that sets it apart from other films.ILFORD DELTA 3200 PROFESSIONAL has many strengths, most notably its liberating high speed, unobtrusive grain structure and its unsurpassed tonality.
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the film is available in 120 and 35mm. Now, at the time I did have an RZ67 but I was going to be damned if I was going to handhold that for this shoot. Most 6x7 cameras are not meant for action and the mirror slap would have made it damn hard to get sharp images without a tripod at the marginal shutter speeds we were talking about ( not to mention the very limited depth of field and small max apertures of the lenses. So 35mm was my weapon of choice. Both the digital and film camera were mounted with 35mm F/2, 50mm F/1.8 and 85mm F/1.8 lenses and for the most part at least 80% of the images were EXACTLY duplicated in film and digital.

I am pleased to report that the film has ridiculous exposure latitude and you can recover from almost any under or overexposure. I had several creative shots that I purposely overexposed to totally blow out the highlights in order to more accurately expose the middle tone skin....and I was able to recover the highlights nicely from the scanned negatives. Underexposure latitude is normal for a print film....about 1 stop, maybe 2 in a pinch....but overexposure latitude is at least 2 stops.

Grain is as expected. Think golf balls. Now I need to stress that I AM NOT a black and white darkroom enthusiast. I scan my work with a Nikon 9000 scanner and today I am almost 100% digital capture. I found the results beyond my expectations with fine tonal range, useable sharpness ( especially considering the final product...newsprint photographs). I do have to admit that I preferred the digital images better. The noise was less bothersome than the film grain and I had the option of color with the digital versions. I will say that if the claims are true about pushing this film to 12800 ISO then we are talking about unprecedented speed. That would be comfortable to handhold a 200mm telephoto lens in streetlight with overcast skies at midnight!!!

In general my exposures were in the 1/30 to 1/60th range with the lenses shot wide open. Totally useful and totally capable of stopping slow action with the models. The results were great and when ultimate speed is needed there is really something to be said about the film.....but I never bought it again because I was more than pleased with the D2x images and loved the option of color for my high-speed photography

Overall this film offers incredible versatility for the price and I highly recommend it to anyone considering extreme low light photography where action or handheld cameras are required. BUT, if you let the lab do your printing and you don’t do your own darkroom work or you don’t scan your negatives and then use digital darkroom techniques then you might be disappointed with the results. As is typical with most print photography, even pro labs lack any ability to print the images to their potential. I found the prints lifeless and muddy…typical of all my previous night work that I had done on print film. I was always a slide shooter and I used this film in the same way……digital scanning and editing and never letting a lab touch the printing.