100 ISO slide film?

Irminsul · Oct 4, 2006

A relative of mine is taking a beginning photo course which requires shooting 100 ISO slide film for a group assignment at a specified outdoor location. They're expecting bright daylight - although it is frequently overcast and/or rainy this time of the year in Florida, where she lives. Obviously, the assignment is designed to put in practice the classroom lectures on manual exposure, focusing, metering, handheld techniques, etc. Regardless of technique, however, how can you avoid image blurring from camera shake at 100 ISO, w/o a tripod? I'm not a steady handheld shooter myself and always shoot at 200-400 ISO negative film, so I couldn't offer her a considered opinion on this matter.

But I do believe that at ISO 100 you should definitely use a tripod, even when shooting sunny 16. The chances are that it'll be a bright day -but come on, 100 ISO handheld? I suspect that there's going to be a lot of blurry slides produced that day. Oh, no doubt they will learn something -- and that will be precisely what General Mapache learned in the film The Wild Bunch - "put it on a tripod!" Well, maybe that's the real purpose of the group assignment - to introduce them to tripod use.

Torus34 · Oct 4, 2006

Sounds like you are a member of the f64 Club with regard to DOF.

fmw · Oct 4, 2006

I used ISO 100 slide film for decades in all kinds of light with or without all kinds of camera supports. It should work out just fine.

LWW · Oct 4, 2006

Torus34 said:
Sounds like you are a member of the f64 Club with regard to DOF.

I have handheld a 300mm F4 using ISO 25. That's still 1/500 using sunny 16 shot wide open. With a 50mm F1.8 you should be able to handhold at 1/2700 with the same conditions.

With a 50mm F1.8 and 100 ISO film, if you lose 4 stops of light...1/16 of bright sunlight...you should still be able to hand hold at F5.6 and 1/60.

With even rudimentary photographic technique this can easily be done.

LWW

darin3200 · Oct 4, 2006

The only time I use a tripod is at night, and that's optional. It depends on the camera too. If you're shooting a Nikon F6 or an Canon EOS-1 you probably wouldn't want to go lower than 1/30th, maybe 1/15.

But with rangefinders I can go 1/8th and sometimes 1/4th. I did a hipshoot at 1/2th with 100 iso film the other day. You only need a tripod if you want a ton of DOF.

jwkwd · Oct 5, 2006

Using a tripod certainly would not hurt. In regards to handholding with ASA 100, back in the day, I have hand held Kodachrome 25 without a problem in bright conditions. I shoot Velvia 100 daily and usually don't have a tripod with me. With lenses above 135, I might have a monopod handy.

Christie Photo · Oct 5, 2006

Irminsul said:
Regardless of technique, however, how can you avoid image blurring from camera shake at 100 ISO, w/o a tripod?

uhh... use a faster shutter speed. I'm gonna presume that everyone here realizes that "camera shake" is a result of slower shutter speeds... not slower film speeds.

I'd bet the 100 speed film used in the class is Type S, so no worries about reciprocity failure.

If the exposures are made with a normal lens or shorter, I suspect anyone can easily hand-hold a small (35mm) camera at 1/60 second.

Pete

Alex_B · Oct 5, 2006

jwkwd said:
Using a tripod certainly would not hurt. In regards to handholding with ASA 100, back in the day, I have hand held Kodachrome 25 without a problem in bright conditions. I shoot Velvia 100 daily and usually don't have a tripod with me. With lenses above 135, I might have a monopod handy.

Me too, I did a lot of Velvia 100 F work, also on very overcast days. With 35mm film I felt safe to shoot hand-held with lenses up to 70mm. Above 100mm I used a tripod at least if it was not really bright. (I painfully realised that a tripod might be of no use on a boat sometimes:lmao

terri · Oct 5, 2006

Christie Photo said:
uhh... use a faster shutter speed. I'm gonna presume that everyone here realizes that "camera shake" is a result of slower shutter speeds... not slower film speeds.

I'd bet the 100 speed film used in the class is Type S, so no worries about reciprocity failure.

If the exposures are made with a normal lens or shorter, I suspect anyone can easily hand-hold a small (35mm) camera at 1/60 second.

Pete

Agreed. I've shot tons of 100 ISO slide film and never had a problem. I am very comfortable with 1/60 handheld, and have gone as low as 1/45, but that's almost out of my comfort zone. I'd rather keep the tripod close by if I think the light is beginning to fade.

In the middle of the day, they shouldn't have any problem getting a pretty fast shutter speed.

Irminsul · Oct 5, 2006

Thanks for the quick lesson. Apparently my misapprehension regarding slide film at 100 ISO shooting at f/16 & f/11 and medium apertures was due to misinformation previously received. Easy to fool me (as you can tell from my avatar) -- I've never shot slide film myself. :blushing: That's why I posted it in the beginner's forum. I'll tell my relative that you guys have cleared that up and that she has nothing to worry about and can look forward to a beautiful day of shooting.