Putting ISO400 in my Camera...

Turtle4288 · Jul 3, 2007

Hello everyone, you're talking to a film camera noob.

My mum just gave me her Canon Sure Shot AF7 to take to Mongolia, and i'd like to know what film I am supposed to put in it?

Its got ISO200 in it at the moment - I think - and I bought some ISO400 from TESCO not knowing what I was doing and I wonder if I need to go and swap it for ISO200. Will 400 be ok?

I cant change any speed settings on the camera or anything. Just flash on or off.

Thanks for your insight.

Mike

www.turtleracing.co.uk

Digital Matt · Jul 3, 2007

400 speed is a good all around film. It will get you through most situations and give you nice pictures.

Turtle4288 · Jul 3, 2007

Digital Matt said:
400 speed is a good all around film. It will get you through most situations and give you nice pictures.

Fantastic. So im not going to end up with over exposed grainy photos? Or is this digital experiance of using 400 ISO not the same on film?

Im probably going to be taking quite a few campfire memories with it anyway

deanimator · Jul 3, 2007

Print film, right?
(not slides!)

You will be fine in most situations...even bright sunlight.
Night-time around a campfire will be tricky, but try a few shots anyway.

Digital Matt · Jul 3, 2007

Turtle4288 said:
Fantastic. So im not going to end up with over exposed grainy photos? Or is this digital experiance of using 400 ISO not the same on film?

Im probably going to be taking quite a few campfire memories with it anyway

It's a fully automatic camera. You aren't going to end up with anything overexposed, and no the photos should not be excessively grainy like cheap digital.

Don Simon · Jul 3, 2007

Hello. No you won't (or at least shouldn't) end up with overexposed grainy photos. Overexposure is not the result of either the film or a digital sensor but of the exposure itself; the user or the computer in the camera overexposes, not the film. The metering systems in fully-auto cameras can't always get it right, but sometimes there are ways around this. Grain meanwhile should not be a problem either - most ISO 400 films (when used as ISO 400 film) are relatively low grain. ISO 400 on digital point-&-shoots is indeed often fairly horrible; however this is not always the case with 'digital' and is not the case with most digital SLRs. Also I personally think film grain is less unpleasant than digital noise but that's just me.

So basically the film will be fine. The potential problems I can see would come not from the film but from the camera; being a fully-auto point-and-shoot with no exposure compensation it won't let you manually control exposure, so if the meter gets it wrong there is not a lot you can do about it. But as has already been said - should be fine for most situations. As always, I'd advise shooting a test roll, to give you an idea of how both the camera and the film behave, before you go on your holiday.