Sunset dilemma

[Gypsea]

Hey pals so I went to shoot at the sunset this evening and as we got to the place my camera started playing up, the lever wouldn't let me advance and no photos could be taken ( had to open up the back and saw that the film wasn't secured tight anymore ) so I have decided to go back tomorrow and try again but the only problem is, that was the last 400 film I had left. I have only 200 film, my question is can I make it work with 200 film? If I put the aperture to 1.8 or so? Thankyou peace & love

 

[petrochemist]

If you have a tripod (or even just something to rest the camera on) ISO 50 can be made to work quite nicely, with out the need for extreme apertures. ISO 200 shouldn't be a problem
The nature of the images shot with longer shutter speeds may be different, but often that can be turned into an advantage!

 

[Dave Colangelo]

You should have no issues shooting with 200 speed film. As mentioned a good tripod will help as will a cable release and good understanding of mirror lockup. Sunrise has some similar conditions and I shot this roll of 100 speed as well as this one during a sunrise last summer with great success. I did however use a tripod and cable release. But with a smaller 35mm camera, a decent place to rest it, and a steady hand you should be fine.

 

[Designer]

You could also set the ISO to 400 and "push" the development, although that is not in keeping with the manufacturer's intent. The film will perform better at the recommended ISO 200.

 

[Michael Mc]

ISO 200 should be plenty fast. Depending on the lens you're using, you may or may not need a tripod.

Here's a sunset metering tip for you -- it's one that took me a while to figure out, but once I did, the results were correctly exposed sunset photos every time. The problem with most cameras when you're metering a sunset scene is the camera sees the bright sun and wants the lens stopped down way beyond where it should be. The result is a dark photo with a nice orange sun. Having the sun correctly exposed is not going to do you any good if the rest of the scene is in complete darkness.

So what I do is point my camera directly overhead and meter the sky overhead. To put it another way, I meter the sky at a 90 degree angle above the sun. The result is a correctly exposed scene but the actual sun is white. You've got to let the exposure go somewhere and letting the sun go white is the best solution. Here are a couple of photos I took with Kodak Gold 200 film. Sunset was shot at Fort Bragg, California. The First image was shot with a Canon EF 70-210 f/4 and the second one was shot with a Tamron 24-70 f/3.3-5.6 Aspherical. Both shots were handheld.

Despite the quite interesting looking lens flare, I still like this photo.

 

[webestang64]

This.....

Here's a sunset metering tip for you -- it's one that took me a while to figure out, but once I did, the results were correctly exposed sunset photos every time. The problem with most cameras when you're metering a sunset scene is the camera sees the bright sun and wants the lens stopped down way beyond where it should be. The result is a dark photo with a nice orange sun. Having the sun correctly exposed is not going to do you any good if the rest of the scene is in complete darkness.

I sometimes will bracket the shot as well and set ISO a bit lower for at least a 1/3 over to deepen the colors.