Tungsten or daylight for this job?

[Dan Smith]

In checking the lighting of a large building I need to shoot I get a reading of 4900 Kelvin. It is a fluorescent reading. I plan on shooting it with daylight ra ther than tungsten film and using 25 units of magenta color correction. It will be shot on 8x10 and the final outcome is prints only, 26x40 inches or maybe up t o 60 inches long. (approximately) A long, narrow building with a big sign out fr ont lit from the inside, same color temp as the building. The format works well for the longer, narrow print. I am shooting with a 120 Nikkor on the 8x10 & crop ping top & bottom a bit to get the image right. The question here is whether to go with chrome or C41. The final image is prints for corporate wallspace. There is the outside possibility of magazine use in the future. So, I get two question s here. Print or chrome film? And, since I am shooting about 5am or so when the early morning sky will be 1.4 stops darker than the dark areas of a well lit bui lding, do I shoot tungsten or daylight film? Tungsten does marvelous things to t he sky color but daylight will be saturated as well, though not the deep purple of the tungsten. Any recommendations here?

[Paul Schilliger]

Dan, I find the Provia II and 3F handle well this sort of situations, with mixed lights and high contrast. I would recommended to overexpose by 1/2 f-stop for poses of a few seconds (averag e, values on 100 ASA)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Why not shoot both and see what looks best?

There is an interesting example of this kind of shot in Simmons' _Using the View Camera_ as a double exposure. The building is shot before sunrise with the lights on and the correct filtration for the indoor light with daylight film, then a second exposure is made, without the filtration, for the exterior of the building after sunrise.

[Pete Andrews]

Negative will definitely give you the most flexibility. Any slight cast that isn't compensated for can easily be corrected, and if the printer knows what they're doing they can even "filter dodge" areas of the image that need extra correction.