Gorges and film reciprocity

[Mike Lyons]

Hi to all, I'll be doing some shots in gorges that will need exposures in the minutes range. What current slide and colour neg films have good reciprocity (colour and exposure) characteristics, preferably with saturated colours? I realise,having done an archive search, that Portra will go out to 10secs without problems and that Kodak 100vs is pretty good too, but have any of you gone to the minutes range?Real life photographic experience rather than the scarce charts would be appreciated. What about the "G" and "GX" slide film or other neg films? Thanks in advance- Mike

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

Provia 100F is supposed to be good to 2 minutes without correction (filtering or exposure). I don't have any actual experience with it though.

[Guy Boily]

Mike, I have been doing a lot of nightshots with exposures in the 4 to 15 min range. My film of choice is Kodak E100VS. It has no color shift (as far as I can see) and the colors are saturated. I have tried the newer GX or G, can't recall, it has a serious green shift and so I don't use it in this situation. My b&w's are in large format but my long color exposures are in medium format. I presume that both films have the same base and structure. I have a section on night shots on my web page if you care to look. Hope this helps. www.guyboily.com

[Philippe Gauthier]

Another vote for Provia 100F. The film to avoid is Velvia 50; it's extremely prone to strange colour casts. I saw a nice pink/magenta sky turn to a toxic green, once. As it was over a city, it actually turned out to be pretty cool as polluted city shot. But I don't think that's what you're looking after.

[Kirk Gittings]

I oftentimes shoot Velvia 100F for twilight shots of architecture. Exposures often go 2 minutes. It looks great, but acuracy is not our goal, juicyness is. Our magazine clients love it. I've had many covers with it.

[Jim Galli]

Most of the cliche slot canyon shots are Velvia with an 85B and an FL, or at least an 812. It depends on what you're after.