35mm photo effects.?

Question

The effect I want to achieve is a sharp, centered subject(portrait) with blurred edges. Instead of buying filters, I would like to do this with aperture and shutter speed settings. I want to experiment with different settings, both inside and outdoors with or without a flash. Will be using 800 speed film in a Nikon F-5 and speedlight. Any info will be appreciated, thank you.

Answer 1

Well, there is no such thing as a digital 35mm. You either get a digital or film camera. There are full frame digital cameras that give the quality of 35mm but they are professional cameras and high dollar. Not to be nit-picky. I wish they could combine 35mm and digital. It would make a hell of a camera. Like someone else advised, you can use editing software to add a vintage look or a film grain to your image, depending on which you were really leaning toward. You can get a 35mm for much less than the same quality digital camera by the way. It will probably cost about half as much to get the 35mm version of a digital camera. There are three main downsides to using 35mm. It costs much more ($15-20 per roll once you add the cost of the roll of film, processing costs and a picture cd) to shoot a roll of film than it costs to print the same number of digital prints (less than $2 from my current lab). And you can't see what your pictures look like until you get them back after processing and cannot just take a picture and post it online. And, for someone who is used to digital, there is no live view screen with 35mm. I am not trying to talk you out of a 35mm, but just be aware of these things.

Answer 2

what do you have against filters? And why pray tell are you trying to use 800 speed film for portraits? When you blow up the prints to 11x17 the grain will be quite distracting.

look at it this way, what is the normal outdoor exposure for 800 speed? 1/1000 sec at f 22. What shutter speed do you propose to get the aperature down to f2 so that depth of field focus is noticable? Here is where a neutral density filter will help, but alas no filters. Using a lens in the telephoto range will help as you want the picture cropped as close as possible to the subject to enhance the background blur. A 70 to 100 mm is considered standard for portraits. The speedlight may help fill-in harsh shadows outdoors, use a setting that is weaker than normal by 2 stops or so. But will the Nikon shutter at 1/10,000 sec, and will it sync to flash at speeds higher than 1/125 ?

Indoors, the speed light is absolutely essential as any natural light will be off-color because the film is balanced for daylight. If the indoor light is weak like in a bar, then you might just be able to stop down to f2 at 1/125. make sure very little room light spills on the subject as you need for the flash to be the principle illumination.

a center focus filter is not expensive and can be hand made. When coupled with a neutral density or polarizing filter, will enhance both focus effect and bring out color saturation. 50 speed film is better suited for normal lit subjects and has a finer grain so that blow up prints of your 35mm work will be comparable to work done by professionals with medium format cameras.

Answer 3

You can do that with the vaseline, if you wish, or in the printing process, you can blur everything but the center by using something as ridiculous as a piece of panty hose.

But why go to all that work. First thing I would look for is a soft focus lens. I don't know of one for 35s, but I am sure that there might be some out there. However, on 6x7 medium format, with Mamiya RB67 or RG67, there is a soft focus in both 140mm and 150mm that has little disk that you insert into the lens to control the amount of softness. If y ou shoot faster than f8, the center should be in absolute hard focus

Answer 4

Well the blurred edges you are talking about is refered to as a vignette. Like the other person said you could always use a nylon stocking or smear vaseline on the outside edges of your lens. With the nylon stocking cut a hole in the center of the nylon to keep the image sharp in the center. The density and color of the nylon all plays into how much diffusion and vignetting you want on the edges.
Also they do make diffusion filters which you can buy at the photo store however these diffusions create an overall softening effect over the whole image, not just the edges.

Answer 5

I think that if you play with the depth of field you could get that affect. A wide aperture setting should do the trick.

Answer 6

depends by subject but you can use the old aperture vs. depth of field settings.