 Why does it have to be this? It clearly isn't doing anything. You haven't slept in a week. Every time you try to fall asleep, you wake up and sprint to the bathroom clutching your ass. It just is not funny anymore. It's not about being funny. It's about sending a message. Okay, well, I tried. Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Well, chances are if you're watching this, I'm currently out on the road and need to bank a video for my absent ass. So what better time to do a video about what film stock to pick and when to pick it? Like escaping prison, everyone has a different strategy, and I thought I'd share mine. Something that gave me terrible film photography constipation when I was first starting out was how do I pick what film stock I'm gonna shoot today? After all, there are a plethora of different options, and they all produce distinctly different results. So while I do not have a direct answer for you because this channel is useless, I'm gonna explain my own workflow for choosing to hopefully give you some reference to go off of. Knowing full well that the real secret is to just be like this guy and have a bunch of different cameras with different film stocks in them. So believe it or not, I actually choose my film stock based on time of day. I shoot a lot of landscape and images that I would try my best to describe as painterly, although I don't think painterly is a genre of photography, but I don't know what else to call this I produce. Because I look up to paintings as my north star, I need the light to be sweet and sexy, which for what I like to shoot means sunrise or sunset, and the rest more or less falls into place from there depending on time of the day. Let's start with sunrise. I'm rarely ever awake at sunrise, usually because I'm hungover or sleep deprived, or just flat out wishing I was dead in general. But it is nice to fantasize about the day that I do actually get up that early. Sunrise and sunset produce some of the most gorgeous orange light you'll ever see, and if you live in LA, that's especially true because of the pollution. Think of it kind of like trading sweet tones for years off your life. Because of that, I'd be a fool not to shoot that gorgeous early morning light in anything other than color. Okay, so that's a good start. If the light is beautiful and warm, then just shoot color. Seems pretty smart. I don't want to brag, but I went to chess camp as a kid. Granted, I got beat up a lot there and stopped going out of cowardice, but I like to think it made me a little smarter. Everyone has a default color film stock that they go to. For a lot of people, it seems like Portra 400 is theirs, though I'm kind of surprised it's not Kodak Color Plus because I can't find that sh** anywhere. A good trick for selecting your default color film stock is to just simply look at the colors on the box. For example, a lot of Fuji film stocks, the boxes are green. Green is a very prominent color and renders incredibly well on Fuji film stocks. Vice versa, the box for Kodak Color Plus is yellow and red, and Color Plus is generally regarded as a warmer film stock overall. If you're unsure of what you like, I'd recommend looking up sample images on either the Granary app or whatever is left of Instagram at this point. My own default color negative film stock is definitely Kodak Gold, partially because now it's available in 35mm and 120mm, but also because it produces vivid brown and yellow tones, like the deep well of a Porta Potty. I feel like it makes my photos look like an old, aged painting, forgotten about for many ages because no one cares about it, and that's the look that I've spent many nights trying to figure out. Alternatively, if the light just isn't hitting you're not feeling it in your plums, whatever the case is, black and white is also good at this time. Quick disclaimer though, I think black and white works at just about any time of the day. At sunrise or sunset, I'd argue that shooting black and white with a yellow filter is one of the best moves that you can make. That's because the yellow filter brightens the golden orange light and darkens the blue skies, giving you this rich sense of mood. It's almost kind of like an incredibly easy photography hack to make your s*** photo look like fine art. Seriously, try it at sunset sometime and thank me, or curse my future grave later. I personally like the looks of T-Max 400 and Ilford HP5 pushed two stops. They are definitely two vastly different looks, however. Clean and sharp or grainy and rough, respectively. So that's that. For sunrise or sunset, I shoot either Kodak Gold or a black and white film stock with a yellow filter. But what about other times of the day? Everybody knows midday lighting kind of sucks because it's harsh, contrasty, and lacking color. Yeah, I won't lie to you. This is my least favorite time of day to shoot, but sometimes you don't have control over your schedule or your bodily functions, so you just gotta make do. But I'm here to tell you the good news. It can still be done, although shooting indoor at this time of day is not a bad idea to consider. For midday work outside where the sun is waiting to UV blast your ass, I typically approach scenes by shooting black and white. Very contrasty black and white, like Ilford HP5 pushed two stops contrasty. I find that the grain kind of makes your shots look very pleasing, almost like you're looking at a rough sketch of something. Slap a yellow filter on your lens and you'll get that weird dark sky white puffy clouds that's totally a vibe. Good luck shooting 1600 ISO in the middle of the day, though. That's for you to figure out. But if you're like f**k black and white, color is the future, my dude. Might I recommend a nice Fuji color negative blend that pairs well with anything green. Admittedly, in some cases of midday lighting, I will throw in the occasional roll of Fuji Industrial or Fuji Pro 400H to really get those green tones vibing. Luckily for us out here in LA, everything around us is not green and is in fact dead. Like plants, trees, Hollywood ambitions, etc. But when I do go north or somewhere just more lush, you can always count on Fuji to deliver those beautiful green and blue tones. I thought I'd go ahead and throw in an honorable mention here and say that I shoot all of my rolls of air chrome in midday lighting. Because air chrome is a color infrared film, you want to capture as much infrared light as you can, reflecting off the chloroplast and trees and foliage to get that real nasty evil red look. So yeah, even though midday lighting is kind of tough to get good results in, I'd have to recommend Billford HP5 pushed to stops a nice Fuji film stock like industrial or Pro 400H or air chrome. If you can find it, you lucky son of a b**ch. But Jason, you naive yet devilishly handsome piece of human garbage. What if I live somewhere where it's rainy 90% of the time? Good question. I haven't had much experience in this, but I definitely do subscribe to the fact that Ilford HP5 pushed to stops is going to be your best friend in that case. The coarse grain and high contrast might just give your shots some added pop that the scenery isn't providing. A yellow filter will also help cut through some blue haze in the sky. But what if it's usually foggy where I live? First of all, I'm jealous. Second of all, I might have an answer for that too. Though I've never done it yet myself, I've always wanted to shoot red scale film in heavy fog. I imagine it would look a lot like that scene in Blade Runner 2049 that takes place in a wasteland version of Las Vegas. Actually, not too different from current day Las Vegas. If that fails you, black and white will definitely add a much needed accent of creepiness to your scene. I shot these photos in medium dense fog on pushed HP5 and yeah, I love them to the deepest circle of hell and back. All right, so moving right along in our hypothetical day, sunset. So for sunset, as I touched on, it's basically the same approach as for sunrise. But every once in a while for sunset, I'll throw in a roll of FPP retrochrome or if I have it, rolly variochrome, which are basically the same thing. I find that these two film stocks actually do really well in sunset lighting conditions, but they are definitely for special occasions. But what about after sunset, like blue hour? This is a very unique time of day because there's faint light being reflected off the atmosphere resulting in these gorgeous blue and sometimes pinkish purple tones that are truly unmatched. If at this point in the day I'm not totally exhausted and ready to throw on some Lana Del Rey and draw a bubble bath, I'll usually throw in some ectochrome, but usually only in medium format or large format because at this time of day the light is transitioning pretty quickly and if you're shooting 35 and trying to pound out 36 exposures in 45 minutes on expensive film, you might have a very bad time. You probably will also need a tripod to do this, I usually do, but man oh man, are those results wonderful. Ectochrome is actually a slide film or color positive film and it typically only has about two stops of range before information in either the highlights or the shadows gets completely lost to the analog void. Compare that to about 12 or 13 stops on typical color negative film. So when you shoot ectochrome at a time with lots of ambient light illuminating everything evenly, you'll get a wonderfully expanded range of soft colors and contrast in your scene. Here's another ectochrome quick tip. If you want to get real crazy you can use either an 81a or an 81b filter to really warm up your image and get those nice orange and pink tones. I typically use an 81a. Okay awesome, that's great. But what about nighttime? A lot of people like shooting at night and I can't blame them. For I too like being screamed at by pedestrians and almost run over by cars that can't see you. It's really an opportunity for an entirely different mood of photos from daytime and the landscape around you has the potential to change drastically. For me there's really only one film stock for night stuff and it's the obvious choice, Cynestil 800T. It just looks really good at night, especially if you're shooting the typical neon signs or gas stations. If you're not really into the halation look on Cynestil 800T I've also found that ectochrome looks really good at night. It's just a bit more difficult to shoot at night because of its aforementioned limited latitude. But perhaps if you frantically shoved a roll of ectochrome into your camera for blue hour and didn't finish it then just go ahead and shoot the rest of the roll on some night scapes dog. You won't be disappointed. I took one of my own favorite photos on ectochrome at night. So at this point you can continue on from here all night long until morning dawns and it's time to do this whole terrible process all over again. So yeah, that's about it. But before we wrap up this video I'd like to quickly thank today's sponsor Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one website building platform that allows you to create the coolest website you possibly can, the only limiting factor being your imagination. If you're a photographer like me it's a good idea to have a place online to display your work for potential clients or even just to show your family and friends what you've been up to. I personally have been using Squarespace for the past four years to host my own photography portfolio and has been a very straightforward process for someone like me who isn't very well versed in website design. That's because Squarespace offers hundreds of professionally designed template options ready for you to build off of and make your own. With an intuitive user interface that allows you to construct to your heart's desire Squarespace makes it easy to put your personal touch on your website. So what are you waiting for? If you're ready to build a website you can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainydays and if you use the code grainydays at checkout you can get 10% off your first purchase. Anyway here's a quick recap in case the information did not stick into your short-term memory and you've already forgotten. So yeah that's my own little roadmap for approaching film photography on the go. Of course in any situation there are variables and outliers. As I kind of hinted at before my typical workflow is to actually just carry a bunch of film cameras with different film stocks loaded in them so that I can be ready for anything Mother Nature throws at me. Well maybe not an erupting volcano but we don't have time to cover my worst fears. I'm actually curious about your own approach to shooting even if it's just portrait 400 for everything. I mean at this point that's kind of like making a steak without any seasoning but teach their own I guess. Chances are probably pretty good that you do not like the same film stocks that I do so you do not need to follow my every suggestion to the Mr. T. I'm just trying to lay out my own process for how I go about approaching each different scenario so that I can get your noodle going about your own process. Also quick side note why do we call the brain a noodle it seems like at least for some of us a noodle would refer to a different bodily appendage.