Film days ISOs (out of interest)

Russ MCR

Russ MCR

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Asking as a football photographer that never did it with film, what ISO film did photographers use for night matches back in the day? Some of the grounds I've shot at have particularly 'challenging' light, so much so that I sometimes find myself shooting 1/320 f2.8 at 6,400 ISO.

I was flicking through some 80s' Manchester United programmes and there's significant motion blur on the ball for night games, yet the images are still noisy as hell –*and I'm assuming Old Traffords floodlights after 1985 were probably as effective as any ground in the country.

Like I say –*just an out of interest topic.
 
Hi Russ,

Film I used was Ilford XP1 & Kodak Tri-X 4oo,

XP1 had a c41 processing which is colour but was a B&W film with a lattitude of
400-1600 ISO, it was very grainy at the extreme but usable. I would cover 10mins of a game then shoot back to the studio to dev the film & print up images to "wire" down to London. I was allowed to use 1x36 film per camera ( I got a roasting if I used more!) &, using a Nikon F3 with motor drive,(8fps), you had to be very carefull with the trigger finger :D. Kind regards Graham.
 
Hi Graham

Cheers for reply. I knew photographers had time constraints but I never knew it was as little as 10 mins (!) to shoot. I suppose it must only have been club photographers that shot the whole game?

I remember there used to be a mobile newspaper press on the forecourt of Old Trafford (I'm assuming they probably did City too). If you hung on til about 16:55 - 17:00 you could buy a newspaper (The Pink) that featured a photo from the match you had just watched. For me that still remains a feat given the tools and technologies of the time.

I know you said that you processed at the studio, but what kind of processing facilities would clubs have?

Russ
 
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Russ,

Around this time, 1600 was very high ISO, and would involve 'push' processing your film - basically you'd underexpose the film by a set amount (say 2 stops for an ISO 400 film being shot at 1600). Then, you'd leave the film longer in the developer to get the exposure back to normal (very basic explanation!). A lot of grain was expected!

I didn't shoot my first game at old trafford until the early 90's, and once it went dark you were wide open, looking for hotspots of light to get you 1/500th. Remember most film cameras around then only gave you shutter speed choices in full stops, and shooting at 1/250th is not easy, and would invariably give a blurred ball at the least.

That said, I remember shooting night matches at Oldham when they were in the Prem. I had to sit as near to the goal as possible as I had an 85mm which I could use at f1.8 about 1/500th. I seem to remember submitting lots of headers from corners, hoping the players would 'hang' in the air to help freeze them!!

Mike
 
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