Would my 35mm capture the glow of things under blacklight?

Question

I have a Minolta Maxxum 5000i 35mm SLR camera. My friend and I had put a blacklight in the light fixture in my room and noticed that her nailpolish and colors on her shirt were extremely florescent! I told her, "You should come over again wearing the same thing and I'll see if I can capture it on film!"

Would it be possible? Do I need to do anything special (like turn the internal flash on, buy a special kind of film, adjust aperature or shutter settings...etc.)?

Thanks!

Answer 1

No flash, you would need a tripod, because the glow that you are seeing would be dim in normal light, so you would need both a wide open aperture and slow shutter speed.

Answer 2

Have her buy a fast speed (at least 400 ISO) film.  Her lens should be wide open (smallest f number).  If she has a prime (non-zoom) lens, it will be better than a zoom.   A normal lens (around 50mm) will be better than a telephoto.  A tripod is a must, but also find a place to rest your hand so that it won't blur from the motion.  You might need a very slow shutter speed, depending on the film speed.  Don't turn on any other lights, and do not use the camera's flash.  That will overpower the blacklight.  Have her take a few different pictures,  The first one doesn't always come out the best.  Have her focus carefully.

Answer 3

Not if you use a flash.

Answer 4

Sure!  But do NOT turn on the flash or that will completely wash out the picture and you'll loose the effect.  The flash will light up the room and you won't even see the glow from the ultraviolet light.  So don't use the flash.  Just do a long exposure.  I'm assuming that your SLR camera has completely manual shutter speed and aperture settings...which is better.  Always use manual settings so you have more control.  The best thing to do is mount the camera on a tripod and turn the shutter speed to the "B" setting.  That's for a long exposure, and the shutter will stay open for as long as you hold down the shutter button.  I would recommend that you set your aperture at f-8.  You could also set it at f-5.6, but I've found that pictures will start to look grainy if you open up the aperture too much.  Also, you will lose depth of field and your background will be blurry if you use a wider aperture than f-8, unless that's the effect you want.

I'd recommend maybe a 12 second exposure.  I took a picture in a dark room, with only a candle and I used a 10 second exposure.  Well, actually I tried a few different pictures.  One was 8 seconds, another 10 seconds, and one more at 12 seconds.  So try taking a few pictures to "bracket" the exposure and see which one looks best.

So try that.  Mount the camera on a tripod, or at least put it on something like a table to hold it steady.  Set your aperture on f-8.  Put the shutter on the "B" setting and try a 12 second exposure.  I tried this with Kodak Gold 200 ISO film, and it worked pretty good.

You could also use a higher speed film, like maybe 400 ISO...but honestly, I've found that high ISO films start to get too grainy.  200 ISO is fine, especially with long exposures.  In fact, the lower the ISO, the better.  I've taken long exposure pictures with 100 ISO black and white film and they turned out awesome.  Low ISO films are super sharp.