From: jacobson@cello.hpl.hp.com (David Jacobson)
Newsgroups: rec.photo
Subject: Re: Need film recommendation for baby's birth
Date: 28 Aug 92 23:15:04 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

In article <1992Aug28.144719.12998@deshaw> siegela@deshaw.com (Andrew Siegel) writes:
>My wife will be giving birth to our first child in November, and of
>course I will be there taking pictures (and perhaps assisting my wife
>as well :-).
>
>I'm trying to decide what kind of film to use to record this occasion.
>I'll want prints, so it's going to be print film.  The lighting in the
>room will be bright fluorescent ambient light and (probably) halogen
>examination lights.  I'm pretty sure that there are no tungsten lights
>in the room.  I won't be using flash.

Well, the whole childbirth experience is not just an event that
happens in the delivery room, but there are lots of other things.
Here is how it went when my daughter was born.

1.  Delivery
	This is more complicated than you think.  You have one
	obligation as "coach" and then you want to be photographer.
	It isn't all just pictures of the wife and child either. 
	We had a very nice obstetrician and we wanted a picture of him
	and the nurse that had worked with us.  
2. Weighing
	After a while they take the baby off to be weighted, measured, etc.
	The room this happened in had office type fluorescent illumination.
3. Resting
	After most of the excitement were over mother and baby were 
	moved to a kind of recovery room.  It was very very very dimly lit.
4. Next day
	Normal hospital room
5. Going home
	I got pictures of us putting the baby in our car, going in the
	front door, etc.
	

I strongly urge you to abandon the idea of not using flash.  Many of
the pictures would have been impossible without it.  Now bright flash
does disturb the baby quite a bit.  (I wish someone had told me in
advance how much it would.)  Use a camera with auto flash or better
yet TTL flash metering.  Particularly when you are in dimly lit areas,
like the resting area, use a large aperture and/or fast film, so the
camera quenches the flash after just a small amount of light has been
produced.  I did OK with my electronic flash, but I stupidly thought I
would take a couple of Polaroids to send to relatives the same day.
This was a long time ago with an SX-70 and flash bars.  When the
flash in the flash bar went off the poor baby was obviously very
uncomfortable.  She screwed up her face and frowned and almost started
to cry.  


>My priorities in picking the film are sufficient speed, lack of
>graininess, and correct color balance, in that order.  I was thinking
>perhaps of a Kodacolor 400 film, but I'm concerned that it won't be
>fast enough.  I'm also slightly concerned that the color balance will
>be off if I use daylight film.
>
>Can anyone recommend appropriate film and filters?  Thanks.
>

For film, I used whatever Kodacolor they had back in '82.  It came out
just fine.  (But as I said I was using flash.)  If you really want to
do it without flash you might consider Fuji Reala, as it is supposed
to be quite tolerant of mixed lighting.

I don't see any need for filters if you use flash.  If not, you might
use one of those fluorescent correction filters for pictures under
fluorescent light.

>-- 
>Andrew Siegel			D. E. Shaw & Co., New York, NY
>abs@deshaw.com			(212)478-0231

Best wishes for a happy event and good pictures.
And get something from Light Impressions to store the prints and negs in.

  -- David Jacobson
Newsgroups: rec.photo