What would be the best proffesional 35mm film for theatre photography that plan to get printed and scanned. Being indoors with little lights it would need to be sensitive with fine grain but with the lights on stage flaring into the lens, i would think something around 400iso but im not sure of a good brand to get?

You can still get film???

Color or B/W? 35mm or what format?

For color, I would recommend Kodak Portra NC 400. But I could also think of Fuji 1600. Be prepared to have them pushed in processing.

Regards
Angela

Very funny, ha, ha, ha...

I only use slide film these days, and I can recommend Provia 400F. Very fine grain for ISO 400 slide.

Any of the Fuji films should be good
Marc

My favourite high speed negative film used to be Fuji Press 800. Very nice colors, although grainy.

For slides and for high speed Fuji Provia 400 is propably the best. It can be pushed one and two stops without much problem, and from what I recall even three stops per Fuji (but do verify by search on internet since I go by memory from a few years back...). Take a look at Fuji website and perhaps make a test roll before actual use.

Regards
Anders

Kodak used to produce a 35mm slide film that was tungsten balanced.. essentially it was the same as the 35mm film used in movie production for indoor work.. and used a lot by movie stills photographers.. It was around iso 350 .. I just looked now on the kodak site and couldn't see it. If you use the fuji press 800 you'll have to use a tungsten filter which brings it down 2 stops... although if you don't use one a lot more can be retireved in the scanning now than you would have been able to do with "analogue" colour printing. .. I found non-slide film much better for stage work as it had better lattitude. A great film was Fuji NPL .. tungsten... I think it was only available in 120 format though.

Go digital .. it has made stage photography .. particularly colour ... so much easier and workable.

I was thinking about B + W but i had a think about it and if i could get a fine grain color film i would use color. I took some photos at a concert with some Fuji Sensia 400 ISO E-6 film and they came out really nicely but the problem with slide film is getting printed isnt done to often and also if you over expose it or under expose it slightly it can ruin the whole picture. I mite give Kodak Portra NC 400 a try.

It takes some effort, need to purchase in advance (impossible to get on location), but still possible. I was in love with Agfa RSX and RSX II. Perfect for urban landscapes. But then Agfa went down the drain and now I switch between Provia 100F and Astia 100, with Sensia as the cheap route for snapshots.
For B&W I use Kodak T-Max 400 CN and Ilford XP2, because I can have them developed by the standard lab that does my slides.

Kodak UC400 is cheap and has extremely fine grain when developed and printed well, though I wouldn't trust the drugstore lab.

There's a new fine-grain, very saturated fuji 1600 called natura or something now, but I think it's only available in japan...

Fuji Pro 800z.

I have used it under similar use and was very pleased.

The only film I can think of for low light/tungsten photography is movie film. But there are drawbacks.

1. You will need to load the cassetes yourself.
2.It is processed in a special chemistry. A&I labs sometimes sells preloaded movie film and processes it once a week on tuesdays. It is returned one week later. You will get a motion picture print (slides) and the negatives. $15/roll.
3. Choose 5219, or if not available 5218 stock ISO 500 tungsten.
4. It may look a little more grainy than still camera film.
5. If A&I doesn't have the film preloaded, there are a few small companies that sell leftover raw stock for movies. They are probably located in Hollywood or New York. Last month I obtained 150' of 5218 for free from one of them. (150' is too short for movie work)

I promise you will get the best results using a digital SLR camera for this type of work though.

Let us know how it all comes out...

-bruce

Any current model DSLR will give you better results at ISO 1600 than any ISO 400 35mm film. Digital will give you less grain, more detail, and better DR and you won't have the hassle and expense of buying the film, processing it, and scanning. Film may still have a few niche roles where it can compete with digital, but stage/theater/concert photography is not one of them.

I miss konica impresa 50.

Also it's not designed for longevity like stills film and so degrades a lot quicker.

Spot on.
I've used both and it's so much easier with digital esp, wwhen it comes to white balance.
I used to use Kodak Ektachrome for concert photography as it had a slight blue cast that tended to offset the tungsten lighting without having to use a blue filter. And for B+W I used Tri-X pushed to 1250 in Acuspeed [no longer made].

If you can't use digital, I will second the Provia 400F. Push it to 800. Don't bother with getting it printed. You said you were getting it scanned and I hope that you wouldn't be / won't be scanning a PRINT.