Concert Photography, PT 2

[rover]

I too am going to get an opportunity to photograph a jazz concert, a charity event benefiting one of my customers, a Hospital/VNA/Hospice organization. My company is the sponsor and one of my colleagues is the leader of the band. I may be an "official" photographer, but I have been clear explaining my limitations and the fact that I am a hobbyist, not pro. I have deflected all expectations, so I think I can go and have fun and get a few good shots and everyone will be happy.

I am set with my gear, M6 TTL (SF20 flash in the bag) and M3, meter 35 Summicron or Ultron (we will see what kind of mood I am in that day) 50 Summicron and Canon 50/1.4, and I have secured a Nikkor 85/2 (thank you Ray).

Lighting should be level once set, my question is about film and developer. I am only shooting B&W, I am considering Neopan 1600 or Tri X. I currently have Diafine, which I think I will not use for this assignment, or DDX. That is not a limiting factor though as I can just go and buy what developer I think is best. So, Neopan 1600 or Tri X pushed. How would you rate and process the film (i.e., TriX at 1600 and pushed 2 stops in DDX)? What developer do you suggest? I want to shoot at least at 1600 with my film and not use flash unless I get sucked into group shots before the show (this is what the 35 and flash are for).

I am going to go early during the set up and hang with the band. I should be able to get some meter readings before hand when the show is being set up.

This should be fun. I figure once the concert starts I will be fine, I will just stick with one lens, or the 85 on the M3 and 50/1.4 on the M6 and have fun. All the other stuff will be stressful, how do you pros do it?

How about this, my final product is to be a CD with scanned images with the promise to be able to produce prints if they are wanted at cost. No profit for me, maybe my company will cover my costs. If they want to use the photos for publicity I will trade them for a signed release from the band so I can do what ever I want with the photos in the future.

 

[rover]

No love for rover yesterday,

 

[bmattock]

Why wa happun?

 

[rover]

Fast sharp film, smooth grain, how do I get there? I don't like Delta 3200 or TMZ. Is Neopan 1600 fast enough/better than Trix? DDX a good developer, it is good for pushing film right?

 

[Toby]

Where is the concert being held? If its on a stage where you can measure the light with an ambient meter beforehand do so. Get a good idea of the light by moving to all areas of the stage. In my experience 400 iso is enough for a well light stage, if its a combination of strongly lit and quite dark areas expose for the lit areas and accept that some ares of the stage will print very dark. If you just take a simple average reading you may find that no one part of the image is correctly exposed so pick the important part of the images and expose for them. Of you two film options I would pick fuji 1600 its more straightforward

 

[bmattock]

Fast sharp film, smooth grain, how do I get there? I don't like Delta 3200 or TMZ. Is Neopan 1600 fast enough/better than Trix? DDX a good developer, it is good for pushing film right?

I'm afraid I don't know, buddy. My experience is all with Tri-X pushed and Delta 3200 - I like them both fine, but they are indeed grainy at those speeds. I have not used DDX or Neopan 1600.

I'm sure someone here has, though.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Fast sharp film, smooth grain, how do I get there? I don't like Delta 3200 or TMZ. Is Neopan 1600 fast enough/better than Trix? DDX a good developer, it is good for pushing film right?

I'd like the answer to this too. When I did something similar, I had brought along my M6 classic with tabbed 50mm Summicron, and some Tri-X; I rated it at ISO 1600 (I would have rated it at 1000, but light was dear). I knew I was going to be developing in Diafine.

Here's one shot from that night:

http://www.gmaphoto.com/view_C.php?gallery=street&this=38

Now, the grain isn't the best when you develop Tri-X in Diafine, but it looks really really nice --it's a very personal opinion. Some say that sometimes it's downright nasty; but it adds to the photo, imho. HP5+ can show worse (it's a different structure).

You can't see the grain in this picture because the sample isn't big enough to show it, and that's probably what matters if you're going to print 4x6. I didn't apply any grain reduction.

Just a thought.

 

[egpj]

Just completed some shooting in a Jazz Cafe here in Costa. We had the Jazz band from a university in Waco, Texas (Baylor?) here and they were very good. I had a bunch of HP5 with me at the time and Delta 3200. I pushed the HP5 stuff to varying degrees (some to 800 and some to 1600) I am hopeful about the results. I have heard that microphen is coming back out and that sounds like the developer for something like this. Not sure if it ... just did a quick search on Adorama and found that microphen is available for purchase. That is my plan and I hope someone hear can say if I am on fools errand or not.

 

[bmattock]

I'd like the answer to this too. When I did something similar, I had brought along my M6 classic with tabbed 50mm Summicron, and some Tri-X; I rated it at ISO 1600 (I would have rated it at 1000, but light was dear). I knew I was going to be developing in Diafine.

Here's one shot from that night:

http://www.gmaphoto.com/view_C.php?gallery=street&this=38

That looks fantastic! Tell me - how do your negs look? I rated Tri-x at 1600 and developed in Diafine - and they were so thin, they looked at first like nothing was on them. I was able to get scans out of them, but very contrasty and grainy - VERY!

So I have been rating them at 1250 now - slightly better results.

I have a bunch of Tri-X sitting here today - was going to soup em in Diafine (I rated them at 1250) but I also have some HC-110 sitting here - better choice?

Thanks,

Bill Mattocks

 

[rover]

If you had contrasty lighting Bill the Diafine will work well with TriX at 1250. If it was flat lighting the HC110 may be better.

Microphine and DDX are similar I think, one is a powder the other a concentrate, but they act the same, maybe.

I haven't used Neopan 1600 much, when I have not liked it. I probably souped it in D76. I have seen some very good shots from others with it though.

Garbriel, that is very nice, maybe Diafine isn't out after all. This is at an auditorium in the Hospital, I will talk to my buddy about the lighting next week, I am not sure he will know, he is just the leader of the band. I don't think it will be anything exotic though.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

That looks fantastic! Tell me - how do your negs look? I rated Tri-x at 1600 and developed in Diafine - and they were so thin, they looked at first like nothing was on them. I was able to get scans out of them, but very contrasty and grainy - VERY!

So I have been rating them at 1250 now - slightly better results.

I have a bunch of Tri-X sitting here today - was going to soup em in Diafine (I rated them at 1250) but I also have some HC-110 sitting here - better choice?

Thanks, Bill. 🙂

Well, like Rover's pointed out, if the light is contrasty, then Diafine will work out fine, and since the conditions in that bar are very very contrasty, I knew it would work out fine. The negatives looked rather dense. I've had the reverse luck, though, where the negatives look downright flat, and the grain is horrible; I mean horrible.

Now, "which to use, Diafine or HC-110". Hmm, that depends, really. If you're not sure or remember how the lighting was, I'd play it safe and use HC-110. Diafine is not for the faint of heart. I remember I shot a roll with some shots I really wanted to see, and oh what a disaster. That's why I feel it's better to overexpose if you can afford to, when you're going to soup in Diafine (it's great if you don't have a light meter or don't care to be reading one for every single shot, and just guesstimate --that's what I did that night).

Oh -- I seriously recommend using a medium yellow filter, or light red filter, if you can, when you have Diafine in mind. It helps.

 

[back alley]

my recommendation would be delta 3200 @ 1000 or 1600 max, dev. in ddx

the best thing for this kind of situation is a spot meter, meter off the faces and let the rest be what it is.

 

[egpj]

I pulled Delta 3200... once and I really did not like the results. The grain got really annoying and of course the negatives lacked contrast. And I developed in DDX as well. Of course I could have had something off in my process but I don't believe so. Have to try it again. I know Ilford recommends DDX for all of the Delta films but then I read that they recommend Microphen or HC-11 for any of the older films (such as HP5) when they are pushed to help control grain.

 

[FrankS]

Very good shot, Gabriel.

When you guys were talking about rating TriX at a certain speed and getting thin or dense negs, the variable not mentioned is how you metered the scene. If how the scene is metered is different between photographers, then one can get thin negs with Trix rated at 1250, and another can get dense negs with Trix rated at 1600. So, it's not so much how you rate the film, it's also how you meter the scene, which in this case is very contrasty and can give widely variable readings.

 

[peter_n]

rover, I've used NP1600 a lot for music rehearsals and concerts, and so far all my dev has been done in a professional lab in XTOL. I've had mixed results from this combination, partly because I think that the development environment is standardized around more "normal" films like Tri-X & NP400.

NP1600 is a great film but it does give you something of a "noir" look which is entirely suitable for jazz but not necessarily say, classical music. The lab results have been so spotty that I decided to do my own dev, and plumped for HC-110 as a starter dev but I have about 16 rolls of NP1600 lined up to soup that I haven't had time to get at (busy time of year for me). I got the HC-110 on the basis of some looking I did out on the internet, I think your DD-X will do just as good a job. Here's one of the links I found when I was doing my research, it shows NP1600 souped in both devs:

recommended HC110 dilution for Neopan 1600

 

[bmattock]

Very good shot, Gabriel.

When you guys were talking about rating TriX at a certain speed and getting thin or dense negs, the variable not mentioned is how you metered the scene. If how the scene is metered is different between photographers, then one can get thin negs with Trix rated at 1250, and another can get dense negs with Trix rated at 1600. So, it's not so much how you rate the film, it's also how you meter the scene, which in this case is very contrasty and can give widely variable readings.

Very good point, Frank. In my case, it was Times Square at night. I used a Gossen Digisix and measured reflected light from my subjects - not a spot meter on faces, etc. I would think that this would give me over-exposure, if anything - and so, dense negs. Your thoughts? I am getting my chemistry in order even as we speak. Time to make the donuts!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[FrankS]

Bill, yes I agree, one would think that using a general reflected light reading would lead to dense negs in a night time scene. It all depends though on the influence of any bright lights within the meter's view.

Also just want to mention for others reading this thread, that the film developer time and temp is not a variable here becasue of the nature of Diafine. It is a developer that works to exhaustion and is not infoluenced by normal developer variables other than agitation and very low temps! Use of Diafine caused me to mess up some paid portrait work. I ended up with many negs that were too thin to print properly. Could have been the cool temps in my >100 year old house in the winter, or to too much agitation in sol'n B.

 

[rover]

rover, I've used NP1600 a lot for music rehearsals and concerts, and so far all my dev has been done in a professional lab in XTOL. I've had mixed results from this combination, partly because I think that the development environment is standardized around more "normal" films like Tri-X & NP400.

NP1600 is a great film but it does give you something of a "noir" look which is entirely suitable for jazz but not necessarily say, classical music. The lab results have been so spotty that I decided to do my own dev, and plumped for HC-110 as a starter dev but I have about 16 rolls of NP1600 lined up to soup that I haven't had time to get at (busy time of year for me). I got the HC-110 on the basis of some looking I did out on the internet, I think your DD-X will do just as good a job. Here's one of the links I found when I was doing my research, it shows NP1600 souped in both devs:

recommended HC110 dilution for Neopan 1600

Peter I am glad you replied, thank you. I have admired a number of your photos from your music school project. What do speed are you shooting NP 1600 at?

 

[peter_n]

Sorry Ralph I only saw the thread this morning and then I felt particularly bad when you said you had no love. 🙁

Anyway I shoot NP1600 at 1250 but specify 1600 to the lab. Its an expensive film so I've been buying it in bulk rolls from Megaperls. However I think I want to try a different type of film so I bought faster lenses, an f2 90mm and f1.4 50mm & 35mm. Along with those I'm trying HP5+ because I've admired GeneW's HP5+/HC-110 pics on this forum. We'll see how that goes.

I think you'll do fine with the NP1600/DD-X really. I find I use the 90mm lens a lot followed by the 50. See if you can get to a place where you can move around. Band musicians move quite a bit while they are playing and you may have a band member in great light one minute and shadow the next. You need to be able to move too.