Delta 3200 pushed for nightclub

M

Marc Jutras

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I got the results from my first test with Delta 3200 and it's promissing.

I shot at a local night club. I exposed for EI 6400 and had it processed by my local lab as if it were EI 12500 in X-Tol (following Ilford's documentation).

Bellow is a sample of one of the best shots on the roll. This one is actually close to perfection in terms of exposure (for my taste). Metering in a pitch black environnement is not easy at all. I used my Minolta Auto Meter IV. I think next time, I'll use the spot attachment instead of the sphere. I found tht most of my shots turned out a bit underexposed. My lab tech says he felt he should process for half a stop higher.

So, here's the shot (full frame) plus a crop at 100% to show the detail and grain. Let me know what you think of it.

Scanned by the lab with a Noritsu 2901 at 3090x2048px.
 
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Yep, that's Delta 3200 alright. Big old chunky grain at 6400.

I'm presently using Tri-X @ 1600 developed in XTOL and don't mind the look. In my opinion Ilford 3200 works better in medium format

Since there wasn't any blurring in the photo, I take that you were able to shoot at 1/60th of second.
 
Solinar said:
Since there wasn't any blurring in the photo, I take that you were able to shoot at 1/60th of second.
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure about this (after all, we don't have EXIF...) but I think it was shot at f/4 @ 1/15. People were pretty static as they were chatting.
 
Well the exposure looks pretty close to spot on then. Where the barkeep is smoking a cigarette, it looks to be about EV 5 or 6 tops. The background was probably dimmer than the sidewalk outside. That's a tough room shoot in no matter how you cut.
 
Very interesting post Marc. I now open in the Film section a new post about some question of the rapid films. Thanks!
 
Re your metering thought, I'm not sure the spot attachment is the way to go.

If you were shooting at 1/15 @ f/4 at EI 6400, that's the equivalent of EV 2 at EI 100. I don't remember the specs of the Auto Meter IV, but I'd guess you're pretty close to the bottom of its sensitivity range, and adding the spot attachment is going to give you less sensitivity rather than more.

In any case, you can't expect much more shadow detail than you're getting at such an extreme push, so I don't think there was all that much wrong with your meter readings. The main thing you've got to avoid is overexposing the highlights to the point that they block up (which is easy to do with such extended development) and an incident reading with the sphere is a good way to do that.

What's more important than metering technique in super-low light is learning to compose your shots so that the shadows don't have to carry any important detail. You're already doing a pretty good job of that, so I'd say stick with the metering technique you used and just concentrate on how you use the highlights. Often it makes all the difference in the world if you can catch the moment when someone looks up, turns his/her head, etc., to catch a little sliver of light.
 
Doug: I have one of those brass soft releases and it helps a lot at lower speeds.

jlw: Thanks for the heads up on the meter. I hadn't thought about that. I'm going back tonight to shoot another roll. I'll try to meter more accurately. The shot I displayed here is really good comapred to many of the others on that roll. If I meter the same way I did, I'll have to open one or two stops over what the meter says. Hey! Now that I'm writing this, I realize I was most probably metering in the highlights, so a 2 stops compensation makes sense. More bracketing tonight...
 
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