High ISO or Push?

[Thardy]

Hello members;

I want to use my film cameras for social events where the light will be somewhat dim. (all the talk of weddings have me itching to do this)

Please offer suggestions on high ISO BW film and developer combos which will yield good results (sharp with smooth grain).

Or should I use a medium speed film and push process? Please provide combos for that route.

It would help if you could point me in the direction of sample images.

Thanks

 

[hans voralberg]

How high is high to you ? I could recommend Tri-X or HP-5 pushed to 800 in DD-X, they push very easily. 1600 speed film that I tried like Neopan tend to be a bit grainier.

Here's one sample of HP5 @ 800, one of my first experiment, pretty sure you can get smoother result than this:

 

[Thardy]

I'm thinking ISO 1250 - 1600. I have recently pushed Tri-x to 800.

 

[Roger Hicks]

ISO speeds for negative film are based on shadow detail at a given contrast. There is a small safety margin, and some black-and-white developers give more true speed at a given contrast, but quite soon -- twice the nominal ISO at most -- you run out of shadow detail. This is 800 for HP5 and Tri-X (I find HP5 pushes better; others will tell you the exact opposite).

Anyone who tells you they are getting good shadow detail at higher pushes (and many will) is simply redefining 'good shadow detail' to suit themselves. That, and they have to live with high contrast.

Poor shadow detail and high contrast may not matter in many shots, so yes, you can push wherever you like. But the look of an extreme push is very different from the look of a higher ISO film. Personally, I'd go for the higher ISO every time, preferably Delta 3200 in DD-X, true ISO 1250 or so, good shadow detail to EI 2000-2500. For a slower film, HP5+ in DD-X, true ISO 650+, good shadow detail to 1000-1250. Some swear by Fuji 1600, true ISO in the right developer maybe 800, good shadow detail to 1250-1600, but I've never liked the tonality.

For more information on ISO speeds, take a look at

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps iso speeds.html

Tashi delek,

Roger

 

[Mephiloco]

Here are some Tri-X negs at 1600 I developed yesterday, shot on a canonet

These were shot with Tri-X pushed to 3200

yeah, I did push up the contrast and the blacks some.. Tri-X is my high iso film, despite not being a high iso film. It pushes VERY well.

 

[Thardy]

Here are some Tri-X negs at 1600 I developed yesterday, shot on a canonet

These were shot with Tri-X pushed to 3200

yeah, I did push up the contrast and the blacks some.. Tri-X is my high iso film, despite not being a high iso film. It pushes VERY well.

I like the look. How did you process?

 

[Al Kaplan]

Pushing film tends to block up the highlights. They become featureless white. Underexposing gives blacks with no detail. The average bride likes to see detail in the lace of the veil and gown, and you should be able to make out the satin lapels as well as the stripe on the groom's trousers against the surrounding fabric. Use a fast film, perhaps overexpose half a stop, and pull the development. Shoot a test roll or two to check out your metering acumen and developing technique. It's possible to get a negative that'll give you what you want with minimum burning and dodging.

 

[antiquark]

Couple of Tri-X shots, 400 pushed to 1600. I got them dev'ed by a photolab, so I don't know how exactly they pushed it.

 

[Al Kaplan]

It's not easy to make a judgement call from a scan on a computer screen but it looks to me like there is no detail at all in the darkest areas. They don't even look black.

You've got photos of a seated kid there. Why the need for speed? Shoot at a larger aperture or shoot at a slower shutter speed but I don't understand the need for a push. If you use a lab you're depending on their word that they pushed it two stops.

 

[grainy_shadows]

hp5 pushed to 1600, never had any trouble with this.

examples:

 

[antiquark]

You've got photos of a seated kid there. Why the need for speed? Shoot at a larger aperture or shoot at a slower shutter speed but I don't understand the need for a push.

They were a few experimental shots taken on a roll of night photographs.

there is no detail at all in the darkest areas. They don't even look black.

I adjusted the levels so the blacks are actually dark grey... I found that the black voids overpowered the image.

If you use a lab you're depending on their word that they pushed it two stops.

Well, the lab has a good reputation, (for what it's worth) 🙂

 

[Tom A]

I always felt that "pushing" film was a last resort. This was for the instances when all you had was 100/400 and the lights went down - or the lens was too slow. As a rule, you will get better result using a film designed for higher speed and processed accordingly for a "full tone" negative.
The quality of the high speed films today, NP 1600, T-Speed, Delta 3200 etc is comparable to what we got with 400 iso in the 60/s and 70's.
A lot of your success depends on your metering too. When you are shooting at the ragged edge of light - a/bracket like hell and b/shoot for the shadows.
Most of the "speed" emulsions seem to run out of steam at 1000-1250 iso and if you stick to that as a speed, but develop for a 2000 iso - you might even see details in the dark.
Your best bet is to get some rolls, shoot it and establish your "personal" speed according to processing/metering etc and stick to it.
There are (and has always been attempts to up the speed of film), including unhealthy ones like mercury saturation of the emulsion to various concoctions that promised increased sensitivity. Some work (and the mercury trick does give you about 1/2-1/3 stop more speed - if you live long enough to enjoy it), some are just 'shifting" emphasis to identifiable objects in the mid-range against solid black shadows. Waste some film on experiments and see what works for you.

 

[whickus]

tri-x pushed to 1600 in xtol 1:1. nothing beats it.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

Pushing Tri-X in Rodinal 1:100 stand development can equal or better Delta 3200 or TMax 3200, and TMax 3200 used to be my favorite B&W film...

Bessa R2 | Voigtländer Nokton 50mm f1.5 | Tri-X EI 6400 | Rodinal 1:100 Stand

Visit my Flickrstream for more photographs, check the tags for technical details.

Lots of information and details about Rodinal 1:100 stand development in this thread - Rodinal 1:100

 

[capitalK]

I have had good success pushing TRI-X and HP5... but I just did a print yesterday from a NeoPan 1600 neg and I really like it. I printed 11x14 and the grain looks good enough to eat.

 

[Thardy]

I have some Neopan 1600 and ordered some ISO 400 to play around with. I also have three different developers and think I may try a couple of rolls at high dilution.

Lynn thanks for pointing me to that thread about stand development and your Flickr (looks like I ventured there a few months ago). Thanks to everyone who posted photos. One thing for certain is that there are multiple ways to get a decent result. I wish I had some 12 exposure rolls to try, but of course I could always cut the film and process the pieces differently.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Tom makes a good point about films running out of steam much above ISO 1000. There seems to be a ceiling that silver halides won't penetrate. Kodak Royal-X Pan Recording, 2475 Recording, Ilford HPS, Agfa Isopan Record all had a base speed under 2000 and gave best results around 1000. Supposedly the same thing goes with Fuji 1600.

The various "recording" films are just that: designed to record an "image" rather than to produce a pleasant artistic portrayal of the subject's tonality. We can increase development to bring up the highlights, and to a lesser extent the mid-tones, but the shadows below a certain point, they just ain't there!

What has improved in the years since Royal-X Pan Recording first came out the the early sixties is grain. We used to refer to it as "golf ball grain" Now we have films that are as fine grained as Tri-X was back then.

Victor's Mercury Intensifier had a warning label about mercury being poisonous, but this was an era when during science class the fourth grade teacher would let the children roll a little ball of mercury around on the palm of their hands to demonstrate that a metal could exist in liquid form at room temperature. We were just told not to eat the stuff. You can get a similar speed boost by toning your negatives with selenium toner.

But back to film speed. If you want some semblance of shadow detail, avoid excess contrast, and unblocked highlights there are a number of developers and developing regimins that can get you a USEABLE negative, but not a great one, at perhaps ISO 3200. There were many times when an image that would be recognizeable in the newspaper was all the editor wanted. Nobody was looking for great art, and the 65 lines per inch halftone screen and letterpress printing on newsprint would pretty much obscure the film grain anyway.

So to sum it up, back about 1962 we finally got a film, Royal-X Pan recording, with a suggested speed of about ISO 1250, and now forty seven years later Fuji has trounced Kodak's record by 1/3 of a stop at ISO 1600. Maybe! We'll never really know because we can't compare them with one another directly, same meter, same lens, same lighting, same subject.

I just walked down my hallway and looked at two framed prints. One is from 1962, shot on Royal-X Pan Recording, the other was shot on 2475 in 1968, both developed in Acufine and exposed at 3200. There's no way to duplicate that look today, and that's the shame of "progress".

 

[capitalK]

This is the NeoPan 1600 shot I printed. The film was rated at 1000 and was souped in Rodinal. I'd have to check my notes for time and dilution. Although not the best developer for NeoPan 1600 to control grain I found it not overdone at all when enlarged to 11x14 (with a small crop, even).

This is a scan of the neg, but you get the idea.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

In my experience the Neopan emulsions are not good candidates for stand developing in Rodinal. The best emulsions are the more 'traditional' films like the Efke films, Tri-X and Plus-X. The high-silver content Efke emulsions are the best of the bunch that I have used so far.

 

[piazza63]

Tri-x or Arista 400 (which is what all of these are) at 1250-1600 developed in Diafine is almost as natural as at 400. I think NP1600 and Delta 3200 are "fun" films they are more grainy and less versitile than this stuff, but it might just be a personal preferance.