I want to break free !

Juan Valdenebro

Juan Valdenebro

Truth is beauty
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For months I couldn't forget some forum members' words about making things simple... People I really admire as photographers and human beings... I just decided I'll give it a try... After many years of shooting with two cameras for direct sun and soft light, I want to see how good my rolls can be if I mix scenes in a roll... I used to do it before I learned to develop and print, but I have never in my life -after handling materials with precision- tried to do it as well as possible...

So I feel I'm a total newbie here... I'd appreciate some members' help: to be able to learn about this, for some months I'll use Tri-X & Rodinal and the Olympus XA for a totally new to me way of shooting... What I find difficult is knowing about two fields: one is which ISOs should I use for harsh and soft light, and the other one is, considering those two ISOs I'll be using in every roll, which development time would be a good starting point for good enough frames of both kinds of light...

I'm feeling great about this and it will be a freedom experiment: I'll keep my camera at f/8 and 8 feet, and all I'll do is change ISO depending on the kind of light... I imagine -when I think of too harsh direct sun frames & too weak shades/overcast frames because of an unique development time for both- it might be necessary to give more exposure (how lower ISO?) to the soft light scenes to make them reach whites, but I don't know if I'm totally wrong at trying to see the whole system this way... Sometimes it seems to me too strange, because what I do with two cameras is just the opposite: more exposure to direct sun scenes with short development, and a lot less exposure to soft light scenes to expand contrast with a lot longer development...

So I'd really thank all of you generous RFF members your kind advice or general comments about this way of shooting...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Keeping it simple

Keeping it simple

Juan Valdenebro said:
For months I couldn't forget some forum members' words about making things simple... People I really admire as photographers and human beings... I just decided I'll give it a try... After many years of shooting with two cameras for direct sun and soft light, I want to see how good my rolls can be if I mix scenes in a roll... I used to do it before I learned to develop and print, but I have never in my life -after handling materials with precision- tried to do it as well as possible...

So I feel I'm a total newbie here... I'd appreciate some members' help: to be able to learn about this, for some months I'll use Tri-X & Rodinal and the Olympus XA for a totally new to me way of shooting... What I find difficult is knowing about two fields: one is which ISOs should I use for harsh and soft light, and the other one is, considering those two ISOs I'll be using in every roll, which development time would be a good starting point for good enough frames of both kinds of light...

I'm feeling great about this and it will be a freedom experiment: I'll keep my camera at f/8 and 8 feet, and all I'll do is change ISO depending on the kind of light... I imagine -when I think of too harsh direct sun frames & too weak shades/overcast frames because of an unique development time for both- it might be necessary to give more exposure (how lower ISO?) to the soft light scenes to make them reach whites, but I don't know if I'm totally wrong at trying to see the whole system this way... Sometimes it seems to me too strange, because what I do with two cameras is just the opposite: more exposure to direct sun scenes with short development, and a lot less exposure to soft light scenes to expand contrast with a lot longer development...

So I'd really thank all of you generous RFF members your kind advice or general comments about this way of shooting...

Cheers,

Juan
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Juan, Just a thought, considering your skill level and artistic aptitude, and years of experience, maybe you are ALREADY are doing things the simplest way. An artist does need to follow their inner compass, but from the results I have seen of your work the direction has been spot-on.
 
Matching film choice and film development to the lighting condition is technically the best route to take, but if you find this too involved and wish to simplify, then go for it. It will take some experience and experimentation with the choices of tools, materials, and processes to find what best works for you. Good luck, Juan!
 
I'm not much of a technical person, but isn't the Oly XA an aperture-preferred camera? I have one (have had it for years). you can focus (assuming you can see the rf patch), you can adjust the ISO, and you can also adjust the aperture. That's it. Theoretically, then, and assuming you're not trying to take pictures in the dark, your photos should be properly exposed. I have never tried changing the ISO in mid-roll for an image or two. Actually never thought of doing that with a film camera, although I do it quite often with my Pentax DSLR. On my XA the 3 meter setting is highlighted in orange, as the 5.6 f-stop setting. I use these settings for street shooting and open or close the aperture depending on the amount of light.

I'm sure you know all this, Juan, and I, for one, will be most interested in the results of your experiments with ISO changes in mid-roll.

Ted
 
Juan, this is a good time to simplify: the twins. But to your point, and I'm sure we have discussed this before so if we have go to the next poster.

I develop for sunny or cloudy bright to come out good with EI250. Then, using the same roll and the same development, I use EI400 for open shade and overcast. For night and very heavy overcast I go to EI500. It isn't the Zone System. But there is plenty of room for paper grade changes.
 
charjohncarter said:
Juan, this is a good time to simplify: the twins. But to your point, and I'm sure we have discussed this before so if we have go to the next poster.

I develop for sunny or cloudy bright to come out good with EI250. Then, using the same roll and the same development, I use EI400 for open shade and overcast. For night and very heavy overcast I go to EI500. It isn't the Zone System. But there is plenty of room for paper grade changes.
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Could you elaborate on this please? I'm having difficulty with some of the situations: under expose for sunny conditions (a high contrast situation) and under expose for heavy overcast (a low contrast situation). Or did you mean EI 150, not 1500 for heavy overcast?
 
charjohncarter said:
Juan, this is a good time to simplify: the twins. But to your point, and I'm sure we have discussed this before so if we have go to the next poster.

I develop for sunny or cloudy bright to come out good with EI250. Then, using the same roll and the same development, I use EI400 for open shade and overcast. For night and very heavy overcast I go to EI500. It isn't the Zone System. But there is plenty of room for paper grade changes.
Click to expand...

is that not just the same as underexposing?
But should it not be the other way so as not to blow the highlights?
 
Sorry, it is EI 250 for sunny etc. Then EI 400 for open shade to give more contrast. Then 500 for twilight and heavy for even more contrast. Just found that my flatter scenes at 250 needed more contrast. This is with TriX.

So you are developing for normal contrast when using 250 and sacrificing shadows on the others. But as theY are flatter scenes it really just comes out as more contrast.
 
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I think he meant 500 not 1500 Frank. Gives a slightly lower mid value than 400, which can work well for darker situations. I often adopt a similar approach during the evening or indoors - it also serves to create some headroom for lights etc, that otherwise can end up grossly overexposed.

Mike
 
charjohncarter said:
I develop for sunny or cloudy bright to come out good with EI250. Then, using the same roll and the same development, I use EI400 for open shade and overcast. For night and very heavy overcast I go to EI500. It isn't the Zone System. But there is plenty of room for paper grade changes.
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This sounds quite nice to me 🙂

I have not printed wet in forever long, do you work with these images digitally? How do you find the process compared to a scans of a roll shot at box-speed (or some other preferred constant speed) no mater what the conditions?
 
Lord Nikon said:
This sounds quite nice to me 🙂

I have not printed wet in forever long, do you work with these images digitally? How do you find the process compared to a scans of a roll shot at box-speed (or some other preferred constant speed) no mater what the conditions?
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Mostly, I develop the negatives and scan them. But I do have access to a friends wet darkroom. The 250 shots print at 2 sometimes 3 grade. Sometimes, I have to go 3-4 with the others.

I really don't have to do much adjustment with the digital scan at any EI. But as you know it is easy to add or subtract contrast with editing.
 
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Hey, thanks everyone!

Red Robin, I appreciate your very kind words... I don't really deserve that much... I think I can learn a lot from this, and I hope I'll have some fun too! 🙂

Frank, you're absolutely right: it's the nature of our materials, involving so many contrast changes from one step to the next one, what gives a lot of room for experimentation before really knowing what's good, or which is the best option... Apart from paper, film's latitude and scanning offer a wide horizon, and it's hard to be sure about absolutes on negatives only...

Joe, that's so true! That's what I like the most with digital: I can do everything with one body... Finally, that means LOTS of good things both for slow/tripod and fast street shooting... I think sooner or later a digital camera will be part of my street shooting: I hope a nice manual focus camera with lower price appears suddenly... I'd prefer to use my lenses with their native focal length, and now there's a wonderful camera for that, but my wallet is not that wonderful...

Ted, all you said is spot-on... I wonder if, being a sunny scene a much higher contrast one than a flat light scene, it might be helpful to expose flat ones “higher” on film's tonal range, to make their highlights real highlights instead of just grays... In other words, to make those flat scenes negative frames reach dark tones closer to the dark tones on sunny scenes' negative frames... It all might involve the ways of metering too...

Moriturii, without joking I really considered the option of doing stand... I'm not sure it can be done... Sun&stand for 400ISO sounds hard to achieve... Maybe with slow film?

Fraser, that's close too what I think: if after exposing sun at 250 we expose overcast at 400, the flat scenes will be flatter than the sunny ones obviously, but also underexposed...

Mike, maybe this has a lot to do with the natures of light and how meters react to them: perhaps direct sun -after meter's reading- don't produce as high highlights as I imagine compared to highlights produced after flat light meter's reading... I really wonder how close they are... I guess I'll have to shoot a first roll (not a great discovery!) to see that “on negatives”, maybe with a bit of bracketing to see things well...

Lord Nikon, that's an important observation... With scanning, things seem to work because of autocontrast, but that's not totally true when instead of pure, clean tones, we are are varying tones of gray made from grain that includes at least two tones from grain and space... Results from wet printing would be interesting... Or at least “negatives” checking...

John, thanks for the info! Your tonal results are outstanding always, as your experience with development... If that way (underexposing flat light) works, why do it differently? I understand it's easier to shoot at higher ISO with lower light, but have you ever tried overexposing flat scenes? I wonder if we'd just start to lose dark tones too easily, and simply should not be done... I'm starting to feel all I really need to do is put on my well worn geek costume and do a test roll... 🙂

Cheers,

Juan
 
Here's what I'll do:

First, I'll pick a middle development time from my times for sunny, normal and pushed Tri-X.

I'll wait for a sunny day (it rains today...) and shoot a single sunny scene including pure whites, at 800, 400, 200 and 100 ISO's... After that I'll shoot a shades or overcast scene, including pure whites too, also at 800, 400, 200 and 100 ISO's...

Then I'll develop at the chosen middle time, and check on negatives how both kinds of scenes behave: to see at which ISO which kind of scene has its whites coming close to dark grays on negatives...

I guess that will provide a first sight...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Juan, per above, when I have over exposed flat scene mostly by messing up, they are really flat and dark negatives. I prefer to get my contrast on the negative, but I'm nowhere jumping the EI like you are going to do. I go 250-400-500, I'm not even sure if is on complete stop. It is more like N+1 in the Zone System when I go 400 and 500.

Even though you theoretically lose shadow detail with this method you really don't see it. With flat lighting the stop range is so small you still get all that detail with a little more contrast. This is not to be a replacement for the ZS just a way to give flat lighting a bit more zip.
 
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jsrockit said:
I agree... its why I use one. However, most people here think digital is a bad word.
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Some people need a vilified focal point to validate their quest. 😱 But that's not the point of this thread.


To go back to Juan's musings: I think that oversimplification can lead to complications. Having a fixed aperture and focusing point, and one ISO roll of film which would be "adapted" somehow for each scene...will lead to many heartbreaks. This is why they made the "P" mode, so you could just literally click away without having to think about setting the shutter speed or aperture or about what ISO you selected (either by film choice or sensor sensitivity).

Effort is going to be have to be put somewhere along the chain, and "easy" on credit could be very expensive when the bill's due.

I think that if you really want to pursue this route, you should invest in a good set of ND filters. Get a reasonably ("reasonably" being "reasonable to you") high ISO film which you think at your shutter/aperture combination could be made to work with the available light + filter(s)

Of course, dependence on filters may be your price for this "freedom" 😉
 
I understand the need not to grab two Nikon F5 for two types of lightings, but an XA?
If you want to shoot an XA, why not shoot two of them and be done?

TBS, I shoot all situations with TX, and develop with Emofin which is supposed to retain too high contrasts.
 
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