Local Climate and Film Choice

[Uncle Bill]

Echoing Jan's and Moonwire's observations, Toronto/Southern Ontario is pretty much 400 ISO territory from November to April. I generally play with HP5 and go with FP4, Foma 200 or Adox/Efke 100 if I want to slow things down.

T-grain films are more of hit and miss with me, though I am willing to give the "new and improved" Tmax 400 a go when it surfaces in these parts.

 

[charjohncarter]

Will, thanks, It's not just latitude for me, I can get all the shadows and unblown highlights. My problem is flat negatives with my development and the film type that I use for full sun. So that is why I now use Plus-X for all the flat lighting subjects. If I don't have my two cameras that are loaded with one of each (film) I just don't shoot a scene, I know will not work out. Frankly, it is too depressing to see those lousy negatives and even more depressing to try to revive them into something decent. Sorry, I've got to go, I have a Psychiatrist appointment.

 

[Roger Hicks]

An even more interesting point is standard contrast. ISO standard is a G-bar of around 0.615, which is pretty good around Rochester NY. According to a friend who was on the ISO standards committee the Japanese members apparently lobbied at one time for dropping it to 0.56 or so (Japan is further south) while in the UK I used to find 0.65-0.7 better: at one time, I lived maybe 40 miles from the original Rochester (just south of London). And I'm hoping to see my father in Scotland at Christmas...

Do the conversions from average subject brightness ranges (http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps subject brightness range.html) and you'll see why contrast needs to vary. But it's a function of dev time at least as much as film.

Cheers,

R.

 

[charjohncarter]

Actually Roger, your excellent essay on subject brightness range was one of the reasons I posted this thread. I'm not as informed as you or your wife (she is a great writer) so you or she probably could have started the thread better than I did.

Your statement about contrast being a function of dev time is correct, but when you try to use one film AND development time for all subjects (35mm or 120) you lose. And as I have said in my case I like Tmax100 for bright contrasty subjects and Plus-X for flat or indoor subjects.

 

[charjohncarter]

By the way, Roger and Frances website is rich with film development and photo philosophy.

 

[Roger Hicks]

By the way, Roger and Frances website is rich with film development and photo philosophy.

Thanks for the kind words and the plug.

Your point is well taken about choosing different films for different applications, but when I was living in the UK I found I had to develop films shot at home for about 10% longer than films shot in (say) Greece or Malta. At a constant time I needed a lot more grade <2 for the Greek shots and a lot more grade >3 even though on average it worked.

Now, living in the Loire valley, I've split the difference between the two, so maybe I could have used the one time anyway...

Cheers,

R.

 

[manfromh]

What film I use depends more on what results I want, than on lightning conditions. If I want shallow DOF in an overcast winter day, ISO 50 or 100 is my choice. But If I want lots of DOF then ISO 400 might not always be enough. In a sunny summer day, almost any film goes, as long as its not too contrasty.

 

[charjohncarter]

manfromh, I like that, it all goes along with the choice of what you use for different lighting situation and different climatic areas.