Topic: pushing film......the why's and hows?

[This-is-damion]

Hi,

ive just come back from the focus on imaging show which was in brum in the UK.  just watched a very god session with Les Maclean on toning, very interesting but having only set foot in leons darkroom before, he kind of lost me in places -to be expected.

Anyway i digress, on the ilford stand were some photos using ilford produts, i was very taken with a series taken on ilford 3200@ 6400.  they were lovely, really grainy, gritty things with bags of charm and atmosphere. 

my question is (and i know i should know)  how do i go about doing this, (my bessa has exp comp, do i move to the + or the - one stop?) why would i?  and how do you compensate in the dev stage?

possibly all very basic questions.....but im a very basic person.

in fact i know i have tried this before, grasped it fully and everything,  but that was a year or two ago. and a lot has happened since then.

[FrankB]

just watched a very god session with Les Maclean on toning

Whilst I know that's a typo, having seen some of Les's stuff it's just too much of a Freudian slip for me to let it go by! 

Okay, from what I understand (which ain't usually much!), to push Delta 3200 to 6400 you would expose it for half the time you normally would or for the same time using a stop smaller aperture. Either one would result in half the amount of light hitting the film. Whilst you could do this via the exposure compensation feature (it'd be the -1 stop setting), it might be better to just override the DX coding of the film can and tell the camera you're using a roll of 6400 film. That way you can still dial in some compensation on a shot-by-shot basis if you suspect your meter is lying to you from time to time.

At the dev stage, Ilford have some excellent fact sheets available from http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/producttype.asp?n=3&t=Consumer+%26+Professional+Films. These give you the development times for their films in a range of their devs at various different rated speeds and are normally very accurate (in my limited experience).

BUT I (and a few other people) find that Delta 3200 is the exception to the rule. For that film I would recommend normally processing it as if exposed for the next speed up (i.e. shoot at 3200, process as if for 6400 and therefore shoot at 6400 process as if for <gulp> 12500!) otherwise the negs (for me) turn out very thin indeed.

Nothing's straightforward is it? (Not when I explain it anyway!  )

[LT]

excellent advice from Frank ... only thing I can add is that as the r3a only goes up to 3200, I'd set it at that and -1 stop on the compensation setting.  And maybe try it in some microphen?  let us know how it goes.

[outofcontxt]

As a fan of Delta 3200, I really appreciate the tip. Thanks, Frank.

[Skorj]

my question is (and i know i should know)  how do i go about doing this, (my bessa has exp comp, do i move to the + or the - one stop?) why would i?  and how do you compensate in the dev stage?

I use T-Max 3200, and Bessa exp comp -0.5 or -1.0 and do nothing in the development stage. Results of this can be seen in some of my recent Grabs. Results in black blacks, dark grays, and little whites. But, I am a kinda dark guy.

Sometimes in scanning, I pop the whites a little by resetting my white point to the lightest of grays.

If you're into wet-work, you could of course over develop to get a similar, but prob more grainy effect? I think that's the way it works anyway...

[sparx]

I've tried Delta 3200 at 3200 and also HP5 at 6400 and prefered the HP5. The grain was beautifully smooth and not as intrusive as the Delta.

I hadn't heard about the problems with thin negs and I haven't noticed any problems when processing in ID-11.

[david b]

Delta 3200 does seem to keep its mid-tones when pushed, but the grain can be a bit much for some images I find. If you want to try something fast with much less grain, but higher contrast, Neopan 1600 is worth a go - I just wish they made it in 120...

[sparx]

Oh God Neopan! I forgot about that, I don't know how. I love this film, shoot it at 3200 all the time. Here are a couple of shots i've taken with it. Both developed in ID-11

http://www.darkplanet.co.uk/galleries/people/people24.htm
http://www.darkplanet.co.uk/galleries/people/people21.htm

[FrankB]

I've tried Delta 3200 at 3200 and also HP5 at 6400 and prefered the HP5. The grain was beautifully smooth and not as intrusive as the Delta.

I hadn't heard about the problems with thin negs and I haven't noticed any problems when processing in ID-11.

I should have posted that all my experience wih Delta 3200 is based on DD-X dev. Also (obviously) "thin" to me may not be "thin" to someone else.

Apologies for any confusion! 

[Tammy]

I push my film around all the time. 

I've had good luck with Delta 3200 and DDX.  If you do medium format, the grain is hardly there.  But, I also second the thought of developing it one stop higher than you shot it.   Grain becomes much more apparent with the smaller 35mm.

The reason a lot of folks will push is to have a shutter speed high enough to handhold, obviously, or add contrast to a flat light scene.  Usually pushing gives more grain, more contrast because you are underexposing the film (giving less exposure and consequently more blacks) and then developing appropriate time to develop in the highlights.  The longer you develop, the more grain usually shows up, and sometimes, the midtones start to go.   So, artistically, if that's the look you are going for, then pushing the film is a great thing.  Sometimes I've pushed film (400 speed to 1600)  in broad daylight, by sticking ND filters or red filters on the lenses, opening up and shooting faster shutter speeds.   Especially if your camera maxes out at 1/1000 or less.

I rarely use the 3200 speed films, and prefer to push TriX or HP5. 

[Dave_M]

I've had a similar experience today. Its been snowing like the apocalypse here in Aberdeen and all the trains are cancelled (yipeeee - no work!). So I was playing with my daughter in the snow and using my yashica 124g. It was hp5 and the meter was set to 400 speed.

Now I reckon that the meter is fooled easily in normal use (is is above the lens and is a CdS type) and it will have underexposed even more due to the snow. Therefore I think I'm going to develop the film as if it were 800 ISO which should correct the exposure settings. (I've been sending my films away for processing but will do this one myself).

Please correct me if I'm wrong (I've not done this kind of thing before)!

[This-is-damion]

This is where i get confused, if that was me i would think id dev at 200 to compensate for the extra brightness of the snow.

A while back , whilst in the shower  i had a moment of clairty -and understood this whole thing, I think i was so happy I wrote to Ed wenn and posibly leon, Susan and mark also.

soon after i forgot again

[sparx]

The extra brightness of the snow would fool the meter into under-exposing (something to do with too much white averaging out at 18% grey) which is effectively what you do when you push a film. If you think about it, artificially raising the film speed means it is exposed to light for less time. Lowering a film speed will mean a film gets exposed for more time.

Therefore, underexposed film = pushed
overexposed film = pulled





I think 

[david b]

I think the general rule with snow is to overexpose by two stops, but I assume that depends a bit on how bright the ambient light was at the time. Best solution is to use an incident light meter rather than an in-camera one which will be easily fooled when dealing with snow, beaches, etc...