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Best film for B&W Hollywood glamor


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<p><em>Gone with the Wind</em> was shot in Technicolor.</p>

<p>D76 was a fine grain developer for motion picture films.</p>

<p>Some of the film used by photographers of that era was orthochromatic. To duplicate the ortho effect, try using a cyan filter.</p>

 

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<p>Hollywood Portraits is a must-have book, just as The Third Man is a must see film.<br>

Ilford Pan F is a high contrast film which needs care. Try exposing it at ISO 25 and developing accordingly.<br>

There are 3 main technical features which give these old portraits their look.<br>

1. Shallow depth of field which is a feature of the large format negative. You can get somewhere near this with a 35mm camera using a very wide aperture lens although perspective may not be the same.<br>

2. The lighting. Continuous lights with Fresnel lenses. Takes a lot of practice!<br>

3. No grain due to large format negative. Tricky with 35mm, but Pan F can go to 10x8 and still look pretty good.<br>

Take each step at a time and only move on when you are satisfied you have nailed each stage.<br>

Have you developed film before? Consistency is vital so make sure you take care with temperatures, developing times and agitation. When experimenting you need to be eliminate the variables on at a time.</p>

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Hi Rebecca,

 

Choice of film is possibly the least important consideration in recreating Hollywood glamour from the golden age. Lighting, subject, posing

and retouching are all more important than film. That being said, unless you are very adept at film handling, avoid Adox/ Efke like the

plague. These films are beautiful, but highly prone to defects and damage. Fuji Acros is an excellent film, as is Ilford Pan F Plus. You can

see examples of all these films, in studio and natural light, in my photo Stream:

 

Jay DeFehr

 

Good luck with your project.

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<p>I'll just reiterate that lighting will be more important than film selection. That said Ilford Pan F or Delta 100 in medium format would be my choices. But really you can do it with ANY ISO 25-400 black and white film. Here is one I did a few years ago using Tungsten studio lights. If you can get your hands on an Arriflex Fresnel by all means do so! Have fun and please post back here so we can see your results.<br>

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<p>Rebecca, if you are going to use film processes for this project and are looking for a glamour look, you might look into some of the print toning methods that used to be done. I believe there were some gold toning and silver toning processes besides the normal platinum or sepia. Also, I think lighting is absolutely important and you can have some fun experimenting with studio v. natural or mixtures of both. It sounds like a fun project honestly. It will not be difficult to shoot nudes that are not porno (just use the word) or even sexy even with a "beautiful" subject. I think it will be really great for you to explore how your photographic technique ends up depicting the kind of image you want to portray. If you don't mind color, here's a set I did with one of my best friends to submit to a calendar of female accordion players. The request for photos asked for us to make the players sexy but not graphic, with the calendars creator (a feminist) operating under the philosophy that damnit, woman accordion players are sexy! :) And her inspiration was sort of the 40's and 50's pin-up calendars. Anyways if you are interested take a look: http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=969897</p>
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<p>A less expensive alternative to ortho films is to use a green filter with panchromatic film. This darkens the reds, although it also lightens greens too. When I want true ortho I use Rollei Ortho 25, but if I need more speed I just use a green filter with Tri-X.</p>
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<p>I think any film will work, if the other parameters are right. Here's an example on Acros that looks a little old school--</p>

<p>Granted, this is not in the style of Hollywood Golden Age studio photography, which typically utilized many, many hot lights, and was shot on 8x10 film, wit classic portrait lenses like the Wollensak Verito-- I used MF film, one spiral fluorescent in a 12" reflector, and a 500 watt tungsten work light, and a Mamiya 150 SF-C lens. </p>

<div>00aVx0-474943584.jpg.21982cf9b2bd4e9c3d3958fcfa3d6f11.jpg</div>

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<p>It's still a great picture and has a dreamy quality to it with the book and glasses. Anyways once I figure how to scan the negatives with my all in one printer I'll give this shoot a go!<br /><br />I know you don't need any fancy scanners to scan film not unless you want like high quality uncompressed formats. For the moment I just want to see what I got a picture of, I can always go to a film shop later and have the images rescanned ^_^</p>
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<p>You can't scan a negative with that all in one to anymore than a lesser degree of nothing but you can use it to scan a print to a greater degree. No to scan a negative to any degree short of the mirror trick you will at least need an epson flatbed or the Canon equivalent that sells for under $100.00 referbed and lesser used.<br>

Jay is that a scan from a negative or from a print?</p>

 

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<p>Well, bummer looks like it'll be a while before I'll have any of my film work up. At the very least I have a slide viewer so I can kind of see what I'm getting. <br /><br />It would definately be cheaper to find something semi decent and once I have the photos digitized I can edit it and make prints as I hoped for. 100 bucks is a lot to shell out at once. But with local places charging .39 an exposure it pays for its self in eight rolls. Or a whole bulk load of film. I sure hope I can talk some of the local bridal shops into letting me advertise engagement photos for 50 bucks a setting, lol it'll make it easier to get a return on all I've invested for this. The woes of being a student!<br /><br />Still though, by the end of it, I'll only have invested half of what I sell my costumers in DSLR start up costs and that's just for a mid-grade camera. Not those fancy D700's or 5D Mark II or Mark III's.</p>
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  • 2 weeks later...

<p>In terms of the greatest theatrical photographer, think of George Hurrell. Once he left the beach community and went to LA and MGM studios, he shot only with a single spotlight on the faces, although he used other lights for the full frame. George shot excluseively in large format, mostly 8x10, until his late 70's, although he still used 4x5 but he did use assistants because he was a bit more frail. Mostly he shot b/w except for magazine use or occasional color requirements in movie publishing. When for use in fashion he used 35mm for the first time in his career, that would be in his 80's primarily. For the Hurrell type photos I would suggest large format Ilford Delta 400, it is very similar lookling as compared to the faster high speed early emulsions.</p>

<p>Regarding daylight nudes, especially in large format, my all time favorite was Andre de Dienes, although certainly, most of us also liked Edward Weston for these types of photos. My wife, Barbara Jones, was one of the best in b/w "nudes in the landscape" that I have ever seen before she retired and stopped shooting. Once again, in large format when shooting this type subject, I prefer Delta 400 because of the unusually good detail throughout the tonality even though it has a good deal of grain. However in either LF or MF Tri X or TMY should work well.<br>

Lynn</p>

 

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