Advice for available light portrait using HIE

I've used Kodak HIE with some success in the past for landscapes and

even though I had to fight with high contrast, high grain and tricky

exposure and focusing, I now want to give it a try for environmental

portraiture, perhaps even some nude work.

 

I know all the basics of IR work, but my feeling is that portraiture

will require some fine tuning. I recently read in Ansel Adam's "The

Negative" that you'll get a tamer contrast (and perhaps even finer

grain)when under developping by 33 or even 50%. Can anyone confirm

this? I use Rodinal and HC-110 as developers.

 

What about filtration? I have acess to Wratten #25, #29 and #87

filters (and many "lesser" yellow and orange filters). I'd like my

models to have some creamy, glowing aspect to them, but I don't want

then to turn pure white or to have their veins showing up. Yet, I want

a visible IR effect on their physical environment. Which filter will

give me the best balance?

 

Other hints will also be appreciated.

 

I know that using IR for portraiture is kind of risky, but I've seen a

few very good pictures in the past. And anyway, great, unusual results

require some pain and dedication, right?

high grain and high contrast are the defining characteristics of HIE, and you will be

hard pressed to get away from that.

Sure, but there is a difference between high contrast and totally blown. Grain can also be minimized to some extent, with the right chemistry and some care. I realize that I'm walking on a tight rope here, but I'm just asking for some help in keeping my balance.

I'm no expert with IR film, but dollars to donuts, you'll get increasingly lesser IR effect going from the visually opaque IR passing filters down through dark red, red, orange, and yellow. As for grain, everything I've seen in IR has been grainy. I don't think you're going to be able to completely escape that, but you are expecting that. If it were me trying this, I'd have a go at it with XTOL or perhaps even full strength Microdol-X. Do allow for speed loss of about 1 stop if you try Microdol-X.

I can live with grain, even though I'd like to minimize at as much as possible. My major concern is getting pale/creamy, but not blown skin tones. That's the real tricky part!

Try using a #25 or #29 red filter. Use tungsten as your light source. Developing HIE in Microdol-X undiluted for 17 minutes produces low grain and fairly tame contrast. Set your meter to ISO 320-250 and just meter though the filter.

You will find answers to your questions in the book "Infrared Portrait Photography" by Richard Beitzel published by Amherst Media, Inc. It is about HIE which is a wonderful film for portraits. For developing, I prefer XTOL. It gives some of the finest grain for that film and actually lets you control the contrast. The technical report for HIE, found on the Kodak website, gives development times for different Contrast Indexes. So you can shoot two rolls the same, but develop them for different contrast. I personally feel that Rodinal is a disaster with HIE, but it does have a certain look that some might like. Good luck.

Drop the filters for portraits and nudes. Expose at 200 EI and use as a bog-standard film (i.e. no focus adjustment either). The extended red sensitivity will give you the creamy skin texture, and the fact that the IR portion will be slightly out of focus works as a wonderful soft-filter, while you keep all the nice things of a B&W emulsion for the visible portion of the spectrum.<p>

Sorry, but I can't offer wisdom on dev't times - but I can assure you it's worth shooting as a regular B&W film.

Tom: Thanks for the Kodak link, I didn't know their offered time for different densities. I got some extremely grainy pics with Rodinal in the past, but density was also very high, so I attributed this to over development. I'll probably give a try to HC-110 and shorter times.

 

Nikos: Your advice is totally counter intuitive, yet it makes a lot of sense. It seems that all these fancy filters are useless after all! Unless I also shoot a few nice landscapes as well, of course... I'll probably follow your advice.

It's worth a try in any case. The only thing that goes really (IR) weird is the color of the iris: they will go unnaturally light.

<P>Here is<A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photo/2293774"><U>

some</A></U> Ive done.</P>

By the way, I think you're absolutely right about reducing development time. Pulling the

film one stop would help control contrast and grain: if it's good for tri-x it's gotta be good

for HIE. I think this sounds like an interesting project. Personally, I favor the R72 filter as

it gives a marked IR effect, yet maintains a film speed of 50. The red #25 also gives a nice

IR effect and oddly also produces a film speed of ISO 50. I'd like to see your results.