Jump to content

Name that film?


Recommended Posts

I'm curious if the 'look' of film is distinct enough to identify from one pic. This was shot this past weekend on 35mm (Canon EOS 630 if it matters). Scanned at 4000DPI, adjusted tone curve and sharpening on in Exposure X5 and scaled down to 1000px long edge. No other adjustments (noise/grain reduction, etc.) Anyone care to try and name the film?

 

raw0002-Exposure.thumb.jpg.8a80453ab0b95a07c4354b06b1cff79c.jpg

 

As always with graffiti, while the photo is mine the art is not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On my screen, that looks like roughly a 4x enlargement from a 24x36mm frame, or about the size of a 4x6 print.

 

I can see some grain, but it's not as prominent as I would expect for Tri-X/HP-5 or as "tight" as I'd expect from a T-grain.

 

Both the grain and the overall tone curve have the "feel" of FP4+ to me, although admittedly I've shot so little of it in 35mm that I have no idea how it actually enlarges to that size.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm curious if the 'look' of film is distinct enough to identify from one pic.

No!

What we're actually seeing is a digital 2nd generation copy, and even if it was a paper print in front of us there's no way to tell what film it was shot on.

 

Anyone that thinks different films have a distinctly different look is just fooling themselves.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The whites are white and the blacks are black .... that's the only thing I can tell by looking at it. Who could know what film it is ? with all the various ways of development and scanning. I've managed fine grain results like that with Shanghai film, but I doubt it's that film though.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have had scans high enough resolution to see grain on old Tri-X.

 

T-grain is hexagonal, compared to cubic for traditional grain.

In the same way that the hexgonal structure of ice crystals give snowflakes

their hexagonal structure, I suspect that the difference shows up in silver grains.

 

I might also believe that, with somewhat close to average exposure, one could

differentiate slow, medium, and fast films.

 

Past that, you would need a large number of carefully generated samples.

-- glen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the spirit of continuing the pointless fun, one last clue: developed in HC110 dilution B for 7.5 minutes at 20c.

Haha. Yeh, chuck in a few more variables. It’s always baffled me when someone posts ‘I love film x developed in developer y’. I’ve used a few developers over the years, and a few different films, mostly Delta 100, 400, FP4 and HP5, but others too. They all look much the same to me in the final print (grain excepted). Posted up here where they’ve been tinkered with electronically, they could be anything. Developed in a lab, where you can really control things, maybe you could get close to the kind of consistency between rolls where each film always looks the same, but (and I consider myself a pretty careful user) at home using 300ml of juIce, you just can’t get every variable the same each time. Developer concentration, temperature control, agitation, duration, all change slightly between rolls, giving slightly (or more) different development between rolls. Comparing between different users and the variations are much greater. User 1 starts timing after the juice is all in the tank, user 2 before pouring it in. User 1’s thermometer reads 19.5 at 20 degrees, user 2s, 20.5. User 1 agitates for 30s, then 5s every minute, user 2, 10s per minute. User 1 holds the tank in his hands during development, heating the developer as he does so, user 2 sits it on a cold bench, cooling it down, etc. etc. I expect the water chemistry at your home also results in some variation.

 

Well done for asking the question, I’ve always wanted to!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha. Yeh, chuck in a few more variables. It’s always baffled me when someone posts ‘I love film x developed in developer y’. I’ve used a few developers over the years, and a few different films, mostly Delta 100, 400, FP4 and HP5, but others too. They all look much the same to me in the final print (grain excepted). Posted up here where they’ve been tinkered with electronically, they could be anything. Developed in a lab, where you can really control things, maybe you could get close to the kind of consistency between rolls where each film always looks the same, but (and I consider myself a pretty careful user) at home using 300ml of juIce, you just can’t get every variable the same each time. Developer concentration, temperature control, agitation, duration, all change slightly between rolls, giving slightly (or more) different development between rolls. Comparing between different users and the variations are much greater. User 1 starts timing after the juice is all in the tank, user 2 before pouring it in. User 1’s thermometer reads 19.5 at 20 degrees, user 2s, 20.5. User 1 agitates for 30s, then 5s every minute, user 2, 10s per minute. User 1 holds the tank in his hands during development, heating the developer as he does so, user 2 sits it on a cold bench, cooling it down, etc. etc. I expect the water chemistry at your home also results in some variation.

 

Well done for asking the question, I’ve always wanted to!

 

As above, I suspect hexagonal vs. cubic grain should be able to make a noticeable difference in the look of developed grains.

 

For paper, there are cold and warm tone, which is difference based on differences in the developed grain.

 

I suspect that temperature and time differences make a fairly small difference in the structure of grains,

but developer chemistry might make more difference. Some developers are said to change the warm/cold

tone of papers some, though not as much as the paper itself.

 

Toners change the chemistry of developed changes, which should also be visible, even in monochrome images.

-- glen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As above, I suspect hexagonal vs. cubic grain should be able to make a noticeable difference in the look of developed grains.

 

For paper, there are cold and warm tone, which is difference based on differences in the developed grain.

 

I suspect that temperature and time differences make a fairly small difference in the structure of grains,

but developer chemistry might make more difference. Some developers are said to change the warm/cold

tone of papers some, though not as much as the paper itself.

 

Toners change the chemistry of developed changes, which should also be visible, even in monochrome images.

 

I'm sure this is correct. However, the original question was 'I'm curious if the 'look' of film is distinct enough to identify from one pic'. I take this to mean the final print. Sure, if we look at the grain under a microscope we might get some clues, but looking at a print? Not in my experience. I can make a lovely print from FP4, and I can also make a bloody awful one. They look completely different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure this is correct. However, the original question was 'I'm curious if the 'look' of film is distinct enough to identify from one pic'. I take this to mean the final print. Sure, if we look at the grain under a microscope we might get some clues, but looking at a print? Not in my experience. I can make a lovely print from FP4, and I can also make a bloody awful one. They look completely different.

 

I think you are right.

 

I was thinking that it was from the 4000dpi scan, which might be enough to get some information from grain structure.

 

Each reduction step after that makes it harder.

 

We have to, at least, download the image as PN gives us, instead of the screen resolution that

our browser gives us. Though that might be less than what was uploaded.

 

Even so, I wouldn't be surprised if we had maybe 10 scans of similar shots

of each film, developed in the same developer, that it might be possible.

If we do it from prints, they should be pretty big, or cropped so that we get a

view of some effects of grain.

  • Like 1

-- glen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glen, I'm sure that with the aid of a scanning electron microscope, it might be possible to distinguish different films, or at least categories of film. Whether you could tell, say, APX 25 apart from PanF or Panatomic-X with an SEM is a different matter.

 

I think what the OP was asking was much broader - is there such a distinct 'look' (whatever that means) between different films, that one can tell at a glance, and in a small digital reproduction, which particular film was used.

 

To which my resounding reply would be... No! No way! Never!

 

Even with the aid of the H&D curve of a film and knowledge of the developer used in front of you, there's almost no way to tell films apart. The Lux-seconds required for minimum printable density gives you the film's speed, but beyond that, it's just density versus exposure, which is pretty much a straight line in log-log space. At least for most films in most developers, and for the pictorially important part of the 'curve'.

 

So, from any sensible viewing distance from a sizeable silver-gelatine print, I'll stick by my original answer.

Edited by rodeo_joe|1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you are right.

 

I was thinking that it was from the 4000dpi scan, which might be enough to get some information from grain structure.

 

Each reduction step after that makes it harder.

 

We have to, at least, download the image as PN gives us, instead of the screen resolution that

our browser gives us. Though that might be less than what was uploaded.

 

Even so, I wouldn't be surprised if we had maybe 10 scans of similar shots

of each film, developed in the same developer, that it might be possible.

If we do it from prints, they should be pretty big, or cropped so that we get a

view of some effects of grain.

 

Yes, maybe from multiple scans of the same film against multiple ones from another, you could surely tell that they were different. Could you tell what film it was? Maybe if it was Delta 3200 vs Pan F (OK, I'm choosing an extreme here), but say, two standard ISO 400 emulsions?? Maybe people who are employed to do this stuff, and look at film scans all day could, but not me.

 

I recently started trying Rodinal as a developer as against my usual 2 bath developer, just to see if I could reduce the inconsistency of the 2 bath (pretty short development times) by having an extended development time. Besides getting bored stupid waiting 20 or 30 minutes for the juice to do its stuff (2 bath was 4 mins in each), the negs do appear different and the grain structure is more prominent with the Rodinal, especially scanned. I think there is better consistency with the Rodinal (early days) but I miss the finer grain of the 2 bath, so I'll be going back to it in due course. So, as you say above, if you had multiple scans of each film in the same developer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's another thought to ponder:

If you gave the same negative to John Sexton, to Gene Nocon, and to a novice with a film-scanner and five minutes experience watching a Youtube video on image processing; would you get the same result?

the negs do appear different and the grain structure is more prominent with the Rodinal

I think you've answered the question for yourself there Stuart. You've found that the developer used has a far more noticeable effect than the film type or brand.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...