B&W technique on an LTM camera

[richard s.]

Just a quick question, have shot several rolls of Ilford Delta 100

and 400 with a T3, found that +2/3 EV seems to produce reasonable

results. Have recently acquired a Leica II(D) with an Elmar 50/3.5

and want to achieve similar results. (I'm using a VC meter.) Can

someone point me in the right direction ...

 

Also, very much like Michael Agel's B&W Leica photography. Does

anyone have any suggestion how to go about getting such grainless /

high contrast results? My B&W photos often turn out darker and

murkier than I would like.

 

Many thanks in advance.

[leslie_cheung]

1. open up one stop

 

2. tech pan, pan f, konica impressa or move up a format among

other things. As for your photos being darker and murkier...there

are many reasons which can cause it, you need to take some

notes in the darkroom.

[kirk_teetzel2]

Just experiment. It's only film. Shoot a few rolls of film and take some detailed notes. It really doesn't take that long to go though a few rolls. Each camera is slightly different, anyway.

 

As for murky B&W, if you are taking your film to a standard processor (like Target) they are sending it out with the color and just running it though a standard machine (I'm not sure; however, I really doubt they have somebody doing it by hand). I used to take my film to places like that as well. I would get so frustrated with the quality of my photos. I mean I know I'm not a great photographer but man, every shot was super boring. Then I decided to send a roll of film to San Miguel Lab and, WOW. I mean even boring stuff looked good.

 

That, of course, gets to be too expensive. And as good as he is, it takes too long. I also like to do it myself, so I've just orderd everything to soup my film in Diafine. It seems to give the look I like the most. You may want to think about processing your own as well.

 

However, you may already be processing your own (you didn't say) in which case...forget everything I said...I can't help you. :)

 

Good luck.

[ronald_moravec1]

Actual shutter speeds as oposed to marked speeds, calibration of exposure meter, speed increasing or decreasing character of the developer, all play a roll in the EV value to set on the meter. Many people like to overxpose slightly and underdevelope slightly to get more shadow detail and less contrasty negs.

 

I personally find actual film speeds suit me just fine except in one camera where the meter is off 1/3 Ev. To carry over the +2/3 value to a different camera and get the same result, you need to know why you are setting it wrong in the first place, ie shutter run faster than normal, f stops off slightly. If you don`t know why and you don`t know the accuracy of the new shutter, you need to experiment.

 

The whole process is a series of steps with TOLERENCES and some times they all stack in one direction and sometimes they cancel each other.

[brett_davis1]

If you don't mind C-41, try the new Kodak B&W CN400. It seems to have tremendous latitude; I accidentally shot a few frames that should have been terribly overexposed and they came out from a machine print looking great. If you're printing it yourself then it may not be as much fun, as it apparently requires very high filtration to print to black and white paper.

[roger c]

I've printed T400CN (it's been around about 10 years!) unfiltered and the results were good.