Any way to improve sharpness/contrast?

[david_gallmeier]

These photos were shot at EL320 on HP5+ and developed for EL400 with D76. I

used an acid stop bath, hardening fixer and hypoclearing agent (all from Kodak).

Being in Hotlanta, the temperature for all of my chemicals was 78 degrees (for

which I adjust the development time accordingly to 6 minutes and 30 seconds).

After developed, the film was scanned using an HP Photosmart S20. Since I live

on the 2nd story of a small apartment, I don't have a darkroom to make prints as

of yet. I'm only able to develop the film at this time.

 

The images themselves were taken at F-stop 16 and the shutter speed was probably

250 - 500. I'm relatively new at B&W photography and need help. I'm just not

satisfied with the sharpness and contrast. Especially with skies - they always

appear to be bland white with no contrast between clouds and the atmosphere; it

doesn't look like it at all, but the sky was mostly sunny with only a few

clouds. You can't tell by looking at the sky, but the shadows on the ground

make this more obvious.

 

Please critique these photos and let me know what I can do better during

shooting/development. I dunno, maybe I'm just hating my own work.<div></div>

[jdrose]

Sharpness and contrast are different.

 

You mention that the images were "shot" at EL320. My suspicion is that you have been "hoodwinked" by a built-in camera average light meter. Your images depicts a very dark edifice backlit by huge amount of overcast sky. I do not suspect film, chemistry, or development is the root of your discontent.

 

Your example is one of those situations, with negative print film, that you should have exposed for the shadows.

[david_gallmeier]

My camera is a Pentax ME Super with centerweighted metering. So what do you mean by "hoodwinked"? And also, by exposing for shadows, do you mean to meter on the shadowy areas? This would wash out the sky more then, right?

 

I also have additional examples shot at the same time in my user profile.

[mitchell_kirschner]

I suspect your metering and development are probably fine, and that the issue is one of digital file tweaking.

 

Here's an adjusted copy. All I did was a simple levels adjustment whereby I spread out the histogram to get a full range of tones, from black to white.

 

Sharpness is a separate issue. It can be affected by the scanner (and of course the lens on your camera). If you'll be scanning/printing digitally, do a search on "unsharp mask" to learn more about improving sharpness in digital files.<div></div>

[chris_waller]

Light-meters are calibrated against a standard grey (the famous Kodak Grey Card - 18 percent reflectance). Your meter assumes that the subject it is 'looking at' averages out to a mid grey. In the case of the other two pictures in your folder this has given a correct exposure but in the case of this picture the brightness of the sky has given you a meter reading which causes the shadows to be under-exposed. An extra 1/3 - 1/2 stop would have lifted the shadows but, as you say, it would have washed out the clouds. This where printing your own picutres pays off. You could then burn in the sky to recover the cloud detail. Another technique you can use is to downrate the film, i.e. expose it at a lower ASA and then reduce development. For example, in bright sun you could expose HP5 at 160 ASA and reduce development by 45 percent from the 400 ASA time.

 

As a further note, if you expose HP5 at 320 ASA then reduce the dev time by 10 percent from the 400 ASA time. This will reduce the density slightly in the highlights.

[mitchell_kirschner]

PS: You can further adjust contrast by working with curves. Also as a side note, blue sky/cloud contrast in B&W film photography will generally not be great unless you use a yellow, orange, or red filter (listed in order of effect, with red being most dramatic, yielding very dark skies).

[david_gallmeier]

So having to digitally adjust the histogram and play with sharpness effects does not necessarily mean problems with shooting/development?

 

Thanks everyone BTW; this has been very helpful.

[garethspics]

You film has captured a scene which is high in contrast. The trick is to learn how to use your image manipulation software to brighten the building without burning out the sky. As for getting the right exposure, treat yourself to the excellent book by Ansel Adams called "The Negative".

 

Have fun.

[jeffpolaski]

Exposing for the shadows doesn't strictly mean metering only on the dark areas of a shot. The ME Super (a great camera) averaged in the large light area of the sky, and the greater mass of the dark building "blocked out". By overexposing a bit more than the center-weighted averaging meter would have it, you would be able to get more detail recorded from the dark areas of the frame.

 

Looking at a histogram (btw, I just learned this), you'd probably see that the dark pixel counts far outnumber the light pixel counts, even if the physical areas were roughly equal. That explained (at least for me) why the old rule of exposing for the shadows makes sense: more of the picture information is tied up in dark tones than light tones, and if you lose that end of the scale, it's harder to recover detail by print manipulation.

 

The example shown was done digitally, but it also could be done in the print darkroom, by burning and dodging, at minimum.

 

Also, while sharpness and contrast are different, sharpness is in the eye of the beholder. Increased contrast at points of interest would give the impression of increased sharpness. Digital sharpening typically involves careful local contrast manipulation to the point that the photo is "perceptively" sharper.

 

As an aside, when I used the ME Super, I was most often using a brand new (back in the day) Tokina 35-105mm zoom, which I now know to be a lens that comes up a bit short in the contrast area. What lens did you use?

[ronald_moravec1]

Had you metered for the dark building, the sky would be very overexposed causing all the light details in the clouds to blend.

 

You have the best possible neg here without exposing more and developing less to shorten the contrast range between sky and building.

 

In the future, wait for correct light when the building is sunlited and not in shadow.

 

If you have photoshop, select the sky, decrease exposure and increase contrast . Then select the building and increase contrast and decrease exposure. Highlight/shadow or curves can do almost the same if you have those.

 

Follow my original recommendations if you print this in a darkroom with an enlarger.

[ronald_moravec1]

Attached you will find what I did with the above steps. I used levels to make the adjustments in the selections,

 

Sharpning needs to done on all digital images, unsharpmask or smart sharpen.<div></div>

[jtk]

If you want fancy skys *as well as* detail on the shade side of the building, the grass etc you need to meter for the shade side *and* use a yellow or red filter. Red's tough with an SLR. You would need at least 2 or stops slower shutter speed and or open up a stop or two to make up for the red filter.

 

You need to learn what a "stop" is: It's a factor of 2 applied to shutter speed or aperture.

 

You seem unborn rather than "relatively new" to B&W photography. You need a good book on the very most rudimentary B&W photography, something at least 30 years old...ideally an old Kodak book in some musty old camera store. If you're using your camera in automatic mode, turn that off...it prevents learning.

[rich_ullsmith1]

Yeah, filtration. Red really makes sky and cloud pop, but it darkens foliage. Yellow-green is great for sky and foliage. The red here would bring the building up, certainly.

 

For sharpness, maybe put the camera on a tripod. Sorry if that has already been mentioned. Also, lock the mirror up and that will eliminate vibration.

 

Beyond that, you might try diluting your D-76 to 1+1 or 1+2. Diluting the sulfite seems to help with sharpness, although I don't notice the difference unless it's enlarged beyond 8X10.

 

You can contact print in your bathroom. Two trays (develop and fix), water stop in the sink, wash in the bath. Sheet of glass and a sheet of foam rubber. Give it a try.

[digitmstr]

I can suggest the following:

 

1) Contrast - If you need to photograph a scene on HIGH contrast and don't want to lose any detail (or the least amount possible) such as snow, camp fires, etc... the way to do it is to use a 'soft' emulsion (such as a ISO 400 film) exposed at half the rating and then, developed accordingly. You will also need to meter appropriately. Simply using the one stop overexposure resulting from the ISO setting won't be enough.

 

Appropriate filters will also work well in certain situations (i.e. you could use a half Yellow or Red filter for the sky and a half Green filter for the vegetation - you can do this by using grads or by using square filters inserted part way into the holder).

 

If you are going to scan it and adjust it later in Photoshop, save your self some pain and shoot digital to start with.

 

2) Sharpness - this if of course affected by your lens and film resolving power as well as accuracy of focus and the shutter speed used (or your shooting technique). However, you can increase acutance which makes the image look sharper by using appropriate soups with appropriate dilutions. D-76 Rodinal and many other will work well for this.

[ole_hjalmar_kristensen]

A slightly different way to accomplish much the same as Ronald did. Create two layers, invert and blur the uppermost to create an unsharp mask. This will lower the overall contrast. Flatten the image, and adjust the intensity and contrast with levels or curves.<div></div>

[digitmstr]

There are many things you can do in Photoshop to fix it but, at that point, shoot digital and save yourself a lot of time and money in film, developer, scanning, etc...

 

I think it's best to do as much as possible during the planning and execution of the shot by way of choosing the right film type, exposure index, metering, soup, dev. time, dilution, paper, etc...

 

Here's a quick fix in Photoshop to bring some of the details into view.<div></div>

[philip__b_temple]

dear david,

 

SKIES ARE THE BANE OF MOST BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHER'S EXISTANCE, AND THEY

SHOULD BE MASTERED SINCE BALD SKIES MAKE FOR DULL SCENIC SNAPS. AS SUGGESTED,

METERING CORRECTLY IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD CORRECT EXPOSURE. SOMETIMES YOU

WILL HAVE TO DECIDE IF YOU ARE TAKING PICTURES OF THE SKY OR THE EARTHLY STUFF,

BECAUSE YOU'LL NOT BE ABLE TO GET BOTH.

 

HOWEVER GETTING BOTH IS WHAT OUTSTANDING PHOTOZ ARE ABOUT SO LEARN ABOUT

THESE THINGS.

 

CORRECT EXPOSURE ? METERING OFF MEANINGFUL THINGS AND KNOWING WHAT THE

BRIGHTNESS RANGE REALLY IS. LEARNING THE OPTIMAL TIMES OF THE DAY FOR GOOD

EARTH AND SKY PHOTOZ IS VERY IMPORTANT ? AND THEN USING THEM !

 

ALSO LEARN ABOUT THESE FILTERS ? RED, ORANGE, OR YELLOW FILTERS, PLUS GREEN

FILTER.

 

ABOUT POLARIZING FILTERS ? THEIR LIMITATIONS AND ADVANTAGES.

 

ABOUT GRADUATED NEUTRAL DENSITY FILTERS - DARKER TOP HALVES [OR TOP THIRD]

FOR REDUCED FILM EXPOSURE IN SKY OF PHOTO

 

EACH OF THESE FILTERS REQUIRES ADJUSTMENTS TO F STOP OR TIME OF EXPOSURE, SO

YOU'LL HAVE TO LEARN THE CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH.

 

IT ALL MAY SOUND DAUNTING, BUT DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED. LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF

FILM OR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY WHEN LEARNING ALL THIS BECAUSE SOME OF THE SAME

CONCEPTS ARE GIVEN DIFFERENT NAMES IN EACH. GOOD LUCK. AND GET THE ENLARGER.

THERE ARE EXCELENT BUYS OUT THERE IN USED ENLARGERS AND USED ENLARGING

LENSES. YOU ARE GETTING INTO A LIFETIME'S WORTH OF CHALLENGE, ENTERTAIMENT,

AND SATISFACTION.

sincerely,

phil temple

temple32@charter.net

[david_gallmeier]

Wow, thanks for the feedback. So then the need to digitally adjust levels in the histogram (along with other adjustments) doesn't necessarily denote problems with the exposure?

 

Additionally, I suppose these are things which can be compensated for in the darkroom as well. I plan to make my own prints, I just don't have a place in which to do it yet. Thanks again for all the feedback.

[john_elder1]

One way to improve sharpness is to NOT shoot at f16, it is the least sharp aperture on your lens due to diffraction limitation.

[cj_bas]

Here's a sugestion: I'm over in Alabama, so I know the conditions you're shooting under, btw. Try using a yellow filter. Especially during the summer down here the air is so hazy that, without some sort of help with filtration, the sky turns white. A yellow filter will appear to darken some of the blue and give you a 'seeable' sky.

 

Also, int he bright, daytime, sun down here, you'll have plenty of film speed if you use Plus-X or FP-4 (both essentially ISO 100 films. You'll get much finer grain in the process.

[gnashings]

I wonder what it is about human nature that makes us gloss over good advice, like the post by Mr John Kelly, and try to make sure that this guy never actually has to learn how to make photos because God gave us Photoshop so we no longer have to bother with all that exposure and understanding our meters bull crap... I hate to break it to some of you guys, but digital or film, when crap goes in, crap comes out to put it mildly. This is such a basic issue - bright sky, dark building... basic, basic stuff... I don`t know why the suggestion of getting some basic knowledge on the subject was so promptly disregarded...

[Steve Douglass]

Peter is right. Crap in -- crap out. Just look at his portfolio!

[gnashings]

Wow, Steven, that was brief... and completely lacking any kind of contribution to the subject. I was trying to see who is this person given to such pathetic outbursts of insecurity... but I couldn`t get past the three pages of your self-agrandizing "bio"...

No, wait - I remember - you`re the guy with that idiotically blue Lightning photo that I treated much too kindly in my ciritique. Judging from the result, I was dealing with a rank beginner and didn`t want to be too harsh... By the way, is that the reason for the visit to the B&W FILM forum? Your inability to understand colour balance?

[dugstervision]

There's no center of interest. One of the rules (for me) is to never shoot a subject that has a large area of medium grey, in a black and white photo. Lots of medium grey will make any B&W photo look too 'flat'. If you can crop the large bland foreground out, you're left with a more acceptable tonal range. Other than that, the building is not interesting, and the sky is just OK. The arrangement of shapes and tones is almost random, with no structure or design. I cropped the medium grey out to show how that normalizes the tonal range.

[dugstervision]

Medium grey cropped out.<div></div>