ISO 400 B & W film with lowest blue sensitivity

[mark_wilhelm]

I hope some of you black and white heavy hitters can help me with a

Tri-X problem. I recently returned from a vacation trip to the

Leelanau peninsula of Michigan. I used a Rolleiflex GX and Tri-X

(400)film. I usually do not take a high percentage of black and

white photos which contain a lot of sky. However, on this trip, I

did. The resulting prints show a lot of featureless white sky. I'm

aware that using a yellow or orange filter would solve the problem.

However, with the Rolleiflex GX, attaching a filter means that you

cannot attach the lens cap (the cap covers both lenses) if you leave

the filter in place. It would be a pain to attach and remove a

filter frequently for storing the camera in its bag. This leads to

my question: Is there a silver based black and white film (ISO 400

preferred) that has less blue sensitivity such that it could be used

without a yellow filter and still retain some features in a blue sky

with clouds? Are APX400 or HP5 like Tri-X in this regard? Thanks

very much.

[lex_jenkins]

I'm not sure a filter would help a featureless white sky. Most panchromatic b&w films will record gray proportionate to the available blue. If the sky is pale a filter won't help much - in fact, the additional contrast from some filters might whiten the sky even further.

 

An orthochromatic film might help under certain lighting conditions but may also render other tones peculiarly. It's worth experimenting with. If I'm recalling correctly Ilford offers an ortho film; so do some European film manufacturers (check with JandC Photo - they're on the web).

 

However the filter most likely to help is an orange, specifically the Rollei Orange for your camera. I use mine for about 1/3 of the shots taken with my Rollei 2.8C. It works well with all pan films I've tried, including APX 100, Delta 100, TMX, Tri-X, even chromogenic monochromes.

 

Yeh, the lens cap can't be fitted with the filter on, but I usually leave the lens hood on which does a good enough job of protecting the glass between shooting opportunities and the bag.

 

You could probably find a plastic medicine bottle cap or other farm-rigged solution to protect the glass. Sure, those Rollei mirror caps are nice but let's not get fixated on 'em. ;>

[photojim]

Aren't skies on ortho films always white? Photographers used to put in hand-painted skies to deal with the problem. The original films were only sensitive to blue. You actually want the film to be less sensitive to blue so that the sky is darker (unexposed film prints to black on paper). A red filter removes all the blue so you get a black sky on the print.

 

I noticed shots with T-Max films without a yellow filter often have the same white sky in the prints.

 

The only solution is the yellow filter (or a darker one). Other films might show a little less blue sensitivity, but you're still not going to get as pleasing a sky as with filtration.

[group 11]

i'm unaware of any film that has a decreased blue sensitivity. orthochromatic, isochromatic, and panchromatic films all are sensitive to blue; the difference is red sensitivity. even the old plate processes were, actually, sensitive to only blue light. one suggestion to try would be ilford sfx. it has an extended red sensitivity, but is not a true 'ir' film. i can't tell you how it will look without filtration, but the sky will be darker than 'white'. the other option is the obvious already mentioned; an orange filter. perhaps i haven't been promiscuous enough, but i have yet to fall in love w/a lens cap O.o

[andrew_hull]

I am not really sure what you are getting at with the question. If you want darker skies, simply make adjustments in the darkroom.

[m0002a]

TMAX films are specifically designed with reduced blue sensitivity (compared to most other films). Kodak claims that shooting TMAX (no filter) is like shooting most other films with a medium yellow filter. In my experience with TMAX 100 in particular, it does have less blue sensitivity, but maybe not enough for what you want.

[group 11]

apparently magenta dyes in tmax film are meant to slightly reduce blue sensitivity.

 

some graphs: http://www.kenleegallery.com/curves.htm

[john_stockdale2]

I don't know how expensive the Rollei filters are, but when travelling I use a filter instead of a lens cap and I find it quite liberating. Eventually you might damage the filter a little, but mine seem ok at this stage.

[omar_ozenir2]

I've been using Ilford Delta 400 for over 2 years now, and IMO this film renders blue sky quite naturally - i.e. not washed out - without any filter. I used to use a yellow, or even orange filter with Ilford FP4 and HP5 for a similar effect.

Also, when I tried an orange filter with Delta 400 I never quite liked what I got.

You might want to have a look at a couple of photos in my folder as an example. "Bartering For Fish" and "Milking A Sheep" are both shot without a filter and both are almost straight prints with no manipulation to the sky.

[andy_piper2]

Acoording to my handy-dandy Ilford product data guide - Pan F has a slightly lower blue and higher red sensitivity than most of the other films. But it's ISO 50. The charts for Delta 400 and HP5+ look identical to each other. i haven't shot enough pictures with either where I paid enough attention to the skies to comment.</p>

</p>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/952853">THIS</a> picture was shot with Pan F - no filter. But the sky is obviously also affected by the altitude (13,000+ feet) and the falloff of the 15mm lens.</p>

</p>

"Tri-X" skies were famous even back when I was in photo school (c.1975) Drove the fine-arts photo students nuts.

[james___]

Mark, to get around having to thread on a filter each time, buy a couple of Lee or similar square filters in the colors you want and just hold them in front of your lens when taking the picture. Simple. As for washed out skies, when printing you can make use of varying degrees of burning to give the sky some slightly darker values here and there corresopnding to the foreground adding some balance in the process. Skies don't need to be uniformly white, grey, or black but can be burned to give them some character.

[wieslaw1]

-- Jim <<Aren't skies on ortho films always white?>> NO. Why a red sunset should be white on Ortho?

 

Mark, buy a polarizer.

[photojim]

A red sunset would be black on ortho. The negative doesn't get exposed by red, so it is clear. That prints through to black on paper.

 

Similarly, ortho film is very sensitive to blue. A blue sky exposes the film a lot, resulting in black on the negative. This allows little light to pass through during printing and results in a light grey or white sky.

[pascal_miele]

The TriX is very hight in sensibility in the 300-500 nm (uv and blue)

as you can see in the kodak doc.

 

The Delta 400 ILFORD is best for nice sky with a lower sensibility in UV and blue (cf ilford doc on the web) but for a good sky the only way is yhe yellow filter !

[ole_tjugen]

Once upon a time, there were special plates (not films) with a built-in yellow filter. But they went out of fashion with the invention of panchromatic film, and disappeared completely when film took over. I believe they were aroung ISO 12.