david_elden

<p>Everyone: there is a good reason for the 1/10 stop resolution on electronic display lightmeters.<br>

It is not there for a typical available light exposure measurement; yes, rounding off to the nearest whole stop will usually be close enough given the latitude in modern digital cameras and negative film.<br>

It is there to enable you to measure lighting ratios easily. E.g. You measure main at 11+3/10 and fill at 5.6+7/10 and then calculate (or look up from a table) the stop difference i.e. the lighting ratio. If you round those two measurements off to whole stops you are going to have the risk of a large error in the ratio estimate so there you do have a real need for the 1/10 readings.<br>

Dave.<br>

</p>

 

<p>Michelle, your choices locally are limited, have you tried Labworks (was Ginn, <a href="http://www.gpclabworks.com/">http://www.gpclabworks.com/</a>) in Ottawa?</p>

 

No, because of the DOF difference inherent in the longer FL used for a given angle of view with the Mamiya. Can you use it for street photography? Yes (you can find video of Martin Parr doing so for example), and you could use a 4x5 as well if you chose to but you will have to work differently and will get different results. Personally I use 35mm rangefinders and a Mamiya 6 and I use them for different things. Your plan of buying and trying is a good one, if a little pricey although you'll probably get most of your $ back if it doesn't work for you and you resell a used Mam 7.

"Is it good to develop an Ilford Delta 3200 film with R09"

Yes - if you want sharp, large grain!

I have used D3200 with Rodinal a bit, assuming R09 is similar to Agfa Rodinal you will get strong grain, a loss of speed (suggest EI ~800 to start with) and probaly low contrast if photographing a normal contrast scene. You may end up increasing develop time (and/or developer concentration) quite a bit.

Expect to experiment on a few rolls before you get everything adjusted.

Of course if you don't want to maximise grain use a different developer...(D76 or equivalent).

Assuming you go by the TTL indicated meter reading then setting the ISO higher will give less exposure, less grain and more contrast, setting the ISO lower will give the reverse.

Reducing the dev time a bit from Kodaks recommendation (e.g. -15%) may help if you are finding the highlights are too dense.

Printing: the normal "rules" about what is a technically good print don't always apply printing HIE negs. Sometimes you might find using a high contrast filter with VC paper (4-5) will give the most appealing result - even if shadows & highlights lose some detail. High contrast will also increase the appearance of the grain.

HIE isn't the easiest material to work with because of the odd response to light and the small exposure latitude but stay with and you may be very pleased.

If you can you might want to look for a book by Laurie White which covers some of the how to stuff quite well.

Hiroshi,

In the example you provided the "metallic" look to the skin tones is due to a combination of the surface reflectivity of the skin (somewhat shiny) and the lighting type and direction (contrasty, backlit producing specular reflection in the camera direction).

Lighting is the main factor not film type, developer, printing let alone toning although you can emphasise the effect using those tools especially film & paper contrast.

Take a look at Close's portraits and analyse the lighting used from the shadows and reflections and try and duplicate it and you'll get a similar look.

"Is it possible to get the full outdoors IR effect in a studio? "

 

My experience is smilar to most of the others replying:

 

Yes. I've seen it work very with various strobe brands using a red filter (any sort, doesn't need to be opaque), the IR content seems to be about the same as for daylight and of course very consisten & predictable. No need to gel them but you can and leave the filter f the camera.

 

Using tungsten (or the modelling light) is an good option as well, no need to filter then although you can to get a bit more effect.

 

The weird mark looks exactly like fogging from a light leak somewhere, this film is VERY sensitive to that, could be bad foams, developing tanks etc. etc.. Check everything!

I'm guessing you are using an open shade type of light not direct sun here. Your meter reading 1/100 @2.8 ISO 200 is about EV 9 by my calculations and, assuming you measured without adding in the filter factor, is certainly quite subdued... (dusk type of level).

So in practice you are pretty likely to get motion blur even with large apertures.

Some of your requirements are to some degree conflicting (speed and bright skin tones).

 

To try and answer:

 

I'd suggest set the film sped on the camera to 400 and use the TTL meter reading with the filter in place and bracket 1 or two stops to the over exposure side. In my experience this will give you some negatives that meet your requirements on tonalty, the question is will you have enough DOF and a fast enough shutter speed to get at least some of the image sharp. The reflector may be very helpful.

 

Ideally I'd expose a roll first with bracketing and process it so you know on the day how to get the result you want.

 

In general HIE overexposure will give you more halation (glow) on the skin tones which will record lighter than normal anyway.

 

You'll likey find any dark coloured clothing will record much ligher in tone than you expect.

 

I've had good results with D76 stock at 20C/68F, in this case I'd stay with the Kodak recommended time of 8.5m to ensure you get the density in the highlights.

 

Good luck and please post the results however it turns out.

Had the pinhole problem on 2 more rolls of HIE 35mm recently. One I tried water stop & pre-wetting. Had no beneficial effect.

Called Kodak. Said acid stop would not be problem (I use D76, non-carbonate developer according to them).

K said the em numbers I was using had not generated any other pinhole complaints but suggested that storage at other than subambient temps. could lead to some interaction between the film base rear surface and the emulsion surface that is in contact with it. The rolls in question had had a month or two outside the cold storage and been around the Caribbean so, at least in my case, this is a plausible explanation. FTR I just ran a workshop on IR photography, the students exposed and processed 12 rolls of HIE bought within the last day or two and processed a day after shooting: no pinholes.

Hope this helps someone.

PS I'm sending some samples to Kodak for their comments.

I have occasionally (less than 1 roll in 10) seen the exact same spots as the original poster so I've been waiting for the answre here, I suspected moisture condensation since i used the film rather quickly on a hot & humid day right out of the refrigerator but I wasn't really sure.

The recommendation to use a longer stop bath time doesn't make any chemical sense to me but since the worst it can do is waste some time I'll try it next time I dev HIE, as the poster implied there may be some unique behaviours of HIE that are not well understood outside of Kodak labs.

To be honest none of the other explanations appear very plausible but thanks to everyone for thinking about it.

Another vote for the Suess book (and NYIP site). I teach B&W, beginner & intermediate and this is the author I recommend. All the others mentioned are good but if you're going to read and keep just one make it the Suess. His approach is very practical and real world, i.e. news you can use but still rigourous.

His is about the only how to book you need to begin with, spend the rest of your money/time on looking at collections of work by various photographers for inspiration.

 

Dave.

The main thing is to have fresh air entering the room and room air leaving the room (and building) while you have open containers of processing chemicals in use. How much air? I suggest reviewing this Kodak information, the section on ventilation on page 4 provides soem guidleines.

 

Here is the URL of the Kodak document:

 

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/corp/environment/kes/pubs/pdfs/J98A.pdf

Kyle, a poster above mentioned the Kodak C41 B&W film; you stated you wanted to be able to print from the negs as well as scan and you may find this harder using the Kodak than the Ilford (XP2) if the Kodak has the orange mask similar to a colour negative material. In my experience this makes printing with a conventional enlarger and VC paper rather a struggle, the XP2 on the otherhand I have found rather easy to print from.

(Joe S, thx for clarifying your Ilford comment, it doesn't seem to apply to Kyle's situation)

Kyle, you said: "..I have a pro lab soup my film and will most likely be scanning the negs.."

As no one else has mentioned it I'm going to suggest you look at Ilford XP2 Super film (I wouldn't be discouraged by the poster who states, we know not on what basis, "Stay away from Ilford, they're not what they used to be.")

You are using a pro-lab for processing: XP2 is a C41 process B&W film, same cost/time to process as colour negs.

You want to scan the negs: In my experience you will have a MUCH easier time scanning this film than conventional B&W negatives and yet will be able to make fine enlargements when you want to.

Good luck!

While it's great that people offer opinions on this question here I would strongly suggest you direct your question to your physician, in person - this is a photography not a opthamology forum.

I have shot HIE with a Nikon F601 & FM2 using a Cokin red filter (very similar but not identical to Wratten 25). Personally I set the camera ISO to around 400 for sunny day work outside. Having said that I don't pay a lot of attention to the meter reading if it's "sunny 16" conditions, I do if it gets a bit overcast or there is a lot of shadow area in the shot.

Dev in D76 stock per Kodak instructions. This gives highlights which aren't entirely blocked up and retains some shadow detail - but I find I print at higher contrasts and have to dodge the shadows a fair bit to keep detail there. Negs look thin but I like the prints.

Like you I found the Kodak instructions give negs too dense for my taste. I know other photogs who have observed the same thing.

It seems to me that HIE has relatively little latitude compared to most B&W films and this combined with the non-standard sectral response (doesn't match the camera meter) means that more exposure experimentation is needed than with most films. So you will have to plan on using a roll up in bracketing (suggest ?two stops range) and decide what YOU like. This will "waste" a lot of frames on that roll but that's the last roll you will "waste"

If you can find this book in your local library it's the best "how to" on HIE I have seen: "The Infrared Handbook" - Laurie White - pub. Amherst Media.

Above someone opined that putting your film in checked baggage was a good idea, the US TSA states "WARNING: Equipment used for screening checked baggage will damage your undeveloped film." on their web site so I suspect it's actually a bad idea.(http://www.tsa.gov/public/interapp/editorial/editorial_1035.xml).

So flying in/out of the US I would follow their advice and keep your film out of checked baggage.

"My question is does anyone have any experience with film being fogged due to the TSA inspection process?"

No, but if they open the plastic tub labelled "Only open in complete darkness" you can expect the first 5-10 frames to be fogged in my experience. I haven't seen any noticeable fogging after a few passes through the hand luggage Xray machine, suggest you just let it go through there.

 

"Has anyone had any experience with the film being fogged when not loading in a darkroom?"

Yes, even in subdued light I find it fogs well into the roll. If a dark (completely dark) room isn't available (e.g. ouside) I use a change bag (black double layered cloth bag with elasticated armholes available from any good camera store). This has worked well even outside at midday (although it will get hot and sweaty inside very fast so try and find some shade).

 

Now all you need is some sunshine in Ireland in the fall....

First, as another poster said congrats on the positive response from the gallery to your work.

Second, you have found the responses confusing (so have I). You have prints which the gallery responded positively to the content of but they expressed a slightly less positive opinion about the technical style. We haven't seen the prints so it's impossible to really say anything definitive about that; I would strongly suggest taking the work to other photographers (or just printers) who's printing you admire or find interesting and getting some more opinions. Then decide if you want to change anything.