First attempt at pushing Film ……

img001-EditAfter reading some stuff on the internet and viewing some samples I decided to give B&W push processing a go.

Most of the articles I read used Kodak Tri-x so that is what I used to.

Using the Massive Dev chart app on my iphone http://www.digitaltruth.com/ I determined that I needed to develop for 10 minutes in ilfotec ddx 1+4 if I pushed the film from 400 to 800 which I thought was a good starting point just incase pushing it any faster may result in a ruined negative.

The weather today here in the South Wales valleys was pretty poor, dark and wet so it needed at least 800 iso.

img011I shot most of the roll outside with pretty random subjects, just looking for something with detail and contrast and finished the roll indoors using just lamplight.

img009The results were great, the grain was almost identical to Tri-x shot at its native speed. To be honest if you didn’t know that I pushed the film I could have told people they were at 400iso.

I really like the results I am getting using ilfotec ddx it seems to give a really good balance between sharpness/contrast and minimal grain.

img007Just for the record all these shots were taken using my Nikon F90x and nikkor 50mm f1.8.

I will try pushing it to 1600 or 3200 next time as I like grain in my images and 800 is definitely not a problem for the film/dev combination.

img026-EditThanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………

 

Elvis has left the building … and is going to Porthcawl ……….

Popped along to the annual Elvis Festival held in Porthcawl last weekend armed only with my trusty Nikon F90x and some ilford HP5+.

Even though we were down there quite early there were plenty of characters walking about all very willing to have their photographs taken.

I was a bit worried taking the shot above due to the Gold jacket and the very bright sunlight but the camera and film coped very well (no instant feed back from the back of the camera with film….lol).

It was good to see Porthcawl busy and vibrant especially after the pretty poor summer weather we have had this year.

All in all I shot just 48 frames all day where as I would have shot hundreds if I had took my DSLR so the editing process was so much easier.

Even though the day was full of colours I am glad that I shot B&W I don’t know what it is but it gave me more of the feel of the day without any distracting colour elements in the frame.

All comments very welcome …….  thanks for looking  🙂

 

Kodak T-Max 3200 on a Sunny Afternoon………..

A few days ago a fellow photographer gave me a load of different types of film of which were a couple of rolls of Kodak T-Max 3200.

Eager to try this film out and even though the weather was bright and sunny I loaded up my Nikon F90x as it has a shutter speed up to 1/8000 sec and popped up my local graveyard hoping to capture some gritty images.

I was pleased with the results all things considered but I may use the next roll on something more appropriate that requires that sort of sensitivity……..lol