fotosepp
Hello everyone,
First of all, I’m a beginner. Not a complete novice, but when it comes to things like this, I realise I’m a beginner.
Here are my problems:
1. I was travelling and took photos using Ilford HP5. I mostly had a strong red filter (B&W 8x) on the lens. Now, I thought the exposure meter on my Minolta X-700 would tell me if the pictures were going to suffer from underexposure. The setting was on P. I made sure that the shutter speeds were right and within the range of 60–250. Now four rolls of film have come out quite dark. What did I do wrong? Perhaps someone could give me a hand?
2. I bought an Ilford 3200 Delta P purely so I could shoot in darker conditions as well. In my Contax 139. Without a filter this time. Everything was set up properly, but here too the two rolls of film have come out significantly too dark. Is there anything in particular I need to bear in mind with this high-speed film?
I developed the films according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
One more question: is there a big difference between using a filter when taking the photos and working with filters and multigrade in the darkroom later on?
Best regards
Tandemfahren
Hi Fotosepp,
First things first: I haven’t used HP5 myself, but that doesn’t matter. An 8x (that’s three stops!) red filter is quite an extreme filter; you wouldn’t normally leave it on unless you’re planning something really extreme...
Depending on the film’s spectral sensitivity and the lighting, the truly optimal exposure can differ quite significantly from the specified three stops.
Your camera’s exposure meter can’t take all that into account.
What do you mean, the films are too dark? The negative density is too high, I assume? How do you determine what is ‘too dark’?
And regarding both films: what speed did you calculate with? Or rather, what did you set on the camera?
In what solution did you develop them, and how?
And: yes, of course there’s a big difference between shooting with or without a filter. Shooting and enlargement filtering have nothing to do with each other.
I assume you’re confusing this with filtering in digital photography. From a digital (colour) image, you can subsequently create a black-and-white image with any filter you like by weighting the individual colour channels separately.
The same process takes place in the camera when shooting black-and-white film. The reproduction of the colours is fixed irrevocably in the negative, and there’s nothing you can do about it in the darkroom.
My advice to you: read a bit about exposure filtering and metering, buy a light yellow filter, check your camera settings with and without the filter using a good spot meter or a digital camera, and work out the measured speed and development data for your films (NOT online on Digitaltruth etc.!).
Cheer up, you can do it, or as the devil-may-care Schwyzr says: nit naalaa!
Frank
P.S. B&W film without any filters is like riding a bike with one pedal.
fotosepp
Hello Tandem,
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Many thanks in advance for this information!
There’s just no substitute for trial and error. And unfortunately, a few nice shots do end up going to waste.
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As for the filters, this means I don’t rely on the camera’s metering; instead, with a weaker red filter or a yellow filter, I add 1–2 stops.
By ‘too dark’, I mean the contact prints have turned out very gloomy.?
But I’ll give it a go with the digital camera and compare the settings.
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As for the films, as a beginner, I set them up exactly as it says on the packaging. For HP5 at 400 ASA and for Delta 3200 at 3200 ASA. And I developed them with ID-11. The Delta with a 10.5-minute exposure and the HP 1:1 for 8.5 minutes. As per the instructions.
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And the bit about the filter or doing it later in the darkroom: thanks. It’s slowly starting to make sense.
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Best regards
Urnes
The X-700 only measures in a centre-weighted manner. This means you need experience to set a correction value if the subject is off-centre, or if you’re shooting into the light, or if there’s a very bright light source somewhere in the frame. The whole thing also depends on the overall contrast and, of course, on how your X-700 was factory-calibrated (±0.5 stops was standard). Also, the light meter isn’t calibrated for red. So measure without a filter and then add 3 stops. But switch to A mode first.
Under normal circumstances, the HP5 doesn’t actually have 400 ISO either. So you can add another stop or so.
The 3200 Delta only reaches 1000 ISO with the specified values. But that works fine.
Finally, try a contact print with a soft gradient and reduce the exposure time slightly to see what you actually have on the negatives. The red filter really boosts the contrast quite a bit. That’s fine for graphic effects. Otherwise, I really only need filters with older lenses without anti-reflective coating.
Regards, Sven.
AntiLynd
It’s always good to know with remote diagnoses like this: on your contact prints, how does the actual image content you’ve produced compare to the fringe exposures provided by the manufacturer (ILFORD HP5 PLUS..., frame numbers, etc.)? It’s only a rough guide, of course, but: if the latter come out reasonably sharp but nothing can be seen in the images, something has indeed gone wrong with the exposure; see also the previous comments.
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Regardless of that: try to work towards being able to visually assess the quality of your exposure and development to some extent just by looking at the negatives. Perhaps you have access to an ideal negative through acquaintances, or have already produced some yourself that you’ve noticed are particularly good for enlargement.
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Good luck
Nils
Tandemfahren
Hi Sepp,
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As Sven has already mentioned, you can generally forget about the box sensitivity.
To put it simply: set the 3200 to 800–1000 and the 400 to 250, and you’ll be off to a good start.
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So your negatives are too light, not too dark – it all fits the picture; everything is subject to underexposure. Very roughly, you could start by exposing according to the camera’s exposure with a light yellow filter (the yellow filter doesn’t throw the exposure off quite as much) and then adjusting the development time so that when you enlarge a run-of-the-mill, sunlight, average-contrast negative with a gradient of 2, you achieve a decent image contrast.
You’ll probably need to shorten the development time.
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As I said, it’s all a bit quick and dirty, but you can get a long way with it. A book for the evening is still recommended; ‘The Negative’ by good old Ansel is the classic (nobody has to implement everything exactly as it is, but a basic understanding is in itself more satisfying than fumbling clumsily in the fog of ignorance).
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What will certainly help your understanding of filter photography most is taking the same shot in succession with different filters (don’t forget to take notes!), ideally with a digital image for comparison.
And don’t use too many filters: yellow twice, orange four times, red eight times and a polarising filter are enough for (almost) everything.
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Enjoy,
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Frank
Wolf_XL
... just out of curiosity: Why did you use a red filter? What were you trying to achieve with it?
karlokell
Hi Fotosepp!
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You’ve suffered from underexposure. The red filter has probably caused your camera to meter incorrectly. Its exposure meter is too sensitive to red. But that’s quite common. You’re probably using an 8x filter, which reduces the light by 3 stops. Screw the camera onto a tripod, aim at a surface that’s as uniform and normal-coloured as possible, and take two readings: one without a filter, one with a red filter. If the exposure meter shows a difference of 3 stops, I’ll take it all back; if it suggests only 2, then you’ve already experienced underexposure by 1 stop.
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Solution: adjust the ISO sensitivity accordingly (e.g. one stop lower, if my assumption is correct)
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On top of that, as has already been mentioned, the 3200 film is certainly not as sensitive as its name suggests.
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It’s all very simple!
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Regards, Karl
TR
One more tip for checking your film straight away: you can easily tell if a film has suffered from underexposure by holding it up to the light and looking for areas in the scene that were very dark or lacked detail on the subject itself – a black dog, for example, or dark treetops. If the film is very clear in these areas, it has suffered from underexposure. On the other hand, the print or positive process has been carried out incorrectly.
fotosepp
Hi everyone,
Thank you so much! That gives me plenty to experiment with! There’s a lot to explore here!
What about the Ilford PanF? Should I expose it at 25 ASA?
Best regards
TomDahmen
Dear Sepp,
Why not get hold of a handheld light meter like the Gossen (I’ve got a Profisix)? Set the filter values on it according to the instructions. Then compare the results with the camera, both with and without a filter. My Nikon F2 has a moonlight meter, but no light meter ;-) – compared to the Gossen, it only ever gives exposure values. As my father was already taking photos with this camera back in the 70s and had the same problems, it’s really worth buying an external meter for certain cameras. For the F2 specialists: it’s a later model from the summer of 1974. The Heliopan 4x yellow filter throws it off the mark quite a bit. I always have the filter on, as I mainly take photos outdoors and sometimes want to have a cloud in the picture too :-)
A good article with lots of further links
https://klein-gedruckt.de/2014/01/farbfilter-bei-analoger-sw-fotografie/
And the article on spuer-sinn.net listed in the above article.
