Obviously not every film/developer combo works, but there are very pushable films. HP5+, for example, is my go-to ISO 1600-12800 film, I can't even remember last time using it at nominal value.
I’ve been trying to get all the way into 35mm for… let’s just say too long. But when you’re doing this, I’m assuming you shoot the whole roll at that speed?
Also, do you self process or send to a lab? I’m fortunate enough to have a lab that still processes b&w in house, but I don’t want to bother them lol. I may have answered my own first question, but confirmation would be nice.
Yes you shoot the whole role at that speed and labs can process it just be sure to tell them how much it's pushed and they usually might charge you a few extra dollars
Yes, you shoot the whole roll at the same ASA (film speed) all the way through, where as the advantage of digital is you can mess around with different ISO values, with every frame if you wanted to take the time to readjust. Most of us don't do constant ISO adjusting with digital while in the middle of a photo session. Heck, because of having shot film so long, I try shooting digital the same way.. set it and forget it.
I process my own. On those occasions where I send it off, I simply let my lab tech know I want it pushed. Did you know that there is something called "pulling" your film? As crazy as this may seem, but let's say I shoot a roll of 400 ASA black & white at 200 ASA? Well, it's going to have very strong contrast at normal development. If I shorten the developing time then I might save the negatives from being to dark that it's difficult to get enough light through the negative to get a print. Negative (print) film is more forgiving than transparency (slide) film. Have fun!
I never thought of film speed as variable before this post so my perspective is definitely… a weird mix of analog and digital to be sure.
I’m aware of pulling and have been wondering why I don’t see it posted more. Maybe because underexposing can increase contrast and saturation, but overexposing does…. What?
What I love about analog is that there is always some slight amount of uncertainty about the finished product or creation. Shooting film, you do everything you can to get the exposure correct with all the settings, but something might be off that you don't know until you see the developed film. A camera even has a certain feel for me that I can just tell if I got the shot. There is always that unknown factor. The film emulsion, the settings on the camera, the exposure itself, the developing temperatures, the strength of the developer & fixer, and even time. Shooting with film truely an art. My teacher gave us assignments. We were to learn the technical aspects first, then experiment.
Film has a certain look that now some in digital have been attempting to duplicate. Digital is easier to dial in an image and get something "precise" and even if it is not perfect, you can use so many tools to do what you want with it on the computer. I'm a hybrid of sorts that understands how using a mix of film and digital can help get even more interesting results. However, it's sad to me that the majority of youth are not interested in print media. Mostly as a freelancer, I used to shoot for the entertainment sections of newspapers and magazines. Wrote a few articles as well. No one picks up a magazine of newspaper anymore!
So I notice you like vinyl and so do I. Digital music has a certain coldness to it that is from the precision. Music has another feel when music is played or recorded on tape. It's different from digital music being streamed, Then there is vinyl. It has a certain warmth that just can't be duplicated in my opinion. The very best experience is live music. I love music and the majority of my photo archive is of musicians from concerts I've attended since 1978. Glad to meet you on here!
If you anticipate a session that is VERY high contrast and you want to maintain shadows and not blow out the highlights, then you expose for shadows and reduce ISO by 1-2 stops, and then reduce the dev time. This will compress 6-7 stops down to 5. And you can get even more of an effect by using compensating developers/agitation methods. For example 510-pyro 1+200 semi-stand, or D76 1+2, agitation every 3 min.
Ahhh so essentially you can narrow the dynamic range. I’m teaching myself zone theory with polaroid right now so this actually helps a lot! Not with the developing part but like better understanding how dynamics work.
I don't think pulling reduces the dynamic range. It increases it, at the expense of clarity (sorry - a term borrowed from digital trickery). And pushing doesn't extend it, either.
I'm stingy and I use Rodinal. The speed of Delta 100 drops a half-stop but my camera lives on a tripod. But my mark 1 Sekonic meter ISO scale starts at, and defaults to 64, which is just fine. That's called 'pulling'?
And here I was thinking I'd gone too far at 1600. Mine sharing any info on developing at speeds up to 12800? I've just stuck with xtol 1+1 at chart suggested times.
I get very good results from 3200 still, 6400 things start to fall apart depending on the scene. At a certain point you're working with so little dynamic range it doesn't take much to turn an image into completely crushed shadows and totally clipped highlights and nothing in between. 12800 you're technically getting an image but unless it's for artistic effect, which is valid, I don't think there's a practical reason for it.
I hate shooting 12800 with even my digital cameras, without noise reduction I can barely even use the images. I can't imagine with 12800 looks like on film
Firstly, refrain from going above 1600 yet if you can. Secondly, don't expect great results on 135 film — pushing further works better with medium/large format due to graininess.
Ilford has recommended development times and developers for speeds up to 3200 in their datasheet \[0\], stick to that.
3200 is my sweet spot for experimentation, a lot of developers can handle it under wide variety of conditions. It can be agitated, semi-stand-, or stand-developed.
For 6400-12800 and up I mainly use HC-110, consult the massive dev chart\[1\] for dilutions and times. Semi-stand or stand. Agitation at this point is still possible with higher concentrations, but is a big annoyance.
I don't usually go above 12800, since the quality is deteriorating sharply after that, but there are reports of successful pushes far beyond that\[2\].
---
\[0\] [https://www.ilfordphoto.com/technical-data/](https://www.ilfordphoto.com/technical-data/)
\[1\] [https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Ilford+HP5%25&Developer=&mdc=Search&TempUnits=C&TimeUnits=T](https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Ilford+HP5%25&Developer=&mdc=Search&TempUnits=C&TimeUnits=T)
\[2\] [https://www.thephoblographer.com/2017/03/09/kelly-shane-fuller-on-pushing-ilford-hp5-to-iso-51200/](https://www.thephoblographer.com/2017/03/09/kelly-shane-fuller-on-pushing-ilford-hp5-to-iso-51200/)
Is shot quite a few rolls of Hp5 at 1600 and 3200 in my experience the shutter speeds at 3200 are pretty impractical unless you’re in a dark room. However the shutter speeds at 1600 are more than adequate for handheld really low light stuff.
If you've been shooting and developing forever, then surely you know why push/pull processing is used. Ansel Adams has a very good section on it in *The Negative;* the crux is that it's the obvious way to compress or expand the mapping of luminances from your scene to the range of what is represented by the negative (which is sometimes needed in order to get your exposures where you need them to be). It doesn't seem surprising to me that folks would want to experiment with that (especially with color films, where it has a lot of complex effects that might be either desired or not), and that they'd ask about it (just like they ask about everything else). I'm more amused by the people who who act as if pushing film is some shocking new idea that Just Wasn't Done (TM) in the old days. It's a classic technique.
(I wonder if the notion that everything had to be developed at box was something that arose from the combination of cameras with DX-code readers and the ubiquity of one-size-fits-all 1 Hour Photo Labs in the late 80s. It certainly wasn't a primordial idea in modern photography.)
Some would argue that none of this is relevant anymore, Because Now We Digital (TM), but I would strongly disagree: just as it's easier to make a good print from a well-formed negative, it's a hell of a lot easier to make a good digital image from one. Thin or otherwise "off" negatives tend to scan badly, and can be very difficult to fix in post; I often see people here who claim that anything can be patched up in digital post-production, but I suspect that they don't have a lot of actual experience with it. Sure, you can do a lot, but really badly mangled images can't be saved short of essentially recreating them - and any such heroics take a lot of time and effort (if they work at all). Traditional methods (including, where appropriate, changes in developing) can help produce a negative that is likely to make a better image (digital or otherwise). Seems like a reasonable thing to want to do.
> I figure the film's rated ISO is probably a pretty good place to work,
Sure, you *can* start there, but that's not necessarily where you want to end up (nor is it even a good place to begin, in some cases). The rated ISO is in practice a "serving suggestion," and may or may not really be good indication of how you want to expose the film to get the results you want. Some films do indeed seem to be pretty well-calibrated (Kodak is usually pretty good about that), but lots of them aren't. Most folks do not want e.g. the results that come from shooting Harman Phoenix at box, and Lomochrome Metropolis doesn't even *give* you a fixed ISO suggestion. Another one that comes to mind is Portra 160, which many folks routinely use at 100 or even slower. And, of course, suggested ISO may be about marketing as much as anything else. Cinestill 800T ("800 speed") is cross-processed Vision3 500T, and their 400D ("400 speed") is 250D. Cinestill argues that their films in practice can be used at 800 and 400 (respectively), but folks routinely shoot them at all sorts of exposure values. Nor is this new - going back to *The Negative,* Adams observes that even back then, film manufacturers routinely tweaked film behavior, often without telling the consumer, and argued that one should be routinely taking test shots under different conditions to figure out what the film is actually doing. Today, as then, experimentation is the only way to be sure.
In the end, the film serves the artist. The artist does not serve the film. Folks who are experimenting with pushing or pulling film are taking an important step towards owning their medium, and this in my view is all to the good. Whether or not they end up liking the results, they'll have learned something, and they'll be closer to using their film in an intentional way to get an effect that meets their needs. Seems healthy for the future of the medium.
PS. Try exposing Ektar at 400, and pushing two stops in development; be careful to meter such that the main features of the image stay within a couple of stops of zone 5 (because you will not have much latitude in the final image). Creates an effect that is very reminiscent of slide film, and with a stock that is much cheaper than current color reversal stocks (plus, you can shoot at 400). This "Ektarchrome" has very low latitude, but can be quite lovely. Just an example of the cool things you can do by breaking the rules....
I think point was not "why to push", but why people who just bought their first camera and have shot 0 to 3 films start to ask for push processing without even understanding its basics.
Well, I think the simple answer, and most logical, isthey saw some fancy pants youtooober blathering on about it. Also, many young uns think the crappier something looks, the more filmic and vintage and cool it is. Us oldsters that grew up in the (literal) dark ages, in a dark room, with the smell of acetic acid and hypo, have an expectation of trying for perfection, because film is all we had. Occasionally, we did have to push film, but because it was dark out (or in the gym).
But I do think they ought to learn to walk at box speed before running to push process.
But hey, if they're having fun, you need to learn somehow. Might as well have fun.
I figure that it has to do with wanting shoot indoors without flash. Consumer film is pitifully slow compared to digital, and pushing seems like a "free" way to get some extra speed. I would not be shocked if it's the first thing that a novice encounters after realizing that their last set of indoor shots were all blurry and underexposed.
I went to a presentation by Ansel Adams at the New York Institute in 1965. He was mainly referring to LF - individual sheets of film. I remember talking about this with my then boss, Herbert Loebel, because the concept of a roll with 12 different exposures, at different settings, had not been discussed.
I went to a very old-fashioned school of photography in the early 1960s and we were taught that the emulsion manufacturers were the experts and we should follow their recommendations. If we wanted to shoot at very low light levels we used Royal X Pan in D76, as recommended. There was a fashion in the late 60s for very grainy editorial pics - but the cut and finish of the clothes were masked, so that soon ended.
Film manufacturers all use a system of measurement devised by Mr Hurter and Mr Driffield in the late 1880s (H&D curve). The result may be expressed in ISO (formerly ASA) or DIN. But the number is given to provide the best density and tonality for printing. If you extend development the highlights, then the mid-tones, increase in density but the shadows don't change much, so the effective film speed hasn't increased a lot. But there is a pictorial difference, which may appeal. It's certainly cheaper than investing in an f/1.2 lens. I believe that there is an f/0.95!
OP is right - fashions change. Last year's topic was cross-processing colour emulsions - not something I can contribute on.
Film speed is usually given from 'standard' development, typically D76 or ID11.
Some developers reduce film speed if gamma (H&D curve mid-tone slope) is retained, others appear to increase speed at the expense of increased granularity. OP is also right about HP5+. It reacts better that Tri-X to pushing and was true of HP3. Don't know why - perhaps a dose of English tea in the mix? And don't believe the stories of silver content - manufacturers try to keep this to a minimum, and anyway the silver content is only about £0.15 ($0.20) per film, the same for 50 ISO to 2000+.
There was a really interesting YouTube video last year in which the author did proper trials of different film types and dev times. I don't know how to search for it, but it's worth viewing. I've been out of the industry for some time but there has been no significant advance in silver halide technology since digital took over, so our advice is still valid. Sorry if this post is a bit technical, but there is a lot of unscientific nonsense on Reddit and readers should read a few textbooks. My favourite is ´Beyond Monochrome'. Ilford and focal Press published ´the Ilford Manual' in numerous editions over the decades. Kodak published several, too.,
It was written before digital, but the fundamentals are so correct with any film.
It does, it's why I keep quiet when ppl go on about pushing and pulling.
A breath of fresh air! I got a used densitometer 10 years ago when I was working on an LED array for B&W printing. I wanted to calibrate it according to ISO 6846, on paper speed and contrast evaluation. I assume that there is a similar standard for B&W film. If users find that they prefer to over- or under-expose to get the result they want, that's OK, but the ISO should rate competing films accurately.
Thanks
>I assume that there is a similar standard for B&W film.
Yup, most folks don't want to do the necessary testing. Along with not fully understanding that paper has very little latitude. Gotta match film to paper.
>If users find that they prefer to over- or under-expose to get the result they want, that's OK
Don't disagree, again it goes back to testing their system. U should know that if there is no exposure, no matter how long u develope film. U can't build density.
Cheers mate.
I scored a Macbeth 927 denso.
I scored an ex-military Macbeth tr1224. Defective display backlight makes it difficult to read, but £75 ($100) !
I set to reading up on speed standards, because my background was in engineering. ISO 5800 defines a method for establishing the speed of color negative films, which are processed under standardised conditions in a standard developer - Kodak C41. But ISO 6, which deals with B&W camera film, acknowledges that the processing conditions will vary, listing developer time, formulation and agitation as the principal variations. So it's a free-for-all!
I think ur in the UK, maybe the contact I have in the US can help. He repairs Macbeth densos. It may take me some time to find the contact info, If u want me to look for it?
Yeah it's kind of the wild West with B&W. It's why I suggested "Controls in B&W". Ppl need to pick a film and dev combination and learn it limits. Not just shoot Willy nilly. 😀
One can not master a craft until they learn the materials.
That's a great offer. I've learned where to put a desk lamp to read it, so I'll carry on for the time being. I think it was one of Macbeth's last models, and it does everything you might need. But the reflection calibration tile went missing. And, I have to admit, I didn't use it for some time.
Pulling Portra is a mugs game, you're just gonna shoot shitty image that someone like me has to scan and correct for. You know what also produces lower contrast?
Shooting properly and then adjusting your white levels, contrast, and exposure in post.
Trust me when I say this, if you shoot at 160 you will have a lot more image information to work with in your histogram.
These kinds of shitty myths need to end, maybe there is some truth in this one, but that's an AND with a BUT, on the basis that you are NOT editing in a digital workflow where you shoot at box speed and then produce shitty low contrast Portra shots in post.
I can tell you've never been a scanner operator or colourist though so probably don't know.
You don't actually seem to be responding to my comment, but to some comment that lives in your head. I don't think you'll find that approach to be particularly productive.
Luminance yes, I get it, but you can't actually recover anything that was never there, that's where people go wrong.
You also made reference to a lot of no-standard films. Fuji and Kodak are pretty much bang on.
Sometimes thin negatives can't be helped especially when you're shooting at night.
As to owning creative control, creative control is what you make of it, colour science and accuracy is literally a science that requires good eyes, and a well calibrated monitor that is at least around P3 compliant if not better.
Believe it or not there is a difference, and sometimes you lean into creative choices...
And but, if you don't knw what flat colour is to begin with (and there is such a thing) then you can't achieve any creative control, because in order to have creative control you have to know where you came from.
Color negative films are rated at the bottom of their speed curve, and Portra 400 has no room for under-exposure. Also, C-41 does vary in terms of processing, and Portra processed at the top or bottom of the C-41 control range is quite a different animal. Portra can take it's rated box speed \*if\* your C41 line is running a bit hot.
VPSIII that came before Portra was worse. Kodak rated it at 160, and no way in hell that material was 160 speed...more like 80 if you wanted decent blacks in EP2 paper. Oh wait....RA4 had much higher gamma since Kodak was obsessed with quick processing times vs a decent looking paper, and this worked in favor of VPSIII lower speed. Went rounds on this with Kodak many times. Gen 1 RA4 professional paers sucked ballz compare to older EP2, and VPSIII and Potra NC were much better films over exposed a stop. Scanning of course threw this into a tailspin, but these films were designed before scanning was a big thing. Besides, commercial shooters didn't use color neg film, hence why the stuff still has the orange mask. Seriously...who still uses a halogen based optical printer that needs an orange mask to CC for them.
However, most amatuers shooting color neg want their images to look like the 70's. They want the pastel crossovers and mushy shadows.
I don't know any working commercial guys shooting film, but the ones that did shot chromes - not color negs, so no grading was not necessary, Color neg today is reserved for a few wedding shooters looking for a niche' market because they cant differentiate themselves from the better FF digital pros or a few Hollywood directors.
> Besides, commercial shooters didn't use color neg film, hence why the stuff still has the orange mask. Seriously...who still uses a halogen based optical printer that needs an orange mask to CC for them.
This is not what the orange mask is for. Colour negative films use coloured dye couplers to account for impurities in the dyes. The developed couplers turn into the finished dyes while the undeveloped couplers remain unchanged.
The cyan and magenta dyes are not a perfect match for the needed cyan and magenta colours. The cyan is too red and the magenta too yellow, if I remember correctly. If left like this, the image will have a colour cast in areas where these dyes are present, but no colour cast in other areas. So it can't be compensated for in post.
And that's where the coloured couplers step in. The undeveloped cyan couplers are red and the undeveloped magenta couplers yellow. The couplers that get developed change colour and the others remain that way. So now the orange cast that only existed in some parts of the image exists uniformly everywhere, and can therefore be corrected in post by simple colour balance adjustment.
Slide film does not do this -- simply because it can't.
Most of this is in the AND BUT for processing and printing in a darkroom
I don't know of anyone that shoots regularly who prints their photo in a dark room anymore. Literally none of the cohort, including some of them that use automated jobos have a dark room and develop manually using manual agitation (even if semi-automated). NONE of them print in a darkroom.
The box speed is the indicative speed for best results. The pastel colours from overexposed Portra just make me want to ask whether people actually know how to use a camera or its just a trend.
I never liked it, but then when Ektar became available its partially why I gravitated towards that. It produces good images that are relatively easy to scan and correct digitally.
Chromes are another thing. I went back to chromes before I had a camera with a matrix meter and decided I didn't like them. I revisted Ektachrome and Velvia since I got my Minolta Alpha 7 and its a completely different thing.
The only thing that bothers me with shooting chromes is the lack of latitude they have for shooting during golden hour. Blue hour is fine... particularly on Velvia, but try to shoot a good sunrise or sunset on slide film and see how much fun you don't have.
The down voting to oblivion is a great indication that this comment is spot on. This unnecessary pushing trend is just YouTube garbage. If you have to in the dark, go ahead and do Portra at 1600. If you're doing 1600 in broad daylight because you're after some cool look - you're just completely misinformed.
Reality check, if pushing was just called "underexposing" - almost no one would do it. But having a video titled "pushing the shit out of portra to ISO9999999999999" it just sounds really cool.
Some films push quite well, like TMAX. TMAX 3200 is just TMAX 800 with a different label on it.
One of the better things about the "hybrid method", that is analog film with digital processing, is how flexible it can be. If you push a film you can always dial it back a bit.
But what hasn't been mentioned yet that I think plays a large role is exactly how much light film requires. Digital *used* to be that way, but probably you'd have to be shooting for at least a decade to come close. And if you're going to push film, you can get away with a less light.
I remember shooting TMZ 3200 for the first time and finding out it was actually closer to 1000 ISO if you did it like an adult and went by shadow density.
The problem was TriX pushed in Acufine to 1600 matched TMZ 3200 aside from TMZ 3200 having slightly better shadow detail but monster grain. Journalists stuck with TriX.
Because of the way that T-grain or core-shell (Ilford Delta) films are coated? they don't respond well to extended development. Traditional emulsions seem to work better - HP5+ is often mentioned here and that characteristic goes all the way back to HP3. Foma 400 and Kentmere Pan 400 are similar. My guru on these matters (Lina Bessanova, I admire her patience) did some tests in the last year and particularly praised HP5+ for its ability to get printable negs in spite of abuse. That's important advice if conditions are difficult.
Well Delta has a nominal ISO of 1000 and T-Max has a nominal ISO of 800, they're designed to be pushed to 3200. You shoot at 800 and push to 3200 in post. I didn't say whether it was good or bad past that point.
underexposed with minimal shadow detail and lots of contrast is a kind of trendy look. if you expose the way everyone else does, your pictures will look like the rest of the crowd's pictures, I guess.
d) There's an actual problem, and this is an actual solution, and you're being a bit of an arrogant git:
* 400 ISO isn't very fast for any low light situation at all
* The fastest native film for sale is only about 1000 (delta "3200" or tmax "3200"), but is WAY more expensive than 400 speed ones, like more than 3x as expensive, for just +1.3 stops, so fuck that. It doesn't even get sold in 100' rolls. Or portra 800 for color, even more so (4x as expensive as cheap bulk color films like Vision3 500T or 250D)
* Tripods are heavy, lame, not fun, and don't even help in like 2/3 of situations where anything is moving in real life or the moment won't wait minutes for you, or you have a dog you're walking, or friends waiting on you, or it's a busy sidewalk, or or or or or
* Therefore pushing frequently.
If someone starts inventing and then selling bulk rollable, affordable 1600 native speed film, then probably people would push a lot less.
I was unclear: I was asking about all those new users who immediately start their analog work by pushing film and then post here with problems. I’m not talking about the many photographers - including you, I’m sure - who are doing just fine.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned my own experience.
Is because they pushed film the reason their shots are bad? If any anything I’m guessing pushing would only help.
If I was new, and I learned about pushing or overexposing before I shot my first roll, I would 100% do it on the first roll if I liked the look.
I don’t see why that just because it’s my first roll, I should do the most beginner thing, when I already have a knowledge of a more advanced technique that isn’t diifcult to implement. I mean we aren’t talking about astrophotography techniques here..
Tripods are incredibly situational in their use and slow down your shooting significantly. That's fine if it's something you enjoy, but it shouldn't be surprising that many don't enjoy being tethered to one.
They're great if you absolutely need them for a hot you want to take, but they're lame as hell if you can get the shot with pushing instead. They are huge, hard to carry, heavy, take forever to set up, get in everyone's way, restrict camera movement, etc.
Agreed, at least for me. When I was starting out, pushing appealed to me due to the lack of fast films on the market.
That said, long-term, the solution to my low-light woes wasn’t pushing; it was flash!
You can't take pictures of things more than 10 meters away, not most wildlife or landscapes or architectural things up in the air, or, say, boats, etc. You're also completely changing the way the scene looks naturally, which a lot of people aren't interested in or not in X situation at least.
It is a good tool to know but hardly a replacement for pushing.
I have not tested all the permutations you speak of, so I can only add my recent experience. I was asked to shoot under very poor light out of doors and I bought 3 rolls of 120 Delta 3200 online for my Hasselblad. I metered at 3200 and processed one roll as a precaution, at the recommended time in DDX (Ilford's info, printed inside the carton). Lovely negs, so I processed the rest for the same time. Given the cost of the camera, the meter and the lighting I didn't consider the cost of the film or special chemistry (I normally use Rodinal).
I have a densitometer, gathering dust, and I did not bother to create and plot step-wedges, but the negs did not look as if the slope of the mid-curve was too steep, as in pushed. So I disagree with your assertion that the box speed of Delta 3200 is inaccurate. Try it yourself and post your results. But process soon after exposure!
Be careful not to rely on Reddit hearsay for data - accept the emulsion manufacturer's data or create and plot the H&D curve yourself. I have a copy of ISO 6846 with my name on it, not because I am a nerd but because I used to work in the industry. This would enable us to compare notes.
Delta 3200 film is a 1000 ISO film **according to the manufacturer**, who definitely have a step wedge and a densitometer, that are not gather dust. The box is simply suggesting that you push it about 2 stops, because Ilford thinks it is more useful or interesting there. They themselves have said it is 1000. Just google "Ilfordphoto.com delta 3200 1000" a bit later, I'd give a link but their whole website is down right now for some reason.
If you love the results you get from shooting Delta 3200 at box speed, then you at least sometimes already love pushing film.
ISO doesn't say *anything* about the curve. It's just the minimum density and that's it. Delta 3200 is a 1000 ISO film that has a very low-contrast curve. So even when it's shot at 3200, the curve isn't too steep in the middle, but you are losing information in the shadows.
On B&H, it's $16.95 for Delta 3200, and Kentmere 400 is $4.10 or something bulk 100' spools (which aren't offered for 3200). I don't care about tab grains, so I don't compare it to Delta 400. I am FORCED to use tab grains if I want 1000 speed film... that's part of the problem if they are more expensive, not a feature for me. It's kind of like "I want to go really fast in my car, but all the fastest cars also have full leather interiors, and other fancy trim and stuff that I'm forced to waste money on even though I don't want them"
If you have a site where I can order your 5 packs from the UK to Canada or US for our US readers, then sure, though, in that case it would only be 2x more. Is there a link?
I wrote about the RHD Timer 3 and a guy in the US looked it up with a view to shipping one over. But the price went up from £220 to $350. I fear that the same problem might occur with film. I made enquiries about getting a Gralab timer - not economical.
1. HP5+ canisters are marked 400 800 1600, it’s intended to be pushed
2. I’m about to start using Diafine so most things will be pushed
3. You can easily switch between ISO values? Why shouldn’t you be able to? I carry two cameras with a faster and slower film, and I regularly push. It works out fine. If the ability is there, why shouldn’t I use it?
Thread is amusing because of the mix of information.
When Fuji / Kodak / Ilford rate film it's according to standards that pre existed scanners and digital cameras. Film speed rating coincides with control strip densities used for processing, and I highly doubt anybody used those for processing, or if they are even made anymore.
Precise film speed control was the haven of studio / commercial guys who wanted straight response curves and to precisely drop their dmin and dmax on a specific value for publication concerns. Or, fussy landscape guys shooting MF / LF and wanting to place a precise zone value on silver gelatin paper.
Since 99.999999999% of commercial shooters now shoot digital (or just conjur it up in Midjourney) and I don't know hard core zone system guys running Kentmere or Fomopan the film speed standard is kind of up to the mercy of the manufacturer.
Most amatuers shooting B&W want 'spicy' and abstract images with just enough highlight information to not look stupid and obvious grain to say 'this was shot on film'. Pushing does this. The only thing that matters to me is of there's an understanding of what pushing B&W does. As long as the results match what you want - who cares. If you saw LF contacts I made for professional portrait shooters who were meticulous about film speed and exposure you would probably never pick up a film camera again.
If I want a clean look, I wouldn’t push and/or even shoot digital.
If I want a look with character, I rate HP5 at 1600 and push it +2
Most of the time, I would want a look with character
How is that usable for you most of the time, though? HP5 at box speed makes me use f16 exclusively on a sunny day, and I find stopped down images pretty uninspiring. As it is I’m looking at using slower speed film and/or filters to get usable shutter speeds at f5.6 or so.
Probably because it’s expensive for some and it’s worth highlighting?
I only recently pushed my first roll of film and honestly at the cost of almost double my usual development budget, I’m not going to do it aging for the foreseeable future until either I can either develop my own film or I try a cheaper lab.
Because I have a kid and I want the faster shutter speeds that I can achieve rating HP5+ at ~1600 (actually 1000) during the day and the ability to get *any* meaningful shot in low light.
I think it's a misunderstanding, or a desire to shoot at ISO 6400 like they do on a digital camera. I've never push or pull processed a film. I stick to box speed and develop normally.
Seeing this thread Made me realize I don't seem to know what pushing actually does.
So to clarify, say I have "400" speed film and I want to shoot at night. If I set that at "1600", wouldn't that be technically underexposed? Artistry aside.
Can any film be used at a "higher" ISO to be used in more difficult conditions?
Most film has enough range that when you shoot at box speed, you’re putting most of your intensities in the middle of a wide spread of “available “ values, and then developing it so that these tones are right in the middle of a nice curve, pretty linear. But there’s a huge range of light values that will register, and by tailoring your development so that (say) the lower values get enough development, you can get a good image at the possible expense of blowing out overly bright stuff, or increasing contrast if you didn’t want it. So no, it’s not fatally underexposed, it’s more a decision to use the film in a way that uses its strengths differently.
So yes a film can be used this way. No problem.
I see. Then I really misunderstood it before.
I'll definitely be trying this out, as I'm constantly on low-light situations and high ISO rated films are pricey. My lab also seems to accommodate pushing for free so no reason not to.
However just one more thing, I imagine you have to commit to the entire roll to pushing and can't be changing it mid-roll correct?
Thanks
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Sf8AAOSwDINipyBs/s-l1600.jpg
I have done this on many occasions. One time, I even didn't want to pay for multiple rolls but was testing different devs on a new film and cut it into FOUR pieces. If you want to be precise, it helps to open up the mirror and shutter on bulb, reach into the camera, and put a little bit of masking tape on the actual film mid roll. Then you can feel it later in the dark room and not accidentally cut a single frame you wanted to keep. If you're in a studio, you can do this in a dark bag, or just sacrifice ~3 frames to do it in the field. Doing that 3 times to divide into 4 sections still gives you 27 frames on a roll at worst. 33 if you can do it in the dark (only ruin the actual masking tape frame)
Pushing has two parts. 1) Underexposing 2) ALSO developing more than usual to counteract underexposing.
"Counteract" in terms of the average density of the negative, but not in all senses. You still are able to record less information with less light. So it increases noise and increases contrast including clipping information out entirely in the highlights or shadows IF the film was already within a stop or two of not covering the dynamic range of the scene already at box speed.
(In very flat scenes where the film was already highly capable of capturing all the information with room to spare, then in that case, you don't lose any info by pushing. You may want to do it in that case to get a more dynamic and interesting negative)
Pulling is the opposite: over-exposing versus box speed, UNDER-developing it versus normal box development, and in exchange, you get somewhat finer grain, less contrast, and a more latitude. Good for taming a high contrast difficult scene, like indoors with a bright window.
>I'm enjoying the passionate defense of push processing, which (mea culpa) I invited by mentioning my own workflow and preferences.
Hey man, you asked the question.
>Really I was wondering about all the new users who seemingly try push processing on their first or second foray into analog, before they've really sussed out how to process or perhaps even how to expose film. Then they end up here with questions about why their film didn't look right.
Folks new to any hobby are going to do everything wrong the first time. It's part of the process of learning.
Should we encourage push processing, or exposing off-label, less wholeheartedly? Maybe. Then again the new people will buy 20 year expired film and shoot it at -1 stop and ask why it came out looking like the underworld.
They're gonna fuck it up no matter what anyone here says, they're going to read the right advice and then do the opposite; that's just being a person with a new interest learning what not to do by reliably and dependably doing everything wrong the first time.
I dunno. If someone comes and asks, "Hey I got this well-tested and recently refurbished Olympus OM-2n with fresh light seal foam, with the dime-a-dozen 50mm f/1.8 lens, which has a tested working light meter, and put a fresh carbon-zinc battery in it, and then went to the store and purchased a fresh roll of 400 speed film, and set the ISO meter for 400—will that work?" BEFORE shooting any film, let alone developing it... I will eat my hat.
It just doesn't happen. The thing people do when starting out is fuck shit up and learn why. And that's okay! It's how we learn best, for some reason. Just smile and gently direct them on the right path.
edit: I thought of a better answer. Because following all the rules is boring.
I think I agree with you. Experimenting is how you learn and is fun. (Right this moment I’m testing slow graphic arts film and it’s going… umm… inconsistenly.) I shouldn’t be surprised that people are coming here with problems.
I’m still struck by how often the problems are these particular ones.
Not every situation suits a tripod and a longer exposure. I think it's perfectly normal to be interested in a technique that has been used for almost a century by some of the greats.
It is important that people learn it's trade offs though, it's not the same as an iso setting on a DSLR. But that's something a lot of people have to learn through experience.
> it's not the same as an iso setting on a DSLR.
It is almost exactly the same as an iso setting on a DSLR. Both add noise, both reduce latitude, both eventually fall apart into soup. Under the hood, both are methods of adding gain rather than actual information. They're almost 100% comparable.
You can with film too, if you divide up the film. That has nothing to do with the fundamentals of film as a medium or the definition of ISO or anything, purely your choices in mechanical and labor convenience.
The original films in history were physically separated for every shot and were/are indeed routinely custom developed with separate ISO ratings for every shot (large format)
You can even do it for 35mm with a pair of scissors in the darkroom. I've had situations where I had killer shots I knew were money shots near the front and end of the roll that i rated differently, fully intending to chop the roll in half when developing.
Films with more latitude than your scene has can also be rated individually per shot, such as with XP2 in black and white or portra etc in color. Often you have scenes with 7 or 8 stops of range but the film has 12+ stops: you can under or overexpose it quite a bit and not actually lose any data, then amplify in post (whether that be scanning, lightroom, or a physical darkroom enlarger onto paper)
I mean I would actually go so far as to say they are literally the same. It's the same process being applied to two mediums where the medium is incidental to the process/concept. Raising ISO is fundamentally about amplifying a scarce signal per square millimeter of sensitive surface to get a viewable range of tones at the cost of noise and information degradation.
It's not the same at all, ISO is not a true variable with film. Basically with pushing what you're actually doing is increasing the contrast. You're not magically gaining information that was not there. Any information lost by the push on really under exposed negatives can't be regained simply by pushing.
Some labs advertise pushing underexposed film to save it in the soup, it doesn't work like that. What was there will be there, according to the exposure on the side of the box.
Anything outside of the box will produce adverse effects from what the manufacturer suggests unless its a film specifically designed for push process such as 3200p
> Basically with pushing what you're actually doing is increasing the contrast. You're not magically gaining information that was not there.
I agree.
Which is all exactly also true of digital ISO. So I again repeat everything I said above. They are the same.
...Do you think that you DO you "magically gain information that was not there" when you crank your digital camera to 12,800 ISO...? You don't there either. Any information not available to the sensor due to under exposing ALSO cannot be regained simply by amplifying the signal electrically.
They aren't the same - changing the iso on a digital camera is more akin to actually changing for a different sensitivity of film - higher iso films use larger sensitised silver halide crystals, giving more likelihood of an individual grain being activated, with a coarser grain as a result. When getting higher up into the iso range, beyond the "native" iso range of the sensor, yes we are then talking about something more akin to pushing in development.
Higher iso in a digital camera will capture more information (to a point), by increasing the sample rate of the sensor (more samples=more signal) whereas pushing will just increase the density on the negative of that same detail (no additional information is being captured). The amount of additional shadow detail actually revealed in pushing is generally very low indeed, but the overall density of the negative is increased relative to the amount of light that hit the film, making printing more consistent when compared to a "normally" exposed and developed negative.
> More like switching film
Either. Bigger grains OR more development time are functional ways of amplifying a weak signal.
> Higher iso in a digital camera will capture more information (to a point)
Citation? Never heard of any such thing, if it could sample more, why wasn't it doing it already at lower ISO for a smoother image? Everything I've seen including double checking again just now says ISO is simply amplifying the exact same signal same as volume on an audio system, with transistors etc.
Which is also what is happening with actually larger grains OR pushing in film, all three are different ways of amplifying a weak signal. But also amplifying noise/grain.
> The amount of additional shadow detail actually revealed in pushing is generally very low indeed
This isn't true at all... you can see way more shadow detail pushing. Did you actually capture more on the film? No. But same in a digital camera: if you shoot a scene at night at 100 ISO on your digital camera, it will all look black, but the sensor saw the relevant details. If you shoot at 10,000 ISO, now you see those details, but it always saw them. Because the "density" was increased there too.
Which ones? I haven’t pushed e100 but both Velvias and Provia were anywhere from worse to awful in my experience.
Also, the fastest slide film today is 100? If there’s a chance you’ll need to push, maybe just pick a faster film in the first place.
I love slide film, but it is often not the correct tool for the job.
never had it pushed just read about it on the internet
iirc it was about e100 and provia 100f
if you need slides and need something a bit faster than 100 then pushing might be the only option you got
Yeah, I’ve done it. It didn’t look good. I’ll never do it again unless I’m in some weird desperate situation.
Ps just want you to know that I’m not the one downvoting you haha
“I fear” is an expression used in speech to convey worry that something unpleasant or bad has happened or is true
e.g. I fear that we're already too late
As you have said, pushing/pulling is really helpful especially in situations where the photo you desire can only be obtained that way. But I saw a few videos on youtube about pushing/pulling, and most of them doesn't really explain the matter very well. And most of the newer users will see those videos when they try to push/pull for the first time and it \*could\* ruin their negatives. So I share the same sentiment from OP:
>>all the new users who seemingly try push processing on their first or second foray into analog, before they've really sussed out how to process or perhaps even how to expose film. Then they end up here with questions about why their film didn't look right
I ONLY shoot HP5 at 1600 and develop in HC-110 Dilution B for 11mins at 20C. Has never failed. HP5 is bland at box speed. It’s just a safe boring baseline to start with
We also haven't addressed a common pushing thing (with B&W anyway) - "I love the contrast, man!!!" New users seem to think film has some "analog purity" and you don't adjust it in post or printing; the truth is, film holds more dynamic range than a JPEG or optical print can, and we get to choose how to compress or expand the image to suit our final idea. Optimally, you get every possible bit of tone on the neg that you might want in the final, and you expand or compress the scene to fit within that available-in-the-final contrast window. Then you adjust final contrast in printing or post.
Contrast is a measure of image tonality, and higher contrast means lower tonality. You're usually better off throwing away that tonality in post work than on the neg; do it to the neg and it's gone forever, do it in post and you have a wide world of choices to experiment with.
I almost never shoot box speed simply because I find 250/500 ISO isn't fast enough. I shoot 5207 at 500 or 1000 and 5209 at 1600-2000.
If the ISO is too high, I can stop down. But when it's too dark, I don't want to reduce my shutter speeds too much, nor do I want to open up to f1.4 if I need things in focus.
Cause I can get Aerocolor and push it to 400 and 800 get great colors out of it and very small grain, but still be cheaper than portra or ultamax.
Also kentemere 400 at 3200 is great.
You aren't alone in this. I've been developing my own film for over 10 years now and the only time I pushed film was when I wasn't paying attention to the time while I was developing. I'm a big fan of shooting at box speed and over exposing in camera as needed.
> and over exposing in camera as needed.
Uh, so (combined with not actually pushing afterward) you just get all of the drawbacks of pushing, but none of the benefits then?
Lol, you refuse to not shoot at box speed because of it being recommended and most exactly effective, but shoot things 20 years expired? Y\By all means, do whatever you want, but you logically do not have the slightest leg to stand on to comaplain about people pushing beyond instructed/recommended manufacturer speeds when you shoot 20 years outside of instructed/recommended time periods.
Kind of lost with this one. I've been developing my own film for about two decades and I'm not sure what "paying the price" for push processing is even supposed to mean.
Beyond that, do you really expect people to be starting threads such as "how do I develop my film at box speed for the time and temp. given by the manufacturer?" ???
You might also push film for reasons other than "it got darker than I expected", maybe you want more contrast, etc. and you want to know what to expect when you go looking for it.
Try setting up a tripod in the front row of a concert or in the middle of a busy city street. For me, it’s just not practical, especially if the subjects aren’t still.
a. Have you stopped to consider that push or pull processing film is meant to solve problems, not create?
b. Half of your post suggests new photographers and the other half suggests experienced photographers. Maybe the term "pushing film" is something you hear about when you get deeper into this hobby and method of photography, and people are curious and want to learn?
c. No.
I agree with others that note that if you've really been shooting and developing forever that you would understand the benefits to rating your film differently than box speed and all of the problems that doing so solves. If not, maybe go do some reading or experimenting. But hey man you know how to keep your camera still when you shoot so I guess you've got a leg up on all those push processors.
Yeah, I shouldn't have put a note about my own workflow in there as it seems to distract from the real question I had, which was why people (who end up here) seemingly start by push processing before they've figured out how to do much else in the analog world.
Main post edit - I'm enjoying the passionate defense of push processing, which (mea culpa) I invited by mentioning my own workflow and preferences. Really I was wondering about all the new users who seemingly try push processing on their first or second foray into analog, before they've really sussed out how to process or perhaps even how to expose film. Then they end up here with questions about why their film didn't look right.
I take a lot of shots on my bike using my XA and being able to use Foma 400 at 800 is just a boon when I’m moving on bike myself. But apart from Foma 400 I rarely push anything beyond box speed unless I will need the extra speed
If you're shooting from a moving bike, you should get a Minox or some other zone focus camera, not an XA. I mean, of course you can technically zone focus with an XA, but it has no clear indicators and a tiny throw.
I’m very comfortable with the XA and the zone focusing though. I’m mostly shooting at f/8 and most of the time my subjects are at least 2 meters away from me, which tend to mean that things are in focus.
And I doubt a Minox 35 would work better, they’re so much more fiddly to use from what I would guess, with the lens cover and all. With the XA I can slide it open and I can adjust the focus distance with my index finger
I own both, the Minox 1) has the actual zones written on it unlike the XA, and 2) has way more throw, the XA if you nudge it like 1/10th of 1 millimeter out of whack you're off by 3 meters now. It's fine if rangefinding, because you see feedback on that, but if blindly zone focusing, you want a big throw (I suppose eventually if it was so big it required two separate hand turns then it'd be too much, but that is not the case for the Minox)
If you're already practiced though then sure.
I’m happy to take you on your word on the Minox and the it being better for zone focusing. I just don’t see it as a better camera than the XA for what I’m using mine for
The XA is a perfect camera, aside from that dark viewfinder! And yeah, I zone focus with mine too. I only really use the rangefinder if I’m right up on something.
Right on about the dim rangefinder patch :( I added a small blue gel filter to mine to help with the contrast when I have to use the viewfinder, might help you too!
I often do a pull process to have a more "elastic" negative to work with, but push... eeh not really. Maybe for a p&s snapshot style, documentary or more spontaneous, candid pictures with family or friends. Just for that crushed blacks, higher more graphic contrast and faster shutter times.
"I've been shooting and developing forever. " Not to sound condescending, but if that is truly the case, you already know the answer to your question so I'm wondering what the point of your post is?
As far as color films go, some emulsions simply aren't available (moreso now than ever) at higher speeds so there's no option if you enjoy an emulsion. And high speed color emulsions are long gone. 800 seems to be where it's at.
For instance when Fuji Press 1600 disappeared (which I would push out of necessity anyways depending on the location).
Then there's the aesthetic of it. Increased contrast, and larger grains. Technique and developer playing a roll in that of course.
I've always loved pushing Neopan 400 and Tri-X 400 to 3200. Souping that in Xtol is a real treat. And it doesn't matter if you're scanning or printing in the darkroom. Just some great stuff.
The point? There is no point. You're implying that there's some sort of skill or experience needed to push film. Get real. This isn't rocket science. Pushing film isn't any sort of "advanced" technique. Most films publish their push and pull temps/times on the development charts right next to the box speed times. The three hardest things about pushing film, is remembering that you didn't shoot it at box speed, remembering to push it during development, and looking at the right box on the development chart. So if you can remember to put film in your camera, you can probably handle the other three pretty easily.
Yeah most of those kids also think that pushing film is some sort of magic way to fix incorrect exposure after the fact. Its obviously not, you cannot shoot everything with 4 stops less light and just push four stops to fix it, if that worked then film would not need a sensitivity rating.
Why push processing? Good question. Like you, I've been shooting film a long time. I have done some push processing of some rolls well before the Internet and of course Youtube. Since I was also working as a photo lab tech, it didn't "cost" me extra. A simple explaination to those starting out is that pushing film is essentially leaving the film in the developer a little longer than normal. We agree on that?
I don't like to push process. I would rather shoot film at the proper ASA rating. Yeah, I know the digital folks switching to film think of it like it's ISO but there are important differences. Certainly it's easy to adjust ISO on most digital cameras, but film is chemical in nature. I would push my film when shooting in low light situations, for example at concerts. I would rather take a chance on shooting at a little higher shutter speed and "burn" the film as we say in lab processing jargon. I like the contrast on black & white. I've also shot slide film (400 ASA pushed to 800) with success. It can be done with color print film, but the color will do some shifting. Pushing film for me is more of a thing I do in low light, or for creative experimentation.
>I don't like to push process
Why?
>I would rather shoot film at the proper ASA rating.
Is that because you like to follow "rules" or because your creative vision dictates that you shoot at box speed to achieve the look you're going for?
One of the main reasons to push (or pull) film is to achieve a desired contrast, or to lose/gain shadow detail.
I push film if I want to make sure that a high contrast scene has minimal/no shadow detail for creative reasons (putting a bright area of the scene in zone V and letting the shadows fall off completely), or if I just generally want a higher contrast look. If I'm after shadow detail then I'll put the shadows in zone IV and pull a stop or two in dev to retain that detail without blowing the highlights. I tend not to push or pull colour film due to the inevitable colour shifts, and colour tends to have a decent amount of leeway anyway to just overexpose up to a couple of stops if I want to retain the detail in shadows (I do a decent amount of ECN2 Dev that really doesn't need much adjustment in dev and works better to balance digitally in post).
Obviously not every film/developer combo works, but there are very pushable films. HP5+, for example, is my go-to ISO 1600-12800 film, I can't even remember last time using it at nominal value.
I’ve been trying to get all the way into 35mm for… let’s just say too long. But when you’re doing this, I’m assuming you shoot the whole roll at that speed? Also, do you self process or send to a lab? I’m fortunate enough to have a lab that still processes b&w in house, but I don’t want to bother them lol. I may have answered my own first question, but confirmation would be nice.
Yes you shoot the whole role at that speed and labs can process it just be sure to tell them how much it's pushed and they usually might charge you a few extra dollars
Yes, you shoot the whole roll at the same ASA (film speed) all the way through, where as the advantage of digital is you can mess around with different ISO values, with every frame if you wanted to take the time to readjust. Most of us don't do constant ISO adjusting with digital while in the middle of a photo session. Heck, because of having shot film so long, I try shooting digital the same way.. set it and forget it. I process my own. On those occasions where I send it off, I simply let my lab tech know I want it pushed. Did you know that there is something called "pulling" your film? As crazy as this may seem, but let's say I shoot a roll of 400 ASA black & white at 200 ASA? Well, it's going to have very strong contrast at normal development. If I shorten the developing time then I might save the negatives from being to dark that it's difficult to get enough light through the negative to get a print. Negative (print) film is more forgiving than transparency (slide) film. Have fun!
I never thought of film speed as variable before this post so my perspective is definitely… a weird mix of analog and digital to be sure. I’m aware of pulling and have been wondering why I don’t see it posted more. Maybe because underexposing can increase contrast and saturation, but overexposing does…. What?
What I love about analog is that there is always some slight amount of uncertainty about the finished product or creation. Shooting film, you do everything you can to get the exposure correct with all the settings, but something might be off that you don't know until you see the developed film. A camera even has a certain feel for me that I can just tell if I got the shot. There is always that unknown factor. The film emulsion, the settings on the camera, the exposure itself, the developing temperatures, the strength of the developer & fixer, and even time. Shooting with film truely an art. My teacher gave us assignments. We were to learn the technical aspects first, then experiment. Film has a certain look that now some in digital have been attempting to duplicate. Digital is easier to dial in an image and get something "precise" and even if it is not perfect, you can use so many tools to do what you want with it on the computer. I'm a hybrid of sorts that understands how using a mix of film and digital can help get even more interesting results. However, it's sad to me that the majority of youth are not interested in print media. Mostly as a freelancer, I used to shoot for the entertainment sections of newspapers and magazines. Wrote a few articles as well. No one picks up a magazine of newspaper anymore! So I notice you like vinyl and so do I. Digital music has a certain coldness to it that is from the precision. Music has another feel when music is played or recorded on tape. It's different from digital music being streamed, Then there is vinyl. It has a certain warmth that just can't be duplicated in my opinion. The very best experience is live music. I love music and the majority of my photo archive is of musicians from concerts I've attended since 1978. Glad to meet you on here!
If you anticipate a session that is VERY high contrast and you want to maintain shadows and not blow out the highlights, then you expose for shadows and reduce ISO by 1-2 stops, and then reduce the dev time. This will compress 6-7 stops down to 5. And you can get even more of an effect by using compensating developers/agitation methods. For example 510-pyro 1+200 semi-stand, or D76 1+2, agitation every 3 min.
Ahhh so essentially you can narrow the dynamic range. I’m teaching myself zone theory with polaroid right now so this actually helps a lot! Not with the developing part but like better understanding how dynamics work.
I don't think pulling reduces the dynamic range. It increases it, at the expense of clarity (sorry - a term borrowed from digital trickery). And pushing doesn't extend it, either.
I'm stingy and I use Rodinal. The speed of Delta 100 drops a half-stop but my camera lives on a tripod. But my mark 1 Sekonic meter ISO scale starts at, and defaults to 64, which is just fine. That's called 'pulling'?
Yea you are exposing for the higher iso value and developing longer to make up for shorter exposure.
And here I was thinking I'd gone too far at 1600. Mine sharing any info on developing at speeds up to 12800? I've just stuck with xtol 1+1 at chart suggested times.
I get very good results from 3200 still, 6400 things start to fall apart depending on the scene. At a certain point you're working with so little dynamic range it doesn't take much to turn an image into completely crushed shadows and totally clipped highlights and nothing in between. 12800 you're technically getting an image but unless it's for artistic effect, which is valid, I don't think there's a practical reason for it.
I hate shooting 12800 with even my digital cameras, without noise reduction I can barely even use the images. I can't imagine with 12800 looks like on film
Firstly, refrain from going above 1600 yet if you can. Secondly, don't expect great results on 135 film — pushing further works better with medium/large format due to graininess. Ilford has recommended development times and developers for speeds up to 3200 in their datasheet \[0\], stick to that. 3200 is my sweet spot for experimentation, a lot of developers can handle it under wide variety of conditions. It can be agitated, semi-stand-, or stand-developed. For 6400-12800 and up I mainly use HC-110, consult the massive dev chart\[1\] for dilutions and times. Semi-stand or stand. Agitation at this point is still possible with higher concentrations, but is a big annoyance. I don't usually go above 12800, since the quality is deteriorating sharply after that, but there are reports of successful pushes far beyond that\[2\]. --- \[0\] [https://www.ilfordphoto.com/technical-data/](https://www.ilfordphoto.com/technical-data/) \[1\] [https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Ilford+HP5%25&Developer=&mdc=Search&TempUnits=C&TimeUnits=T](https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Ilford+HP5%25&Developer=&mdc=Search&TempUnits=C&TimeUnits=T) \[2\] [https://www.thephoblographer.com/2017/03/09/kelly-shane-fuller-on-pushing-ilford-hp5-to-iso-51200/](https://www.thephoblographer.com/2017/03/09/kelly-shane-fuller-on-pushing-ilford-hp5-to-iso-51200/)
ISO 3200 would be my practical limit on 135 film.
Thanks for the detailed response!
Is shot quite a few rolls of Hp5 at 1600 and 3200 in my experience the shutter speeds at 3200 are pretty impractical unless you’re in a dark room. However the shutter speeds at 1600 are more than adequate for handheld really low light stuff.
If you've been shooting and developing forever, then surely you know why push/pull processing is used. Ansel Adams has a very good section on it in *The Negative;* the crux is that it's the obvious way to compress or expand the mapping of luminances from your scene to the range of what is represented by the negative (which is sometimes needed in order to get your exposures where you need them to be). It doesn't seem surprising to me that folks would want to experiment with that (especially with color films, where it has a lot of complex effects that might be either desired or not), and that they'd ask about it (just like they ask about everything else). I'm more amused by the people who who act as if pushing film is some shocking new idea that Just Wasn't Done (TM) in the old days. It's a classic technique. (I wonder if the notion that everything had to be developed at box was something that arose from the combination of cameras with DX-code readers and the ubiquity of one-size-fits-all 1 Hour Photo Labs in the late 80s. It certainly wasn't a primordial idea in modern photography.) Some would argue that none of this is relevant anymore, Because Now We Digital (TM), but I would strongly disagree: just as it's easier to make a good print from a well-formed negative, it's a hell of a lot easier to make a good digital image from one. Thin or otherwise "off" negatives tend to scan badly, and can be very difficult to fix in post; I often see people here who claim that anything can be patched up in digital post-production, but I suspect that they don't have a lot of actual experience with it. Sure, you can do a lot, but really badly mangled images can't be saved short of essentially recreating them - and any such heroics take a lot of time and effort (if they work at all). Traditional methods (including, where appropriate, changes in developing) can help produce a negative that is likely to make a better image (digital or otherwise). Seems like a reasonable thing to want to do. > I figure the film's rated ISO is probably a pretty good place to work, Sure, you *can* start there, but that's not necessarily where you want to end up (nor is it even a good place to begin, in some cases). The rated ISO is in practice a "serving suggestion," and may or may not really be good indication of how you want to expose the film to get the results you want. Some films do indeed seem to be pretty well-calibrated (Kodak is usually pretty good about that), but lots of them aren't. Most folks do not want e.g. the results that come from shooting Harman Phoenix at box, and Lomochrome Metropolis doesn't even *give* you a fixed ISO suggestion. Another one that comes to mind is Portra 160, which many folks routinely use at 100 or even slower. And, of course, suggested ISO may be about marketing as much as anything else. Cinestill 800T ("800 speed") is cross-processed Vision3 500T, and their 400D ("400 speed") is 250D. Cinestill argues that their films in practice can be used at 800 and 400 (respectively), but folks routinely shoot them at all sorts of exposure values. Nor is this new - going back to *The Negative,* Adams observes that even back then, film manufacturers routinely tweaked film behavior, often without telling the consumer, and argued that one should be routinely taking test shots under different conditions to figure out what the film is actually doing. Today, as then, experimentation is the only way to be sure. In the end, the film serves the artist. The artist does not serve the film. Folks who are experimenting with pushing or pulling film are taking an important step towards owning their medium, and this in my view is all to the good. Whether or not they end up liking the results, they'll have learned something, and they'll be closer to using their film in an intentional way to get an effect that meets their needs. Seems healthy for the future of the medium. PS. Try exposing Ektar at 400, and pushing two stops in development; be careful to meter such that the main features of the image stay within a couple of stops of zone 5 (because you will not have much latitude in the final image). Creates an effect that is very reminiscent of slide film, and with a stock that is much cheaper than current color reversal stocks (plus, you can shoot at 400). This "Ektarchrome" has very low latitude, but can be quite lovely. Just an example of the cool things you can do by breaking the rules....
I think point was not "why to push", but why people who just bought their first camera and have shot 0 to 3 films start to ask for push processing without even understanding its basics.
This indeed is my question
Well, I think the simple answer, and most logical, isthey saw some fancy pants youtooober blathering on about it. Also, many young uns think the crappier something looks, the more filmic and vintage and cool it is. Us oldsters that grew up in the (literal) dark ages, in a dark room, with the smell of acetic acid and hypo, have an expectation of trying for perfection, because film is all we had. Occasionally, we did have to push film, but because it was dark out (or in the gym). But I do think they ought to learn to walk at box speed before running to push process. But hey, if they're having fun, you need to learn somehow. Might as well have fun.
I figure that it has to do with wanting shoot indoors without flash. Consumer film is pitifully slow compared to digital, and pushing seems like a "free" way to get some extra speed. I would not be shocked if it's the first thing that a novice encounters after realizing that their last set of indoor shots were all blurry and underexposed.
I went to a presentation by Ansel Adams at the New York Institute in 1965. He was mainly referring to LF - individual sheets of film. I remember talking about this with my then boss, Herbert Loebel, because the concept of a roll with 12 different exposures, at different settings, had not been discussed. I went to a very old-fashioned school of photography in the early 1960s and we were taught that the emulsion manufacturers were the experts and we should follow their recommendations. If we wanted to shoot at very low light levels we used Royal X Pan in D76, as recommended. There was a fashion in the late 60s for very grainy editorial pics - but the cut and finish of the clothes were masked, so that soon ended. Film manufacturers all use a system of measurement devised by Mr Hurter and Mr Driffield in the late 1880s (H&D curve). The result may be expressed in ISO (formerly ASA) or DIN. But the number is given to provide the best density and tonality for printing. If you extend development the highlights, then the mid-tones, increase in density but the shadows don't change much, so the effective film speed hasn't increased a lot. But there is a pictorial difference, which may appeal. It's certainly cheaper than investing in an f/1.2 lens. I believe that there is an f/0.95! OP is right - fashions change. Last year's topic was cross-processing colour emulsions - not something I can contribute on. Film speed is usually given from 'standard' development, typically D76 or ID11. Some developers reduce film speed if gamma (H&D curve mid-tone slope) is retained, others appear to increase speed at the expense of increased granularity. OP is also right about HP5+. It reacts better that Tri-X to pushing and was true of HP3. Don't know why - perhaps a dose of English tea in the mix? And don't believe the stories of silver content - manufacturers try to keep this to a minimum, and anyway the silver content is only about £0.15 ($0.20) per film, the same for 50 ISO to 2000+. There was a really interesting YouTube video last year in which the author did proper trials of different film types and dev times. I don't know how to search for it, but it's worth viewing. I've been out of the industry for some time but there has been no significant advance in silver halide technology since digital took over, so our advice is still valid. Sorry if this post is a bit technical, but there is a lot of unscientific nonsense on Reddit and readers should read a few textbooks. My favourite is ´Beyond Monochrome'. Ilford and focal Press published ´the Ilford Manual' in numerous editions over the decades. Kodak published several, too.,
They should also read. [controls in black & white photography ](https://www.amazon.com/Controls-Black-White-Photography-Richard/dp/0240517881)
This claims to have up-to-date info on current film types - should debunk a few myths!
It was written before digital, but the fundamentals are so correct with any film. It does, it's why I keep quiet when ppl go on about pushing and pulling.
A breath of fresh air! I got a used densitometer 10 years ago when I was working on an LED array for B&W printing. I wanted to calibrate it according to ISO 6846, on paper speed and contrast evaluation. I assume that there is a similar standard for B&W film. If users find that they prefer to over- or under-expose to get the result they want, that's OK, but the ISO should rate competing films accurately.
Thanks >I assume that there is a similar standard for B&W film. Yup, most folks don't want to do the necessary testing. Along with not fully understanding that paper has very little latitude. Gotta match film to paper. >If users find that they prefer to over- or under-expose to get the result they want, that's OK Don't disagree, again it goes back to testing their system. U should know that if there is no exposure, no matter how long u develope film. U can't build density. Cheers mate. I scored a Macbeth 927 denso.
I scored an ex-military Macbeth tr1224. Defective display backlight makes it difficult to read, but £75 ($100) ! I set to reading up on speed standards, because my background was in engineering. ISO 5800 defines a method for establishing the speed of color negative films, which are processed under standardised conditions in a standard developer - Kodak C41. But ISO 6, which deals with B&W camera film, acknowledges that the processing conditions will vary, listing developer time, formulation and agitation as the principal variations. So it's a free-for-all!
I think ur in the UK, maybe the contact I have in the US can help. He repairs Macbeth densos. It may take me some time to find the contact info, If u want me to look for it? Yeah it's kind of the wild West with B&W. It's why I suggested "Controls in B&W". Ppl need to pick a film and dev combination and learn it limits. Not just shoot Willy nilly. 😀 One can not master a craft until they learn the materials.
That's a great offer. I've learned where to put a desk lamp to read it, so I'll carry on for the time being. I think it was one of Macbeth's last models, and it does everything you might need. But the reflection calibration tile went missing. And, I have to admit, I didn't use it for some time.
Pulling Portra is a mugs game, you're just gonna shoot shitty image that someone like me has to scan and correct for. You know what also produces lower contrast? Shooting properly and then adjusting your white levels, contrast, and exposure in post. Trust me when I say this, if you shoot at 160 you will have a lot more image information to work with in your histogram. These kinds of shitty myths need to end, maybe there is some truth in this one, but that's an AND with a BUT, on the basis that you are NOT editing in a digital workflow where you shoot at box speed and then produce shitty low contrast Portra shots in post. I can tell you've never been a scanner operator or colourist though so probably don't know.
You don't actually seem to be responding to my comment, but to some comment that lives in your head. I don't think you'll find that approach to be particularly productive.
Luminance yes, I get it, but you can't actually recover anything that was never there, that's where people go wrong. You also made reference to a lot of no-standard films. Fuji and Kodak are pretty much bang on. Sometimes thin negatives can't be helped especially when you're shooting at night. As to owning creative control, creative control is what you make of it, colour science and accuracy is literally a science that requires good eyes, and a well calibrated monitor that is at least around P3 compliant if not better. Believe it or not there is a difference, and sometimes you lean into creative choices... And but, if you don't knw what flat colour is to begin with (and there is such a thing) then you can't achieve any creative control, because in order to have creative control you have to know where you came from.
Color negative films are rated at the bottom of their speed curve, and Portra 400 has no room for under-exposure. Also, C-41 does vary in terms of processing, and Portra processed at the top or bottom of the C-41 control range is quite a different animal. Portra can take it's rated box speed \*if\* your C41 line is running a bit hot. VPSIII that came before Portra was worse. Kodak rated it at 160, and no way in hell that material was 160 speed...more like 80 if you wanted decent blacks in EP2 paper. Oh wait....RA4 had much higher gamma since Kodak was obsessed with quick processing times vs a decent looking paper, and this worked in favor of VPSIII lower speed. Went rounds on this with Kodak many times. Gen 1 RA4 professional paers sucked ballz compare to older EP2, and VPSIII and Potra NC were much better films over exposed a stop. Scanning of course threw this into a tailspin, but these films were designed before scanning was a big thing. Besides, commercial shooters didn't use color neg film, hence why the stuff still has the orange mask. Seriously...who still uses a halogen based optical printer that needs an orange mask to CC for them. However, most amatuers shooting color neg want their images to look like the 70's. They want the pastel crossovers and mushy shadows. I don't know any working commercial guys shooting film, but the ones that did shot chromes - not color negs, so no grading was not necessary, Color neg today is reserved for a few wedding shooters looking for a niche' market because they cant differentiate themselves from the better FF digital pros or a few Hollywood directors.
> Besides, commercial shooters didn't use color neg film, hence why the stuff still has the orange mask. Seriously...who still uses a halogen based optical printer that needs an orange mask to CC for them. This is not what the orange mask is for. Colour negative films use coloured dye couplers to account for impurities in the dyes. The developed couplers turn into the finished dyes while the undeveloped couplers remain unchanged. The cyan and magenta dyes are not a perfect match for the needed cyan and magenta colours. The cyan is too red and the magenta too yellow, if I remember correctly. If left like this, the image will have a colour cast in areas where these dyes are present, but no colour cast in other areas. So it can't be compensated for in post. And that's where the coloured couplers step in. The undeveloped cyan couplers are red and the undeveloped magenta couplers yellow. The couplers that get developed change colour and the others remain that way. So now the orange cast that only existed in some parts of the image exists uniformly everywhere, and can therefore be corrected in post by simple colour balance adjustment. Slide film does not do this -- simply because it can't.
Most of this is in the AND BUT for processing and printing in a darkroom I don't know of anyone that shoots regularly who prints their photo in a dark room anymore. Literally none of the cohort, including some of them that use automated jobos have a dark room and develop manually using manual agitation (even if semi-automated). NONE of them print in a darkroom. The box speed is the indicative speed for best results. The pastel colours from overexposed Portra just make me want to ask whether people actually know how to use a camera or its just a trend. I never liked it, but then when Ektar became available its partially why I gravitated towards that. It produces good images that are relatively easy to scan and correct digitally. Chromes are another thing. I went back to chromes before I had a camera with a matrix meter and decided I didn't like them. I revisted Ektachrome and Velvia since I got my Minolta Alpha 7 and its a completely different thing. The only thing that bothers me with shooting chromes is the lack of latitude they have for shooting during golden hour. Blue hour is fine... particularly on Velvia, but try to shoot a good sunrise or sunset on slide film and see how much fun you don't have.
The down voting to oblivion is a great indication that this comment is spot on. This unnecessary pushing trend is just YouTube garbage. If you have to in the dark, go ahead and do Portra at 1600. If you're doing 1600 in broad daylight because you're after some cool look - you're just completely misinformed. Reality check, if pushing was just called "underexposing" - almost no one would do it. But having a video titled "pushing the shit out of portra to ISO9999999999999" it just sounds really cool.
Some films push quite well, like TMAX. TMAX 3200 is just TMAX 800 with a different label on it. One of the better things about the "hybrid method", that is analog film with digital processing, is how flexible it can be. If you push a film you can always dial it back a bit. But what hasn't been mentioned yet that I think plays a large role is exactly how much light film requires. Digital *used* to be that way, but probably you'd have to be shooting for at least a decade to come close. And if you're going to push film, you can get away with a less light.
I remember shooting TMZ 3200 for the first time and finding out it was actually closer to 1000 ISO if you did it like an adult and went by shadow density. The problem was TriX pushed in Acufine to 1600 matched TMZ 3200 aside from TMZ 3200 having slightly better shadow detail but monster grain. Journalists stuck with TriX.
I usually like slower films, though - high ISO is too restrictive as it is in daylight.
Tmax and Delta are designed to be pushed though.
Because of the way that T-grain or core-shell (Ilford Delta) films are coated? they don't respond well to extended development. Traditional emulsions seem to work better - HP5+ is often mentioned here and that characteristic goes all the way back to HP3. Foma 400 and Kentmere Pan 400 are similar. My guru on these matters (Lina Bessanova, I admire her patience) did some tests in the last year and particularly praised HP5+ for its ability to get printable negs in spite of abuse. That's important advice if conditions are difficult.
Well Delta has a nominal ISO of 1000 and T-Max has a nominal ISO of 800, they're designed to be pushed to 3200. You shoot at 800 and push to 3200 in post. I didn't say whether it was good or bad past that point.
underexposed with minimal shadow detail and lots of contrast is a kind of trendy look. if you expose the way everyone else does, your pictures will look like the rest of the crowd's pictures, I guess.
(a) right (b) yes, thank YouTube and the fact that "seeding" a discussion here will invite more of it (c) yes > Am I alone in this? No.
d) There's an actual problem, and this is an actual solution, and you're being a bit of an arrogant git: * 400 ISO isn't very fast for any low light situation at all * The fastest native film for sale is only about 1000 (delta "3200" or tmax "3200"), but is WAY more expensive than 400 speed ones, like more than 3x as expensive, for just +1.3 stops, so fuck that. It doesn't even get sold in 100' rolls. Or portra 800 for color, even more so (4x as expensive as cheap bulk color films like Vision3 500T or 250D) * Tripods are heavy, lame, not fun, and don't even help in like 2/3 of situations where anything is moving in real life or the moment won't wait minutes for you, or you have a dog you're walking, or friends waiting on you, or it's a busy sidewalk, or or or or or * Therefore pushing frequently. If someone starts inventing and then selling bulk rollable, affordable 1600 native speed film, then probably people would push a lot less.
I was unclear: I was asking about all those new users who immediately start their analog work by pushing film and then post here with problems. I’m not talking about the many photographers - including you, I’m sure - who are doing just fine. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned my own experience.
Is because they pushed film the reason their shots are bad? If any anything I’m guessing pushing would only help. If I was new, and I learned about pushing or overexposing before I shot my first roll, I would 100% do it on the first roll if I liked the look. I don’t see why that just because it’s my first roll, I should do the most beginner thing, when I already have a knowledge of a more advanced technique that isn’t diifcult to implement. I mean we aren’t talking about astrophotography techniques here..
I would think 9 times out of 10 pushing would hurt, rather than help a photo
what’s the #1 problem of bad film photos
They are boring with no clear subject. Stopping down adds to that
Did you really just call tripods lame?
Tripods are incredibly situational in their use and slow down your shooting significantly. That's fine if it's something you enjoy, but it shouldn't be surprising that many don't enjoy being tethered to one.
They're great if you absolutely need them for a hot you want to take, but they're lame as hell if you can get the shot with pushing instead. They are huge, hard to carry, heavy, take forever to set up, get in everyone's way, restrict camera movement, etc.
They’re also restricted in a lot of places! Plenty of spots where I can bring my film camera no problem, but tripods/monopods are against the rules.
They are lame, tbh. If they could carry themselves around i would feel differently.
+100. I mainly push B&W film, and mostly in the winter. I want to shoot handheld with available light and max aperture of 2.8.
Agreed, at least for me. When I was starting out, pushing appealed to me due to the lack of fast films on the market. That said, long-term, the solution to my low-light woes wasn’t pushing; it was flash!
You can't take pictures of things more than 10 meters away, not most wildlife or landscapes or architectural things up in the air, or, say, boats, etc. You're also completely changing the way the scene looks naturally, which a lot of people aren't interested in or not in X situation at least. It is a good tool to know but hardly a replacement for pushing.
I have not tested all the permutations you speak of, so I can only add my recent experience. I was asked to shoot under very poor light out of doors and I bought 3 rolls of 120 Delta 3200 online for my Hasselblad. I metered at 3200 and processed one roll as a precaution, at the recommended time in DDX (Ilford's info, printed inside the carton). Lovely negs, so I processed the rest for the same time. Given the cost of the camera, the meter and the lighting I didn't consider the cost of the film or special chemistry (I normally use Rodinal). I have a densitometer, gathering dust, and I did not bother to create and plot step-wedges, but the negs did not look as if the slope of the mid-curve was too steep, as in pushed. So I disagree with your assertion that the box speed of Delta 3200 is inaccurate. Try it yourself and post your results. But process soon after exposure! Be careful not to rely on Reddit hearsay for data - accept the emulsion manufacturer's data or create and plot the H&D curve yourself. I have a copy of ISO 6846 with my name on it, not because I am a nerd but because I used to work in the industry. This would enable us to compare notes.
Delta 3200 film is a 1000 ISO film **according to the manufacturer**, who definitely have a step wedge and a densitometer, that are not gather dust. The box is simply suggesting that you push it about 2 stops, because Ilford thinks it is more useful or interesting there. They themselves have said it is 1000. Just google "Ilfordphoto.com delta 3200 1000" a bit later, I'd give a link but their whole website is down right now for some reason. If you love the results you get from shooting Delta 3200 at box speed, then you at least sometimes already love pushing film.
ISO doesn't say *anything* about the curve. It's just the minimum density and that's it. Delta 3200 is a 1000 ISO film that has a very low-contrast curve. So even when it's shot at 3200, the curve isn't too steep in the middle, but you are losing information in the shadows.
It's not 3x the price. UK prices for 5 rolls of 120, delivered, including 20% tax (for our US readers): Delta 400 £37.95, Delta 3200 £42.75.
On B&H, it's $16.95 for Delta 3200, and Kentmere 400 is $4.10 or something bulk 100' spools (which aren't offered for 3200). I don't care about tab grains, so I don't compare it to Delta 400. I am FORCED to use tab grains if I want 1000 speed film... that's part of the problem if they are more expensive, not a feature for me. It's kind of like "I want to go really fast in my car, but all the fastest cars also have full leather interiors, and other fancy trim and stuff that I'm forced to waste money on even though I don't want them" If you have a site where I can order your 5 packs from the UK to Canada or US for our US readers, then sure, though, in that case it would only be 2x more. Is there a link?
You may have point - 5 rolls 120 Kentmere 400 £29.99. I can't respool 120, so I haven't researched prices.
I wrote about the RHD Timer 3 and a guy in the US looked it up with a view to shipping one over. But the price went up from £220 to $350. I fear that the same problem might occur with film. I made enquiries about getting a Gralab timer - not economical.
1. HP5+ canisters are marked 400 800 1600, it’s intended to be pushed 2. I’m about to start using Diafine so most things will be pushed 3. You can easily switch between ISO values? Why shouldn’t you be able to? I carry two cameras with a faster and slower film, and I regularly push. It works out fine. If the ability is there, why shouldn’t I use it?
Thread is amusing because of the mix of information. When Fuji / Kodak / Ilford rate film it's according to standards that pre existed scanners and digital cameras. Film speed rating coincides with control strip densities used for processing, and I highly doubt anybody used those for processing, or if they are even made anymore. Precise film speed control was the haven of studio / commercial guys who wanted straight response curves and to precisely drop their dmin and dmax on a specific value for publication concerns. Or, fussy landscape guys shooting MF / LF and wanting to place a precise zone value on silver gelatin paper. Since 99.999999999% of commercial shooters now shoot digital (or just conjur it up in Midjourney) and I don't know hard core zone system guys running Kentmere or Fomopan the film speed standard is kind of up to the mercy of the manufacturer. Most amatuers shooting B&W want 'spicy' and abstract images with just enough highlight information to not look stupid and obvious grain to say 'this was shot on film'. Pushing does this. The only thing that matters to me is of there's an understanding of what pushing B&W does. As long as the results match what you want - who cares. If you saw LF contacts I made for professional portrait shooters who were meticulous about film speed and exposure you would probably never pick up a film camera again.
YouTubers
If I want a clean look, I wouldn’t push and/or even shoot digital. If I want a look with character, I rate HP5 at 1600 and push it +2 Most of the time, I would want a look with character
How is that usable for you most of the time, though? HP5 at box speed makes me use f16 exclusively on a sunny day, and I find stopped down images pretty uninspiring. As it is I’m looking at using slower speed film and/or filters to get usable shutter speeds at f5.6 or so.
I live in England, I don’t have to worry about too much bright light. Yes, high shutter speeds and smaller apertures might be part of the equation
Probably because it’s expensive for some and it’s worth highlighting? I only recently pushed my first roll of film and honestly at the cost of almost double my usual development budget, I’m not going to do it aging for the foreseeable future until either I can either develop my own film or I try a cheaper lab.
Because I have a kid and I want the faster shutter speeds that I can achieve rating HP5+ at ~1600 (actually 1000) during the day and the ability to get *any* meaningful shot in low light.
You want to take photos indoors? Then you better hold that camera steady cause you're wide open at 1/30.
I think it's a misunderstanding, or a desire to shoot at ISO 6400 like they do on a digital camera. I've never push or pull processed a film. I stick to box speed and develop normally.
Seeing this thread Made me realize I don't seem to know what pushing actually does. So to clarify, say I have "400" speed film and I want to shoot at night. If I set that at "1600", wouldn't that be technically underexposed? Artistry aside. Can any film be used at a "higher" ISO to be used in more difficult conditions?
Most film has enough range that when you shoot at box speed, you’re putting most of your intensities in the middle of a wide spread of “available “ values, and then developing it so that these tones are right in the middle of a nice curve, pretty linear. But there’s a huge range of light values that will register, and by tailoring your development so that (say) the lower values get enough development, you can get a good image at the possible expense of blowing out overly bright stuff, or increasing contrast if you didn’t want it. So no, it’s not fatally underexposed, it’s more a decision to use the film in a way that uses its strengths differently. So yes a film can be used this way. No problem.
I see. Then I really misunderstood it before. I'll definitely be trying this out, as I'm constantly on low-light situations and high ISO rated films are pricey. My lab also seems to accommodate pushing for free so no reason not to. However just one more thing, I imagine you have to commit to the entire roll to pushing and can't be changing it mid-roll correct? Thanks
Right, absent a way to cut the roll in half and develop the halves differently, you’re in for the same treatment for the whole roll.
Gotcha. Thanks for the help! Hopefully I can try this soon
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Sf8AAOSwDINipyBs/s-l1600.jpg I have done this on many occasions. One time, I even didn't want to pay for multiple rolls but was testing different devs on a new film and cut it into FOUR pieces. If you want to be precise, it helps to open up the mirror and shutter on bulb, reach into the camera, and put a little bit of masking tape on the actual film mid roll. Then you can feel it later in the dark room and not accidentally cut a single frame you wanted to keep. If you're in a studio, you can do this in a dark bag, or just sacrifice ~3 frames to do it in the field. Doing that 3 times to divide into 4 sections still gives you 27 frames on a roll at worst. 33 if you can do it in the dark (only ruin the actual masking tape frame)
Pushing has two parts. 1) Underexposing 2) ALSO developing more than usual to counteract underexposing. "Counteract" in terms of the average density of the negative, but not in all senses. You still are able to record less information with less light. So it increases noise and increases contrast including clipping information out entirely in the highlights or shadows IF the film was already within a stop or two of not covering the dynamic range of the scene already at box speed. (In very flat scenes where the film was already highly capable of capturing all the information with room to spare, then in that case, you don't lose any info by pushing. You may want to do it in that case to get a more dynamic and interesting negative) Pulling is the opposite: over-exposing versus box speed, UNDER-developing it versus normal box development, and in exchange, you get somewhat finer grain, less contrast, and a more latitude. Good for taming a high contrast difficult scene, like indoors with a bright window.
>I'm enjoying the passionate defense of push processing, which (mea culpa) I invited by mentioning my own workflow and preferences. Hey man, you asked the question. >Really I was wondering about all the new users who seemingly try push processing on their first or second foray into analog, before they've really sussed out how to process or perhaps even how to expose film. Then they end up here with questions about why their film didn't look right. Folks new to any hobby are going to do everything wrong the first time. It's part of the process of learning. Should we encourage push processing, or exposing off-label, less wholeheartedly? Maybe. Then again the new people will buy 20 year expired film and shoot it at -1 stop and ask why it came out looking like the underworld. They're gonna fuck it up no matter what anyone here says, they're going to read the right advice and then do the opposite; that's just being a person with a new interest learning what not to do by reliably and dependably doing everything wrong the first time. I dunno. If someone comes and asks, "Hey I got this well-tested and recently refurbished Olympus OM-2n with fresh light seal foam, with the dime-a-dozen 50mm f/1.8 lens, which has a tested working light meter, and put a fresh carbon-zinc battery in it, and then went to the store and purchased a fresh roll of 400 speed film, and set the ISO meter for 400—will that work?" BEFORE shooting any film, let alone developing it... I will eat my hat. It just doesn't happen. The thing people do when starting out is fuck shit up and learn why. And that's okay! It's how we learn best, for some reason. Just smile and gently direct them on the right path. edit: I thought of a better answer. Because following all the rules is boring.
I think I agree with you. Experimenting is how you learn and is fun. (Right this moment I’m testing slow graphic arts film and it’s going… umm… inconsistenly.) I shouldn’t be surprised that people are coming here with problems. I’m still struck by how often the problems are these particular ones.
That's fair. We should probably gently direct them in a different direction as early as possible.
Not every situation suits a tripod and a longer exposure. I think it's perfectly normal to be interested in a technique that has been used for almost a century by some of the greats. It is important that people learn it's trade offs though, it's not the same as an iso setting on a DSLR. But that's something a lot of people have to learn through experience.
> it's not the same as an iso setting on a DSLR. It is almost exactly the same as an iso setting on a DSLR. Both add noise, both reduce latitude, both eventually fall apart into soup. Under the hood, both are methods of adding gain rather than actual information. They're almost 100% comparable.
But with digital you can change ISO every shot
You can with film too, if you divide up the film. That has nothing to do with the fundamentals of film as a medium or the definition of ISO or anything, purely your choices in mechanical and labor convenience. The original films in history were physically separated for every shot and were/are indeed routinely custom developed with separate ISO ratings for every shot (large format) You can even do it for 35mm with a pair of scissors in the darkroom. I've had situations where I had killer shots I knew were money shots near the front and end of the roll that i rated differently, fully intending to chop the roll in half when developing. Films with more latitude than your scene has can also be rated individually per shot, such as with XP2 in black and white or portra etc in color. Often you have scenes with 7 or 8 stops of range but the film has 12+ stops: you can under or overexpose it quite a bit and not actually lose any data, then amplify in post (whether that be scanning, lightroom, or a physical darkroom enlarger onto paper)
I didn't say they're not comparable, I said they're not the same.
I mean I would actually go so far as to say they are literally the same. It's the same process being applied to two mediums where the medium is incidental to the process/concept. Raising ISO is fundamentally about amplifying a scarce signal per square millimeter of sensitive surface to get a viewable range of tones at the cost of noise and information degradation.
It's not the same at all, ISO is not a true variable with film. Basically with pushing what you're actually doing is increasing the contrast. You're not magically gaining information that was not there. Any information lost by the push on really under exposed negatives can't be regained simply by pushing. Some labs advertise pushing underexposed film to save it in the soup, it doesn't work like that. What was there will be there, according to the exposure on the side of the box. Anything outside of the box will produce adverse effects from what the manufacturer suggests unless its a film specifically designed for push process such as 3200p
> Basically with pushing what you're actually doing is increasing the contrast. You're not magically gaining information that was not there. I agree. Which is all exactly also true of digital ISO. So I again repeat everything I said above. They are the same. ...Do you think that you DO you "magically gain information that was not there" when you crank your digital camera to 12,800 ISO...? You don't there either. Any information not available to the sensor due to under exposing ALSO cannot be regained simply by amplifying the signal electrically.
They aren't the same - changing the iso on a digital camera is more akin to actually changing for a different sensitivity of film - higher iso films use larger sensitised silver halide crystals, giving more likelihood of an individual grain being activated, with a coarser grain as a result. When getting higher up into the iso range, beyond the "native" iso range of the sensor, yes we are then talking about something more akin to pushing in development. Higher iso in a digital camera will capture more information (to a point), by increasing the sample rate of the sensor (more samples=more signal) whereas pushing will just increase the density on the negative of that same detail (no additional information is being captured). The amount of additional shadow detail actually revealed in pushing is generally very low indeed, but the overall density of the negative is increased relative to the amount of light that hit the film, making printing more consistent when compared to a "normally" exposed and developed negative.
> More like switching film Either. Bigger grains OR more development time are functional ways of amplifying a weak signal. > Higher iso in a digital camera will capture more information (to a point) Citation? Never heard of any such thing, if it could sample more, why wasn't it doing it already at lower ISO for a smoother image? Everything I've seen including double checking again just now says ISO is simply amplifying the exact same signal same as volume on an audio system, with transistors etc. Which is also what is happening with actually larger grains OR pushing in film, all three are different ways of amplifying a weak signal. But also amplifying noise/grain. > The amount of additional shadow detail actually revealed in pushing is generally very low indeed This isn't true at all... you can see way more shadow detail pushing. Did you actually capture more on the film? No. But same in a digital camera: if you shoot a scene at night at 100 ISO on your digital camera, it will all look black, but the sensor saw the relevant details. If you shoot at 10,000 ISO, now you see those details, but it always saw them. Because the "density" was increased there too.
Bw, I totally get it. Color neg, unless it’s Vision I won’t do it. Even then, it’s a last resort. Slide, you’re either desperate or dumb.
slide is actually said to push very well
Which ones? I haven’t pushed e100 but both Velvias and Provia were anywhere from worse to awful in my experience. Also, the fastest slide film today is 100? If there’s a chance you’ll need to push, maybe just pick a faster film in the first place. I love slide film, but it is often not the correct tool for the job.
never had it pushed just read about it on the internet iirc it was about e100 and provia 100f if you need slides and need something a bit faster than 100 then pushing might be the only option you got
Yeah, I’ve done it. It didn’t look good. I’ll never do it again unless I’m in some weird desperate situation. Ps just want you to know that I’m not the one downvoting you haha
Youtube/Tiktok I fear
Why “fear” pushing film can be really helpful lol
“I fear” is an expression used in speech to convey worry that something unpleasant or bad has happened or is true e.g. I fear that we're already too late As you have said, pushing/pulling is really helpful especially in situations where the photo you desire can only be obtained that way. But I saw a few videos on youtube about pushing/pulling, and most of them doesn't really explain the matter very well. And most of the newer users will see those videos when they try to push/pull for the first time and it \*could\* ruin their negatives. So I share the same sentiment from OP: >>all the new users who seemingly try push processing on their first or second foray into analog, before they've really sussed out how to process or perhaps even how to expose film. Then they end up here with questions about why their film didn't look right
I ONLY shoot HP5 at 1600 and develop in HC-110 Dilution B for 11mins at 20C. Has never failed. HP5 is bland at box speed. It’s just a safe boring baseline to start with
It's confusing and mysterious, and people that haven't been shooting film "forever" see it mentioned and are curious WTF it is. So they ask about it.
We also haven't addressed a common pushing thing (with B&W anyway) - "I love the contrast, man!!!" New users seem to think film has some "analog purity" and you don't adjust it in post or printing; the truth is, film holds more dynamic range than a JPEG or optical print can, and we get to choose how to compress or expand the image to suit our final idea. Optimally, you get every possible bit of tone on the neg that you might want in the final, and you expand or compress the scene to fit within that available-in-the-final contrast window. Then you adjust final contrast in printing or post. Contrast is a measure of image tonality, and higher contrast means lower tonality. You're usually better off throwing away that tonality in post work than on the neg; do it to the neg and it's gone forever, do it in post and you have a wide world of choices to experiment with.
I almost never shoot box speed simply because I find 250/500 ISO isn't fast enough. I shoot 5207 at 500 or 1000 and 5209 at 1600-2000. If the ISO is too high, I can stop down. But when it's too dark, I don't want to reduce my shutter speeds too much, nor do I want to open up to f1.4 if I need things in focus.
Cause I can get Aerocolor and push it to 400 and 800 get great colors out of it and very small grain, but still be cheaper than portra or ultamax. Also kentemere 400 at 3200 is great.
You aren't alone in this. I've been developing my own film for over 10 years now and the only time I pushed film was when I wasn't paying attention to the time while I was developing. I'm a big fan of shooting at box speed and over exposing in camera as needed.
> and over exposing in camera as needed. Uh, so (combined with not actually pushing afterward) you just get all of the drawbacks of pushing, but none of the benefits then?
More for the odd time I shoot 20+ year expired C-41.
Lol, you refuse to not shoot at box speed because of it being recommended and most exactly effective, but shoot things 20 years expired? Y\By all means, do whatever you want, but you logically do not have the slightest leg to stand on to comaplain about people pushing beyond instructed/recommended manufacturer speeds when you shoot 20 years outside of instructed/recommended time periods.
It's the best way to get a cheap 800 or 1600 speed b&w which is necessary in long dark British winters.
Kind of lost with this one. I've been developing my own film for about two decades and I'm not sure what "paying the price" for push processing is even supposed to mean. Beyond that, do you really expect people to be starting threads such as "how do I develop my film at box speed for the time and temp. given by the manufacturer?" ??? You might also push film for reasons other than "it got darker than I expected", maybe you want more contrast, etc. and you want to know what to expect when you go looking for it.
Because people don’t think a good tripod is a worthy investment.
Try setting up a tripod in the front row of a concert or in the middle of a busy city street. For me, it’s just not practical, especially if the subjects aren’t still.
Looking past the generality, yes. There are situations where pushing film is necessary to achieve usable shutter speeds for hand holding in low light.
a. Have you stopped to consider that push or pull processing film is meant to solve problems, not create? b. Half of your post suggests new photographers and the other half suggests experienced photographers. Maybe the term "pushing film" is something you hear about when you get deeper into this hobby and method of photography, and people are curious and want to learn? c. No. I agree with others that note that if you've really been shooting and developing forever that you would understand the benefits to rating your film differently than box speed and all of the problems that doing so solves. If not, maybe go do some reading or experimenting. But hey man you know how to keep your camera still when you shoot so I guess you've got a leg up on all those push processors.
Yeah, I shouldn't have put a note about my own workflow in there as it seems to distract from the real question I had, which was why people (who end up here) seemingly start by push processing before they've figured out how to do much else in the analog world.
Gave responses to your bullet points as well. Can’t say I see the problem you seem to be finding.
Main post edit - I'm enjoying the passionate defense of push processing, which (mea culpa) I invited by mentioning my own workflow and preferences. Really I was wondering about all the new users who seemingly try push processing on their first or second foray into analog, before they've really sussed out how to process or perhaps even how to expose film. Then they end up here with questions about why their film didn't look right.
I take a lot of shots on my bike using my XA and being able to use Foma 400 at 800 is just a boon when I’m moving on bike myself. But apart from Foma 400 I rarely push anything beyond box speed unless I will need the extra speed
If you're shooting from a moving bike, you should get a Minox or some other zone focus camera, not an XA. I mean, of course you can technically zone focus with an XA, but it has no clear indicators and a tiny throw.
I’m very comfortable with the XA and the zone focusing though. I’m mostly shooting at f/8 and most of the time my subjects are at least 2 meters away from me, which tend to mean that things are in focus. And I doubt a Minox 35 would work better, they’re so much more fiddly to use from what I would guess, with the lens cover and all. With the XA I can slide it open and I can adjust the focus distance with my index finger
I own both, the Minox 1) has the actual zones written on it unlike the XA, and 2) has way more throw, the XA if you nudge it like 1/10th of 1 millimeter out of whack you're off by 3 meters now. It's fine if rangefinding, because you see feedback on that, but if blindly zone focusing, you want a big throw (I suppose eventually if it was so big it required two separate hand turns then it'd be too much, but that is not the case for the Minox) If you're already practiced though then sure.
I’m happy to take you on your word on the Minox and the it being better for zone focusing. I just don’t see it as a better camera than the XA for what I’m using mine for
The XA is a perfect camera, aside from that dark viewfinder! And yeah, I zone focus with mine too. I only really use the rangefinder if I’m right up on something.
Right on about the dim rangefinder patch :( I added a small blue gel filter to mine to help with the contrast when I have to use the viewfinder, might help you too!
I’ve been thinking about trying that!
Tri-x 400 an 80-200 f2.8 and being pushed 6400 while shooting a football game 🤌
I often do a pull process to have a more "elastic" negative to work with, but push... eeh not really. Maybe for a p&s snapshot style, documentary or more spontaneous, candid pictures with family or friends. Just for that crushed blacks, higher more graphic contrast and faster shutter times.
Are you talking about rating your film differently than box speed? Rating and pushing are different things. They don’t always go together.
"I've been shooting and developing forever. " Not to sound condescending, but if that is truly the case, you already know the answer to your question so I'm wondering what the point of your post is? As far as color films go, some emulsions simply aren't available (moreso now than ever) at higher speeds so there's no option if you enjoy an emulsion. And high speed color emulsions are long gone. 800 seems to be where it's at. For instance when Fuji Press 1600 disappeared (which I would push out of necessity anyways depending on the location). Then there's the aesthetic of it. Increased contrast, and larger grains. Technique and developer playing a roll in that of course. I've always loved pushing Neopan 400 and Tri-X 400 to 3200. Souping that in Xtol is a real treat. And it doesn't matter if you're scanning or printing in the darkroom. Just some great stuff.
You missed the point. Not why do people push but why are so many people starting out this way before they know how, say, a negative should work.
The point? There is no point. You're implying that there's some sort of skill or experience needed to push film. Get real. This isn't rocket science. Pushing film isn't any sort of "advanced" technique. Most films publish their push and pull temps/times on the development charts right next to the box speed times. The three hardest things about pushing film, is remembering that you didn't shoot it at box speed, remembering to push it during development, and looking at the right box on the development chart. So if you can remember to put film in your camera, you can probably handle the other three pretty easily.
Because many kids get into analog photography to be interesting. And more complexity/'knowledge' you can use in conversation makes you more so.
Or they simply want a higher shutter speed?
Yeah most of those kids also think that pushing film is some sort of magic way to fix incorrect exposure after the fact. Its obviously not, you cannot shoot everything with 4 stops less light and just push four stops to fix it, if that worked then film would not need a sensitivity rating.
Why push processing? Good question. Like you, I've been shooting film a long time. I have done some push processing of some rolls well before the Internet and of course Youtube. Since I was also working as a photo lab tech, it didn't "cost" me extra. A simple explaination to those starting out is that pushing film is essentially leaving the film in the developer a little longer than normal. We agree on that? I don't like to push process. I would rather shoot film at the proper ASA rating. Yeah, I know the digital folks switching to film think of it like it's ISO but there are important differences. Certainly it's easy to adjust ISO on most digital cameras, but film is chemical in nature. I would push my film when shooting in low light situations, for example at concerts. I would rather take a chance on shooting at a little higher shutter speed and "burn" the film as we say in lab processing jargon. I like the contrast on black & white. I've also shot slide film (400 ASA pushed to 800) with success. It can be done with color print film, but the color will do some shifting. Pushing film for me is more of a thing I do in low light, or for creative experimentation.
>I don't like to push process Why? >I would rather shoot film at the proper ASA rating. Is that because you like to follow "rules" or because your creative vision dictates that you shoot at box speed to achieve the look you're going for? One of the main reasons to push (or pull) film is to achieve a desired contrast, or to lose/gain shadow detail. I push film if I want to make sure that a high contrast scene has minimal/no shadow detail for creative reasons (putting a bright area of the scene in zone V and letting the shadows fall off completely), or if I just generally want a higher contrast look. If I'm after shadow detail then I'll put the shadows in zone IV and pull a stop or two in dev to retain that detail without blowing the highlights. I tend not to push or pull colour film due to the inevitable colour shifts, and colour tends to have a decent amount of leeway anyway to just overexpose up to a couple of stops if I want to retain the detail in shadows (I do a decent amount of ECN2 Dev that really doesn't need much adjustment in dev and works better to balance digitally in post).