Film gurus: Need some advice.

raceMpower95

Ok, I know that this forum is primarily for digital photography, but I know a lot people on here know their film stuff, too. I'd ask around at film-specific forums, but I am partial to dgrin and figured I'd try here first.

My question is a bit broad, so any advice would be helpful. I am taking a B&W film photography class this semester since it is required for my photography minor. I have been shooting mostly color and digital for the past 4-5 years, and forget most of the tricks I had picked up for B&W film. I am mostly looking for any tips or tricks all you pros may have for boosting contrast and clarity. I am shooting with my Canon Elan 7e with a Sigma 28-70 F2.8 AF. I will be developing all of my work for class in the darkroom, as well as negative-scanning some for post-processing in CS2 (just for archiving and personal use, not so much for class).

I shot a lot of film stuff back in high school, but I wasn't half the photographer that I am now, and I didn't know most of what I do now. I would really like to get some nice results out of this, since I won't have the oppurtunity to do real darkroom work once this class is over. Anyway, I thank you in advance for any advice, tips, or tricks you might have.

Tanuki

raceMpower95 wrote:

Ok, I know that this forum is primarily for digital photography, but I know a lot people on here know their film stuff, too. I'd ask around at film-specific forums, but I am partial to dgrin and figured I'd try here first.

My question is a bit broad, so any advice would be helpful. I am taking a B&W film photography class this semester since it is required for my photography minor. I have been shooting mostly color and digital for the past 4-5 years, and forget most of the tricks I had picked up for B&W film. I am mostly looking for any tips or tricks all you pros may have for boosting contrast and clarity. I am shooting with my Canon Elan 7e with a Sigma 28-70 F2.8 AF. I will be developing all of my work for class in the darkroom, as well as negative-scanning some for post-processing in CS2 (just for archiving and personal use, not so much for class).

I shot a lot of film stuff back in high school, but I wasn't half the photographer that I am now, and I didn't know most of what I do now. I would really like to get some nice results out of this, since I won't have the oppurtunity to do real darkroom work once this class is over. Anyway, I thank you in advance for any advice, tips, or tricks you might have.

I have two words for you: Zone System. I hope they teach it in your class. If they don't, you'll be missing out.

I did my own b&w processing in high school and was never completely happy with the my negatives. Many years later I decided to get back into the darkroom by auditing a 4th year photography course at a local university. We started straight into the Zone System and it was a revelation! It instantly took me to a new level of understanding and control of my negatives.

I have not scanned b&w negatives before, but I understand that there can be some issues with banding since you only get 256 levels of grey in a b&w jpeg image. Hopefully someone else who on Dgrin is experienced with b&w scanning and can give you some advice on this subject.

Mike

LiquidAir

Tanuki wrote:

I have not scanned b&w negatives before, but I understand that there can be some issues with banding since you only get 256 levels of grey in a b&w jpeg image. Hopefully someone else who on Dgrin is experienced with b&w scanning and can give you some advice on this subject.
Mike

I have done quite a bit of color scanning with a Nikon film scanner. The scanner itself is actually 14 bit and they come in to Photoshop from the plugin as 16 bit files. I do all the color correction, contrast adjustment and sharpening in 16 bit LAB and only at the last minute do I convert them LAB to sRGB and then reduce to 8 bit. The results are really quite good. If you have a good scanner and you are careful with process scanned film can look excellent.

LiquidAir

In terms of contrast and B&W film, I know you can adjust the contrast by changing the developing time but I never got good enough at it to provide you with any practical advice. Ansel Adams perfected that technique with the zone system but to put what he did into practice requries some testing and calibration on your particular film choice and darkroom chemistry. Of course what Adams did was easier in a way when working with large format film plates because each one was developed separately. When working in 35mm film your entire roll will end up with the same contrast.

raceMpower95

Thanks for chimin in guys. Does anyone have anymore info on the Zone system? I haven't heard of this before. Should I just Google it, or do I have no hope of learning it from a website?

ziggy53

raceMpower95,

Since you intend to process the film and then scan, this process is almost ideal for your needs:

http://www.normankoren.com/zonesystem.html

ziggy53

Tanuki

raceMpower95 wrote:

Thanks for chimin in guys. Does anyone have anymore info on the Zone system? I haven't heard of this before. Should I just Google it, or do I have no hope of learning it from a website?

There are plenty of websites that give a technical description of the Zone System, but I've never seen one that gives good practical instruction on how to put the Zone System into practice. That's where your photography class should come into the picture (no pun intended). When I took my photography course, we set up a studio scene with a wide EV range, took meter reading on different parts of the scene, took several identical sets of bracketed exposures, and then developed each set of exposures for a different length of time. Afterwards on a light table, we were able to compare the results to see how adjustments to exposure and development time affected the results. This practical exercise was only a very basic introduction to the Zone System, but it opened the door to future understanding how all the variables (film selection, developer chemistry, development time, development temperature, etc, etc) come into play. I won't say that I explicitly used the Zone System very often after this course (not really suitable for my style of photography), but the basic understanding of the Zone System definitely improved my results.

I hope you enjoy your class as much as I enjoyed mine. Have fun!

claudermilk

For the Zone System, I'd go back to the source for the best explanation--I did & it now makes a lot of sense. Ansel Adams' The Camera/The Negative/The Print series is still a very informative series of books. The Zone system is covered in The Negative. After reading through it, in theory it seems quire simple. I have yet to put it in practice (need a spot meter to effectively use it).

rahmonster

Nice choice in camera, I own one myself:D

In regards to contrast in images, my teacher taught me a trick I ended up using a fair few times:
You use a general contrast filter while exposing your paper...fro eg, 3 1/2 for what you think will be the correct exposure...Then use a much stronger one such as a 5, for about a second. It sharpens up and adds just a little extra subtle kick to your print. Its been over 12 months since I developed a film so if I think of anything else I'll post again...lol

CarnalSigh

Tara...Just checked out your portfolio and family shots. I love your work. Well done.