Film Photography Part 2 By Paulo

Hello again.
This time I’ll share some thoughts about black and white film and which are the most popular kinds of film.
Black and white film is popular because it’s easy to work with, it can take almost any abuse, it’s very forgiving, it’s easy to home develop and… it’s not going away anytime soon. So, I will try to keep it simple for all of you who are starting or want to get started with using black and white film.
What kind of black and white film is available?
The most common formats are 35mm and 120mm film.
Note 1: There are also large format film sheets available which cover many different formats but large format cameras are a different breed and I will leave this kind of specific film alone on this post.
Image size and format, what’s that?
A 35mm roll will deliver 36 frames of 35x24mm.
There are special cameras, which are called half frame cameras, that cut every frame of a 35mm film and are able to take 72, more or less, 15x24mm shots.

A 120mm roll can deliver several formats. The famous square format, the 6×6 cm format. The 6×4,5 cm format (that’s why the cameras are called 645 cameras) and the 7×6 cm format.
Note 2: There are bigger image formats which can be “recorded” using 120mm film. 6×9, 6×12… up to 6×24.

Pictures can be enlarged so what’s the thing about format?
Information! The bigger the negative, the more information it will record. Bigger negatives allow bigger enlargements with less loss of quality. That is true in a darkroom or using a scanner.

This is my mother, taken with the Hasselblad. 120mm film in 6×6 format.


ISO and ASA
Unlike digital cameras (we can change the ASA settings from shot to shot) film has a given sensitivity.
It’s pretty easy to find black and white film from 20 ISO up to 3200 ISO being the 400 ISO the preferred sensitivity of many photographers. Why? Well, 400 ISO is a flexible sensitivity. Using a smaller aperture or a higher shutter speed we can use it in daylight and opening up the lens or using a slower shutter speed we can use it in low light.
All black and white film behave the same way but they do not certainly look the same, very much the opposite.
Low ISO films (20, 25, 50, 100) deliver a wider range of grays, less contrast and less grain.
High ISO films (800, 1600, 3200, 6400) deliver more contrast, more grain and a shorter range of grays.
That brings us back again to the 400 ISO film, which is the alleged ideal match between contrast and grain.
The next shot was taken using Ilford PanF+, which is a 50 ISO film.



The next one was taken using Ilford Delta 3200 film.



Knowing this from the start can help us in choosing a certain look for a shot or a photo session. It’s the film phographer’s way of “editing” the shot before taking it. That’s why so many film photographers are faithful, not to a certain kind of film, but to a certain film, literally, being Kodak TriX 400 the absolute king.
If I want a harsher look, something more contrasted, I would use high ISO film. If I’m looking for a smooth look I would use low ISO film. No matter the brand, all black and white film behave like this, however, some films do have a specific visual signature. Ilford’s Delta 400 is different from Kodak’s TriX 400 and Rollei’s RPX 400, for example. The grain is different, the contrast is different, the sharpness of the film itself is different. Film emulsion recipes are valuable patents.

Adox CHS Art 50


Kodak TriX 400


And another example of Kodak TriX 400 but this time developed with a different developer than the previous shot.



High ISO film, low ISO film, that means getting a lot of film?
No it does not. Black and white film is so forgiving and so flexible that you can use a 400 ISO roll, from 100 up to 6400! That is called pushing and pulling the film.
Pushing the film is when you set the ISO on the camera higher than the sensitivity of the film, or “box speed”. Pulling the film is the opposite.
Remember, pushing and pulling film will make it behave exactly in the same way as if you were using a “real box speed” film. Lower ISO, less contrast and grain, higher ISO, higher contrast and grain.
Here are several examples of pushed film.

Kodak TriX 400 at 1600 ISO


Kodak TriX 400 at 3200 ISO


Kodak TriX 400 at 6400 ISO


Ilford HP5+ at 6400 ISO


There is only one thing that you must keep in mind. When you load a camera with a film, let say Kodak TriX 400, and if you push that film to 3200, you can not pull it to 200 on the next shot, 1600 on the next and so on…
Black and white film can be forgiving  but there’s a reasonable interval.
You can pick a 400 ISO film and use it at 3200 from the first to the last frame, or you can use it at 100 ISO, but if you planing on changing the ISO during the same roll keep in mind a safe rule: using the box speed as a reference, you can use it one stop down and one stop above. You can use a 400 ISO film at 200, 400 and 800 in the same roll and still get good results.
If shooting a certain film in a certain way can be a photographer’s creative choice to edit the shot before taking it, developing the film is a way to edit the shot after taking it.
It’s a whole new world. There are fine grain developers, contrast enhancers, grain enhancers, all around developers, smoother ones, aggressive ones, powder, concentrated…
Different developers can make a big difference when used in combination with different films.
Look at the next two shots. They were both taken using Ilford HP5+. The first one was pushed to 3200 and the second one was pushed to 6400 ISO, which is pretty extreme pushing.

Using a certain developer (Ilford ID-11) I was able to control the grain.



Now look at the next example. It is the same film but pushed only to 800 ISO. Notice that by using a much more aggressive developer the results are much more grainy and contrasted than the previous 2 shots.


I’ve been doing it for a while now. Trying a lot of combinations of films and developers and using different recipes to develop them but I do it for passion and for fun and despite the fact that I have no ambition in being a “fine art” photographer, I truly believe that knowledge about film and developers gives me more creative options.
The bottom line is… experiment. Load your camera with film and use it. Take notice of your experiments and enjoy. It is a wonderful world of possibilities and a world made of rules to be broken. The hard part of film photography is not knowing the visual signature of films or developers but to write our own on top.