Project 52: Week 43; Do you remember B&W film?

[billtils]

It's been over a year since I dug out the Canon AE-1 and threatened to use it. The early efforts were scary with a screeching noise every time I pressed the shutter, followed by a disaster when trying to rewind the first roll of film. Result was no images + a visit to the local repair shop.

Noise taken care of and a fresh roll of B&W film and all that remained was to identify suitable photo opportunities and remember to pack the AE-1 with the rest of the gear. This meant no birding or macro shots (although 200mm lens has a "macro" setting it's more a general close-up than insect world option), and there were more than a few outings where the camera stayed home.

However, the last frame was shot a week ago, the film successfully rewound, and posted off to AG labs in Birmingham (England not AL) to develop and digitise.

About a third of the shots went straight into the bin, about a third were sort of OK, and about a third are encouraging. The main problem was focusing - I found it quite difficult to get it right in poor light - followed by exposure - not quite the dynamic range of the D810 . It took a bit of time to get into the swing of the general operation too, remembering to wind on the film after each shot and not looking at the back to check the histogram ...

All of the images were grainy, and I'm not sure how much that is just because I've forgotten about film grain, or whether it was my choice of settings for the development. The film was Ilford FP4 (ISO 125) so should have been pretty good, and I elected for medium resolution scanning (4MB images) as a first step which would be not so great.

Here are a few of the resulting images:

1: Snow scenes from Glendevon:














2: Rannoch Station:

















C&C welcome, especially from any film shooters

[Donald]

I think you should be very pleased with these, particularly as it was the first roll of film you had put through the camera in a long time.

Not sure why the first one is particularly grainy, but the rest look fine to me.

Exposure is good and given that you have had the negatives digitised, you can work on them in whatever software you use to further bring out tones.

[pnodrog]

For Ilford FP4 the grain looks surprisingly high. I would suspect age of film, over exposure or a development error (developer too warm). Without seeing negatives it's a bit hard to say. I am assuming you haven't marched back and forth in an airport x-ray scanner with the film in your pocket?

Being a medium format Pan F fan I do not expect to see much grain at all.

Have fun.. I am not in the least bit nostalgic....

[pnodrog]

P.S. I have just gone back and looked at some of my pre 1975 135mm B&W shots and the grain is less than some of your shots but they definitely displayed more grain than I cared to remember. Certainly my later 6x6 and 6x4.5 are significantly better.

It looks as if your sharpening may have accentuated the grain. It maybe worth your while playing with the sharpening settings.

Enjoyed the subject mater.

[billtils]

Thanks Paul.

You may be close to the mark here. There is no direct sharpening in any of the shots but I did increase the "Structure" slider setting in the clarity tool for some of them.

[Shadowman]

Thanks Paul.

You may be close to the mark here. There is no direct sharpening in any of the shots but I did increase the "Structure" slider setting in the clarity tool for some of them.

The "Structure" slider will definitely add a bit of grit to your image. Nice series.

[joebranko]

No I dont remember B&W film, except for a brief exposure to development in high school, but i enjoyed the series, especially the snow scenes.

[skitterbug]

I remember black and white but I wasn't into the study of photography to understand the use of it. I enjoy your series of photos.

[BobGilbody]

Hello,
I like looking at old photographs. American libraries have lots of books about photography.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=photography&page=6


I have always been interested in how a photograph captures a moment in time. It's usually easy to 'date' a photograph by just looking at it. However occasionally a photograph come along that seems 'timeless'. I have taken a lot of photos over the years but there are very few [ maybe just two ] that seem to me to have 'timelessness'.


Enjoyed looking at your b and w photos Bill

[billtils]

Thanks John, Joe, Sandy and Bob. Another two rolls of film are in the mail, the finer grain PanF this time.

Bill

[John 2]

Pan F used to be a favourite of mine but mainly for still life and studio because it is relatively slow. However, it produces a very satisfying tonal gradation. Nice set of images here. I used to give some of my film cameras a day out but not recently. These are encouraging me to though.

[billtils]

These are encouraging me to though.

Do it John!