Ilford FP4+

[Ornello]

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21 minutes ago, Mr.Prime said:

It’s not such a big deal for me, I’m quite prepared to accept that scanning is going to be different and that I’ll still enjoy do some developing myself. It’s only a hobby.

This thread is more about thoughts on the question about exposure latitude in practice when using FP4+.

The latitude depends on the methods you use. In a darkroom situation, it is probably more.

[fotomas]

I always found the FP4 to have an quite huge latitude. Example given here. FP4, 125 ASA, Perceptol 1+3.
OK - it's FP4 and not FP4+ but according to my experience it is pretty close.

[Mr.Prime]

2 hours ago, fotomas said:

I always found the FP4 to have an quite huge latitude. Example given here. FP4, 125 ASA, Perceptol 1+3.
OK - it's FP4 and not FP4+ but according to my experience it is pretty close.

That’s a gorgeous car you linked to. Yes, it shows a wide range of tones, bright to black. But this isn’t quite the concern I have . My question is whether you would have been happy with a stop of under or over exposure, that you would likely have found one exposure was clearly better and the other exposures unsatisfactory ? A bit less exposure and those shadows will have deepened to eat up all detail, a bit more exposure and you’d lose the readability of the signage outside.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Mr.Prime

[Doug A]

4 hours ago, Ornello said:

...B&W films end up as metal particles of silver. Light striking these particles behaves differently than it does passing through dyes. It doesn't pass through the silver at all, but between the particles. The small aperture of the scanner device causes the grain to be exaggerated...

I have used identical 50/2.8 Schneider Companion S lenses for scanning with a digital camera at home and for printing in the darkroom at my old job. Aside from the difference in magnification, which the Schneiders handled remarkably well in my experience, the optical behavior is identical with just a difference of the light sensitive medium - photosensitized paper vs photosensitive silicon. 

There are certainly issues with digitizing B&W film negatives but getting past simple empirical observation in understanding them requires some knowledge of frequency-domain analysis. But, at least for those scanning with digital cameras, issues involving the light path don't enter into it. 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Doug A
clarification

[fotomas]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Mr.Prime:

That’s a gorgeous car you linked to. Yes, it shows a wide range of tones, bright to black. But this isn’t quite the concern I have . My question is whether you would have been happy with a stop of under or over exposure, that you would likely have found one exposure was clearly better and the other exposures unsatisfactory ? A bit less exposure and those shadows will have deepened to eat up all detail, a bit more exposure and you’d lose the readability of the signage outside.

As I wrote I exposed it to 125 ASA, like I mostly do, but usually I measure the shadows. I did only this one exposure and think it was spot on. If one like I'm sure he can extract some more information in the shadows, but I like it like it is. Was scanned directly from the negative with an film scanner. Turns out to be much sharper as from an print, but the grain might be slightly pronounced.
Some times I pushed the FP4 even up to 250 ASA, but that was long ago. Was OK but I came away from pushing.

Edited May 10, 2022 by fotomas

[Ornello]

2 hours ago, Doug A said:

I have used identical 50/2.8 Schneider Companion S lenses for scanning with a digital camera at home and for printing in the darkroom at my old job. Aside from the difference in magnification, which the Schneiders handled remarkably well in my experience, the optical behavior is identical with just a difference of the light sensitive medium - photosensitized paper vs photosensitive silicon. 

There are certainly issues with digitizing B&W film negatives but getting past simple empirical observation in understanding them requires some knowledge of frequency-domain analysis. But, at least for those scanning with digital cameras, issues involving the light path don't enter into it. 

Of course! That's technically not 'scanning'. I'm sure you understand the difference. The problem with scanning is indeed the light passing through the silver particles and scattering. It's called the Callier effect. What you are doing is not scanning, and not what I am talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callier_effect

Edited May 10, 2022 by Ornello

[Doug A]

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39 minutes ago, Ornello said:

Of course! That's technically not 'scanning'. I'm sure you understand the difference. The problem with scanning is indeed the light passing through the silver particles and scattering. It's called the Callier effect. What you are doing is not scanning, and not what I am talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callier_effect

Whether or not digitizing a negative with a digital camera is "scanning" is a matter of opinion. Using the term without qualification is going to confuse some readers.  I knew what you meant from the context.

Back when photo processing meant darkroom processing many photographers valued conventional condenser enlargers (more properly called semi-diffusion enlargers) for the increased contrast over pure diffusion enlargers due to the Callier effect, especially for 35mm negatives. 

And to get back to the original subject of the thread, thank you for recommending FX-39. I bought a bottle and just developed a roll of FP4 Plus, which is scanning beautifully with an X-Trans sensor. It has certainly earned a place on my shelf along with Ilfosol 3 and Rodinal. 

[Aryel]

Part of the results could be due to the scanning process itself. The scanner will set the exposure as if you were scanning a single image. I’d suggest to look at the negatives to see how much details there is and try to scan them one by one (on the flatbed as well). 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Aryel

[250swb]

6 hours ago, Doug A said:

Whether or not digitizing a negative with a digital camera is "scanning" is a matter of opinion. Using the term without qualification is going to confuse some readers.  I knew what you meant from the context.

 

You are on the right track, a DSLR sensor scans line by line, not in parallel. It's far faster than moving a single point or simple multi point sensors across a negative to read the image, but scanning line by line is why DSLR sensors can for example show a rolling shutter effect in movie mode. 

[Ornello]

12 hours ago, Doug A said:

Whether or not digitizing a negative with a digital camera is "scanning" is a matter of opinion. Using the term without qualification is going to confuse some readers.  I knew what you meant from the context.

Back when photo processing meant darkroom processing many photographers valued conventional condenser enlargers (more properly called semi-diffusion enlargers) for the increased contrast over pure diffusion enlargers due to the Callier effect, especially for 35mm negatives. 

And to get back to the original subject of the thread, thank you for recommending FX-39. I bought a bottle and just developed a roll of FP4 Plus, which is scanning beautifully with an X-Trans sensor. It has certainly earned a place on my shelf along with Ilfosol 3 and Rodinal. 

Yes, but the Callier effect in the case of scanning works a little differently. There is something called 'aliasing' that comes into play.

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Grain.htm

[Doug A]

There is no mention of the Callier effect in the linked article which is, by the way, one of the seminal online discussions of aliasing. What its argument boils down to is that when the spacing of the negative grain and spacing of the sensor pixels approach each other nasty things happen to the scanned image. It becomes less of an issue as the sensor resolution of dedicated scanners and digital cameras used for scanning increases. 

[Ornello]

On 5/10/2022 at 1:04 PM, Mr.Prime said:

It’s not such a big deal for me, I’m quite prepared to accept that scanning is going to be different and that I’ll still enjoy do some developing myself. It’s only a hobby.

This thread is more about thoughts on the question about exposure latitude in practice when using FP4+.

It depends on whether you print or digitize, to some extent.

[Mr.Prime]

I think I'm going to adopt the time honored practice of doing some exposure bracketing for some select shots to gain some more experience of the exposure behavior with different scenes. I feel like I'm back in 9th grade.

[250swb]

2 hours ago, Mr.Prime said:

I think I'm going to adopt the time honored practice of doing some exposure bracketing for some select shots to gain some more experience of the exposure behavior with different scenes. I feel like I'm back in 9th grade.

I think you are maybe being drawn into a world of opinions masquerading as the right thing to do. But if all you did was rate the film at box speed and go from there you wouldn't go far wrong. However if you do want to minutely cross reference everything take a light meter reading from a Kodak Grey Card, and then put that grey card within the frame of the test photo. Then when you process your film of bracketed exposures the exposure that nearest matches the tone of your grey card is the correct exposure for your meter and development process. It goes far beyond just doing dumb 'does it look better' tests as you've been encouraged to do. 

[Mr.Prime]

4 hours ago, 250swb said:

I think you are maybe being drawn into a world of opinions masquerading as the right thing to do. But if all you did was rate the film at box speed and go from there you wouldn't go far wrong. However if you do want to minutely cross reference everything take a light meter reading from a Kodak Grey Card, and then put that grey card within the frame of the test photo. Then when you process your film of bracketed exposures the exposure that nearest matches the tone of your grey card is the correct exposure for your meter and development process. It goes far beyond just doing dumb 'does it look better' tests as you've been encouraged to do. 

That’s good food for thought, thanks.

[adan]

On 5/10/2022 at 2:15 PM, Mr.Prime said:

Yes, it shows a wide range of tones, bright to black. But this isn’t quite the concern I have . My question is whether you would have been happy with a stop of under or over exposure, that you would likely have found one exposure was clearly better and the other exposures unsatisfactory ?

I think that is a key point here - tonal range is not the same thing as latitude.

FP4+ has great tonal range within a single correct exposure, due to using a mix of different-sized silver-halide crystals. Effectively, it mixes ISO 250 grains in with ISO 64 grains - the ISO 250 grains respond to dim light in the shadows where the ISO 64 grains poop out, and the ISO 64 grains keep adding density in the highlights when the ISO 250 grains are pinned out and can't distinguish tones anymore. The overall speed averages out to ISO 125 - with a bit more grain than, say TMax 100 or Delta 100, but better tones (generally).

But the exposure still needs to be correct, to get full use of that tonality.

If one wants latitude, that came from other formulations. E.G. Kodak Verichrome Pan, made for box cameras with only one shutter speed (plus "Bulb") and as few as two apertures ("Sunny" and "Cloudy") and used by raw snapshooters ("You push the button; we do the rest!"). Had to work "adequately" across major exposure inconsistencies.

I'm sure Ilford made something similar, but I don't know its brand name - and in any event 1) those films were dropped decades ago 😡 , and 2) FP4+ (or its predecessors FP4/FP3/FP2/FP1) is/was not that film.

.................

You mentioned only being able to do B&W film processing yourself.

Actually, I find today's color-neg (or XP2) processing to be at least as easy to do myself as B&W. All one really needs is a more precise thermometer, and some ability to adjust and hold the developer temperature to within ± 0.25°C (which can be done with water baths in any sink with both hot and cold water available, and a drain stopper). The others steps (which can be as few as three - blix (bleach/fix in one bath); wash; final rinse with stabilizer or Photoflo) do not require as much temperature or timing precision (± 5°C or thereabouts). CineStill sells kits as both powders and liquid concentrates.

And for me, simpler - you just do what it says on the box, and pictures come out the other end, same as an automated lab machine. Not that I don't do traditional B&W processing as well.

[Matlock]

3 hours ago, adan said:

I'm sure Ilford made something similar, but I don't know its brand name - and in any event 1) those films were dropped decades ago 😡 , and 2) FP4+ (or its predecessors FP4/FP3/FP2/FP1) is/was not that film.

 

Ilford Selochrome Pan was that film.

[adan]

Yes, I saw the "Selo" brand on several Ilford film boxes from the 1930s on, but since it also appeared on, for example, "Selo F.P.2," I wasn't sure it meant exactly the same thing. But Selochrome Pan makes obvious sense.

BTW - it is possible that Selochrome and Verichrome were essentially an extreme version of how FP4 works (mixed grain/speed crystals), which did provide "almost any amount of light" latitude. But were probably grainier and thus mostly only suitable for large-negative box-camera images that were contact-printed at original size (2.25"x 3.25" up to 3.25" x 6").

"Grain" did not really become a significant factor in film engineering until we idiots started trying to enlarge pictures 5x/8x/16x the original negative size - i.e. the introduction of 35mm cameras and Minoxes and such.

I know Verichrome Pan was never made in 35mm format, although it was made in Bantam 828 and Instamatic 126 sizes - films 35mm wide, but with bigger negs due to not wasting space on sprocket holes, and generally only enlarged 3x of so for snapshot albums.

Edited May 12, 2022 by adan

[Pyrogallol]

Have a look at

http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Chronology.html

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Hallo,

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