First 4x5

[Barney]

first 4x5 shot

Fomapan 100 Ei 100 in R09 1+100 for 18 mins

PP 1 clock auto, I can make it significantly better but there is still a fair bit of halation around rhs of deck chair.
It was so much of a faf I forgot to take multiple readings of highlight and shadow areas Used incident meter.

 

[Ian Grant]

Soot and whitewash.

Fomapan 100 is only a 100EI film in ID-68/Microphen, that's according to Foma's own datasheet, I've always shot it at 50EI developed in Pyrocat HD with excellent results.

You need to realise LF lenses have vert shallow DOF, lenses need stopping down well, and movements like front tilt would help here.

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

OK a harsh but pertinent comment, just stop shooting multiple formats for a short spell. You bare flailing around getting nowhere, you are just wasting time and film, and money, with no improvements.

You have to go right back to the basics of using film, it really is not difficult. At the moment it's like you are trying to sprint before you have barely learnt to walk, and you are just constantly falling over, helplessly.

Use a 35mm camera, really nail exposure, effective EI, and development, tightly, you can quickly see a huge increase in image quality. It's a no-brainer.

Ian

 

[Barney]

OK a harsh but pertinent comment, just stop shooting multiple formats for a short spell. You bare flailing around getting nowhere, you are just wasting time and film, and money, with no improvements.

You have to go right back to the basics of using film, it really is not difficult. At the moment it's like you are trying to sprint before you have barely learnt to walk, and you are just constantly falling over, helplessly.

Use a 35mm camera, really nail exposure, effective EI, and development, tightly, you can quickly see a huge increase in image quality. It's a no-brainer.

Ian

I am sure that you enjoy photography, far more than I ever could.

 

[StephenM]

Good for a first attempt. I may post mine later...

It's impossible to judge the negative when all I've seen is a digital version on a screen, with variations likely due to my screen, how you got from negative to file for posting etc., but the impression I have is underexposed and overdeveloped.

 

[Barney]

Thanks Stephen, what has caused the halation do you think?

The auto knocked everything darker, original is very bright indeed

 

[StephenM]

Just making sure, but underexposure in my comment was about lack of shadow detail, not how light or dark the image is. To my eyes the right hand side of the chair is the brightest detail, so it could come down to the antihalation backing of the film.

 

[Barney]

Just making sure, but underexposure in my comment was about lack of shadow detail, not how light or dark the image is. To my eyes the right hand side of the chair is the brightest detail, so it could come down to the antihalation backing of the film.

so if I had been considering the zone system instead of, how do i work this effing thing I should have exposed for the dark areas and knocked the development time right down.

I deliberately chose a tricky scene so that I would learn more

 

[StephenM]

Based solely on how the image appears on my tablet, which isn't calibrated in any shape or form, I'd say that most of your results show underexposure and overdevelopment. This subject doesn't look tricky at all to me. And I never consider the zone system, as it doesn't help me. It could possibly solve problems I've never encountered, but at the expense of complicating my working methods. Rather as I know about the dangers about going into cellars in Cornwall, but it doesn't impact on what I do.

In your shoes at this scene, I'd have put the pslm of my hand in the sunlight, taken an incident reading from it, opened up one stop, exposed my FP4 at 80 (not 125) and developed in Rodinal 1:50 for the time in the massive development chart. Mainly because everything I photograph works fine with this method.