Ilford FP4 Plus film - what am I doing wrong?

leelovesbikestoo

leelovesbikestoo

Messages
41
Name
Lee
Edit My Images
Yes
I dabbled with my first B&W film since college a few weeks ago and the results are a bit disappointing...

It's an Ilford FP4 Plus film in a Pentax S3 SLR. Shutter speeds 1/60th and 1/125th and aperture f2.8 with a polarising filter on a 55mm lens, without using a tripod. It was a very bright summer's day on Iona!

The roll was developed by Snappy Snaps in Glasgow (but I think B&W is sent elsewhere) and the negs scanned on my Epson V330. The images here are untouched, just saved down to JPEG.

What are your opinions on the quality of the images? The images appear very grainy to me, not very sharp and lack contrast. I've experimented with different settings in the scanner driver but these are the best (colour negs scan pretty well, requiring only a bit of colour balancing and sharpening in Photoshop). My only thoughts were that the film was slightly underexposed and the shots taken at 1/60th could have done with a tripod (even though I thought I'd be safe without).

https://idisk.me.com//leepaulvickers/Public/Images/img073.jpg
https://idisk.me.com//leepaulvickers/Public/Images/img074.jpg
https://idisk.me.com//leepaulvickers/Public/Images/img079.jpg
https://idisk.me.com//leepaulvickers/Public/Images/img081.jpg
https://idisk.me.com//leepaulvickers/Public/Images/img085.jpg
https://idisk.me.com//leepaulvickers/Public/Images/img086.jpg

Images broken to links - please feel free to amend to compliant sized shots (1024px max side length) and re-link
 
Last edited by a moderator:
you have to develop and print it yourself to get the best results.

if nothing else send it to ilford,snappy snaps did a terrible job on my colour film

b and w needs even more care.
you would also be better with a red or yellow filter rather than a cpl.

what thread size is your lens?
 
Last edited:
Ok, so it's not all down to my old camera and skill? Snappy Snaps have been quite good in the past, when they develop in-house, but wondered where my B&W film was going.

So do you think I could get decent prints from these negs? or have the negs been irreversibly damaged?

I think it's a 49mm thread, based on this page. So the polarising filter wouldn't do a B&W film any favours?
 
maybe on window and water reflections i use red the most it makes skys dark and clouds white
 
Polarising Filters
Polarising filters are used to eliminate or reduce reflections from non-metallic surfaces such as glass and water. They also darken blue skies and penetrate haze.

The filters typically come in two types: circular polarising filters and linear polarising filters. The former is essential if the camera has TTL metering and auto-focus lenses. See the filter manufacturer’s technical information for more details.

A typical polarising filter has a high filter factor; the manufacturer will supply the exact factor with the filter.


ilfords site
 
A red filter is used to give bold and dramatic effects to many photographs, gone are the more subtle changes giving by both yellow and orange filters. Blue skies are now recorded as black on the print, resulting in an impending thunderstorm effect. Pictures of mixed material buildings gain drama and clarity. A red filter will also give marked penetration of haze and fog.



When taking pictures of flowers without a filter there is often little difference in tone between the flowers and the foliage in the print. A red filter will, in almost every case, give a significant difference in tone, so making the photograph more interesting and dramatic.

A red filter is a more specialist filter but one that gives bold and dramatic effects not obtainable by any other way.

A typical red filter has a filter factor of 4 to 5; the manufacturer will supply the exact factor with the filter. Most cameras with TTL metering will not be able to automatically correct for the filter factor. Owing to the dramatic effects given by a red filter it is recommended that additional shots are taken giving +1 stop and +2stops of extra exposure.


ilford again, if i was you i would read the whole site its very,very good
 
I can never get B&W scans to look anything like as good as a proper print. most of the grainy gash looks like digital scanning artefacts to me, I reckon they would print up ok from the negs. SnappySnaps is franchised, our local one is excellent. You can;t sort the focussing issues some have and I think your DOF might be a tad shallow here and there. But I reckon you could print them up fine, I'd certainly have a go if they were my pics.
 
puggie said:
I can never get B&W scans to look anything like as good as a proper print. most of the grainy gash looks like digital scanning artefacts to me, I reckon they would print up ok from the negs. SnappySnaps is franchised, our local one is excellent. You can;t sort the focussing issues some have and I think your DOF might be a tad shallow here and there. But I reckon you could print them up fine, I'd certainly have a go if they were my pics.
Click to expand...

That's what I was wondering; whether the Epson scanner can't read the film density properly and is giving poor scan results. I'd prefer to get them digitised first, crop/edit the good ones and get them printed, rather than scanning from prints to share online.

But, if the scanning is not going to work I might just get the whole lot printed.

Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated.
 
i cant emphasise how important the printing is,a straight machine print will take a average dull gray reading.
 
here is a scan from a 20 year old print of mine it has lost a bit in the scan
a machine print would have it all gray.

i printed it like this dark and moody from a shot taken in daylight with a red or yellow [filter i cant remember which].
its also grainey by design so its HP5 i cant remember whether i pushed it.


39a8946f.jpg
 
another photo in daylight,
imho with film half of the job is done in the darkroom.
i have never let anyone print from my negatives,they wouldnt see it like me.


c5c81a48.jpg
 
looking at the first pic looks like a bit of grit or something has run a line down it?
 
"Snappy Snaps"

There is your problem. I'm yet to see a decent scan from b/w that has been done by a high street lab.

Black and white is 20% picture taking and the rest is the interpretation of the printer (or scanning.)
 
+1ing a few other posters.

Develop it yourself if you want the best results, or send it to Ilford. They are about the same as snappy snaps developing 35mm B&W (about £10 dev & scan - but that's including postage) Turn around time is good and you're guaranteed good results.

This was on FP4 Plus 125

CNV00027.jpg
 
Last edited:
Edtog said:
"Snappy Snaps"

There is your problem. I'm yet to see a decent scan from b/w that has been done by a high street lab.

Black and white is 20% picture taking and the rest is the interpretation of the printer (or scanning.)
Click to expand...
 
I have a few thoughts about these......

1) Exposure: They don't look under exposed to me. There is detail in the shadows and I would expect the shots to have a more "soot & whitewash" look to them if they were. Did you meter manually or use the camera's meter? If it was the latter, it should have compensated for the loss of light from the filter.

How do the negs themselves look? Are they very dense or very thin? This is normally quite a good sign of over/under exposure.

This kind of leads on to my second thought

2) Grain and sharpness....... Have you applied any sharpening? Film tends to need a little bit more than digital in my experience. A very dense/over exposed neg will not scan as sharply as a thinner one due to callier effect. this is where the silver of the neg scatters and refracts the light from the scanner and reduces sharpness. Only has a small effect though. I think somebody hit the nail on the head above about the f2.8 and DoF issue though.

A dense and overexposed neg will also look more grainy when scanned as the scanner will start to introduce noise as it amplifies the signal to read the data in the neg, much in the same way that digital cameras can get noisy as you ramp up the iso.

Finally, it's difficult to get a really sharp scan from 35mm on a flat bed scanner. Is the grain or dust on the scan sharp? If not, the scanner is out of focus and needs to be adjusted. If it is, it's your shot that's not sharp!
 
Gandhi said:
Did you meter manually or use the camera's meter? If it was the latter, it should have compensated for the loss of light from the filter.
Click to expand...

No, the S3 doesn't have any metering nor did I have a handheld meter, so it's a guestimate.

Gandhi said:
How do the negs themselves look? Are they very dense or very thin? This is normally quite a good sign of over/under exposure.
Click to expand...

The exposed areas are nicely dense.

Gandhi said:
2) Grain and sharpness....... Have you applied any sharpening?
Click to expand...

The Epson scan dialogue features sharpening, which I set to 'medium'. This helped the colour neg scanning, and thought it would be an adequate setting for B&W too. I also set the 'reduce grain' function to 'low'.

Gandhi said:
Finally, it's difficult to get a really sharp scan from 35mm on a flat bed scanner. Is the grain or dust on the scan sharp? If not, the scanner is out of focus and needs to be adjusted. If it is, it's your shot that's not sharp!
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm too used to razor-sharp digital images but this last batch of films are a bit disappointing. I might be expecting too much from the scanner as well. How would I check for the scanner being out of focus?
 
I'd turn off the grain reduction for a start. It really just works like the noise reduction part of photoshop, adding blur then sharpening the image to reduce the appearance of the grain. Even on low, it's going to soften the image.

Generally, if the dust or other artifacts on the scan are sharp,then it's probably in focus. I'm not sure about the epson V330, but on the v700, you can adjust the height of the film holder by taking the little feet of the bottom and turning them round or removing them all together.
 
Something went wrong with my post the other day, but generally I agree with Ghandi.

However, it might be worth checking the focus on the camera - does it focus to infinity nice and sharp?

Also, the pictures don't look too grainy to me, but there's noticeably digital stuff - presumably jpeg compression artifacts?
 
I got good results with this film. The devoloping was made in a good place here in Lisbon and I scanned myself...

anacontax64580mmilfordf.jpg


avcontax64580mmilfordfp.jpg


avcontax64580mmilfordfp.jpg


They were made with the Contax 645 and Planar T* 80mm f/2...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top