Ilford HP5+ exposure testing

[Bell]

Basically, I am going to swap my m6 for an m3 as it just feels better/ more robust in my hands somehow but don't particularly want to carry an external lightmeter.

So I have scoured the internet for testing of the above film but can't find any that resemble what I am trying to test.

I want to find out how much over/ under exposure the film will take and still get useable shots when negs are developed at box speed. Ultimately, learning over time to hone a technique of reading the light by eye. I find at the moment, I'm never more than 2 stops out when second guessing what the m6 meter says.

So I decided to shoot a test roll:
5 stops over, 5 stops under, both inside and out in the garden.
Developed the negs last night, seems to be information there on all of them on first look, intend to scan tonight to find out.

Anyone else done any testing with HP5 similar to this? Or any other films for that matter.

 

[StephenM]

Ilford themselves state in their data sheet on HP5 that you will still get "good image quality" with three stops of underexposure. "Useable" is a rather more nebulous concept. I have scanned negatives where no image was visible to my eyes, and still got what could be called a "useable" image from the scan. Muddy, with massive gaps in the histogram, but the image was recognisable and although poor quality useable for certain purposes.

It's easy enough to read the light with practice; and easier in my opinion if you use a separate meter and transfer the settings so that you are aware at every exposure what the meter says.

 

[Bell]

Thanks Stephen, I think I just needed to see some images because "good" and "useable" are very open to opinion.
I have tried to perform the tests under light conditions that I normally shoot in, in an attempt to make the test appropriate for my style and habbits.

 

[FujiLove]

I'm with you on the M3. I own a few cameras that I love and have owned many more, and nothing comes close to that wonderful lump of brass.

Do these tests apply equally to wet printed negatives, or do scanners make things much easier? I'm not really clear on whether scanning poor negatives is easier or harder than using an enlarger.

 

[StephenM]

You can get a useable image from scanning a negative where you wouldn't even get a visible image if you used an enlarger. There are some things that scanning makes easier, and some that it makes harder. Arguably, if you want to print big - at or beyond the normal limits - the resolution loss from using a high quality enlarging lens will give the conventional print the edge. If you have a (far) less than perfect negative, most people will do better with a scan. Even expert printers. I can produce far better prints by scanning than using an enlarger, but that may just be down to my own lack of skill in a darkroom.

 

[StephenM]

Double post caused by brower hanging and hitting submit again.

 

[Bell]

You can get a useable image from scanning a negative where you wouldn't even get a visible image if you used an enlarger. There are some things that scanning makes easier, and some that it makes harder. Arguably, if you want to print big - at or beyond the normal limits - the resolution loss from using a high quality enlarging lens will give the conventional print the edge. If you have a (far) less than perfect negative, most people will do better with a scan. Even expert printers. I can produce far better prints by scanning than using an enlarger, but that may just be down to my own lack of skill in a darkroom.

Very interesting. I haven't tried darkroom printing yet but fully intend to do so at some stage.
I'm scanning the test roll now and can already see that 5 stops under for me is un-useable from indoor shots. Im not normally put off by grain but this is extreme. 4 stops however seems not too bad. Generally it seems over exposure is coped with quite well.

 

[StephenM]

The difficulties may come when/if you try darkroom printing. The theory would take a while to explain, but what it boils down to is this: At all stages in the photographic process, you lose contrast. The subject will always have a greater difference between light and dark than the image produced by the camera lens (reduced by flare); the film will hold a smaller range than that; and the printing paper has the smallest range of all.

This means that to make a successful print, you have to ultimately match the contrast range of the negative to that of the paper. There are different grades of paper (or you can use variable contrast ones) but they all need to be matched to the negative. Scanning gives you the extra control to adjust the range, and frees you from the restrictions of this final barrier.

It's possible to produce a scan that no amount of work in Photoshop can redeem to give a good image; such a scan is the equivalent of a negative that can never be printed well. One reason people used Farmer's reducer (or other reducers) to cut back the negative density was that beyond a certain point, you can't correct the problem by printing and paper choice alone.

If you look at the characteristic curves for films, you'll see that although older films tended to reach a plateau with extra exposure, modern films do not appear to do so - but the makers do not show what happens beyond a certain point. That "certain point" is the one at which the negative wouldn't match the papers and couldn't make a good print. I suspect (without having tried it) that scanning would still give a printable image. I haven't grossly overexposed in years.

 

[pingu666]

you could print a digital negative ?

 

[Bell]

you could print a digital negative ?

I print most of my shots digitally after scanning, mostly through dscl and I make some trade books by blurb to carry around in my bag to make notes in.

 

[StephenM]

you could print a digital negative ?

It used to be very popular some years ago when black and white inkjet prints were poor quality to print negatives onto transparency film and use them for contact prints or as the start for some of the alternative processes.