Lighting for black and white film

[Elaine Maria]

I'm just after starting a project which is a series of three diptychs.
Each diptych will have a half face portrait (Mine, and the two guys I live with)...and these three half portraits will have a coinciding image of each individuals bed, taken from above.
I've been using natural light from the window to light these...from a reading I took from my digital, f 5.6 with a ss of 1/8 sec seemed to show up a nice tonal range.

I'm shooting on a Nikon FM2 with a 50 mm and using Ilford HP5.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks for getting really rich texture detail and nice shadow and highlights...
Mucho Gracias x

 

[cherryrig]

You could just fire the flashes through a honeycomb or grid to bring out the detail of the persons face.

Just test the lighting first using your Canon 5D to see if it's the effect you want if your a bit unsure at the start