Medium Format Film...

TinyExplosions

What are your opinions on good quality medium format B&W film... will be taking the Holga and the Yashica out for some experiments, and just wondering what to load into them -will hopefully pick up some Fuji Provia 400 and Neopan 400, alongside some Ilfod HP5 today, but is there something better/different/funky you guys can suggest -just for general snaps, and messing around with the cameras

Will also be getting some chemicals too, and suggestions there on what to go for?

DaireQuinlan

TinyExplosions wrote: »

What are your opinions on good quality medium format B&W film... will be taking the Holga and the Yashica out for some experiments, and just wondering what to load into them -will hopefully pick up some Fuji Provia 400 and Neopan 400, alongside some Ilfod HP5 today, but is there something better/different/funky you guys can suggest -just for general snaps, and messing around with the cameras

Will also be getting some chemicals too, and suggestions there on what to go for?

Provia 400 is a colour slide film, not recommended in a Holga in particular unless you're out to cross-process it, and I've never had anything but dreadful results trying to xpro it so I wouldn't bother.

On the subject of good B&W film ...

Tri-x. /thread

And chems, what's your skill level ? just starting out ? just go into gunnes or the camera exchange and get some Ilford DD-X, some rapid fix and some ilfotol wetting agent and you're away on a hack presuming you've gotten all the neccessarys in terms of development tanks and the like. DD-x is probably the best all-rounder that I've used. And it's in liquid form so generally easier to use than powdered developers.

TinyExplosions

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Provia 400 is a colour slide film, not recommended in a Holga in particular unless you're out to cross-process it, and I've never had anything but dreadful results trying to xpro it so I wouldn't bother.

Oops -that shows my level of understanding! Am only looking for B&W at the moment

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

On the subject of good B&W film ...

Tri-x. /thread

And chems, what's your skill level ? just starting out ? just go into gunnes or the camera exchange and get some Ilford DD-X, some rapid fix and some ilfotol wetting agent and you're away on a hack presuming you've gotten all the neccessarys in terms of development tanks and the like. DD-x is probably the best all-rounder that I've used. And it's in liquid form so generally easier to use than powdered developers.

Anywhere in Dublin do Tri-X -I don't see it listed on Gunns website.

For chems, my skill level is absolutely zero, though my OH has done a fair amount, and has all the gear... I do think I'll start with whatever Gunns has in stock, and play from there!

i_am_dogboy

Yupp, Tri X, no contest.

Can be gotten in gunns.

jpb1974

It's fun to try them all and find the one's you like.

Different films can suit different styles. I like TMax for street photography, Neopan and TriX for portraits.

Fuji Neopan 400 is a good all rounder and will suit the Holga well. It's also very well priced up in Gunnes... about €3 or €3.20 a roll.

Effects

I just stated using Tmax instead of Neopan, it comes out a lot better for me.

i_am_dogboy

Tmax is good yeah, if you like a higher contrast film, but I personally prefer both Fomapan 100 and 400. I've only ever been able to get them online though. Another advantage of Tmax is that it's more widely used, so it's easier to see how it looks with different developers. Should be easy enough to find examples on flickr, there's another site where people upload photos with chemicals development times and whatnot listed, but I can't think of the name of it...

Edit: Here it is.

DaireQuinlan

i_am_dogboy wrote: »

there's another site where people upload photos with chemicals development times and whatnot listed, but I can't think of the name of it...

Massive development chart:

http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php

-edit- Actually yeah, filmdev is also good. The massive dev chart is probably a little more comprehensive though. I'd take the example pictures on filmdev with a pinch of salt. There are so many variables between the negative and the eventual digital image that they're not as useful as they could be.

TinyExplosions

Cheers for all the info! I popped in, and now have:

2 rolls of Tri x
1 roll Neopan 400
1 roll HP5

Ilford Rapid Fixer
Kodak Photo-Flo wetting agent
Agfa R09 Spezial developer

...let the fun commence!

Heebie

I prefer using Ilford films over the Kodaks generally.. unless I want really high contrast (and T-shaped grain) in which case I'll use T-Max.

I really like these Ilfords:

Pan-F 50
FP-4 125
Delta 400
Delta 3200 (shot at 1600, developed at 3200, generally, with a lower than normal concentration.. so yet even longer dev times.. helps lower the contrastiness a bit to get some nice, smooth shadow detail.)

For developer, I really tend to prefer Kodak D-76.

RE*AC*TOR

I haven't shot enough rolls of enough films to give a really informed opinion. I tend to pick up 3 or 4 rolls of a film, shoot them, next time pick up something different, and so on.

That said Tri-X 400 is a fave (shot at 400 and pushed to 1600). Very contrasty, but pleasing. Tri-X 320 shot at box speed is very nice with a much softer tonality. Nice film.

Didn't particularily like Delta 3200. My results were somewhat flat and very grainy, but different approach to shooting / developing may help this.

Slidinginfinity

Have a look here. Nice guy, he pokes his head up around here from time to time.

sineadw

HP5 is very forgiving for a beginner. You have to be more careful with higher contrast films. I recently developed HP5 and some pushed fomapan in the same tank and the Ilford was lovely and smooth while the Foma had CONTRAST!! (looked well mind you )

Don't know if mammy gunn said it to you, but it's generally a little easier if you dilute the dev. For HP5 in R09 I use 1/30 and 8 mins, 30 sec continuous agitation in first minute and three full rotations per minute after that. Gives a lovely finish

sineadw

Actually, I just posted shots on pixie for my college workbook if you want to see what I mean..

Mr. Grieves

For the Holga, I reccomend shooting only on really sunny days, for some nice shadows etc, and then developing at 250 ISO. I've only tried this with HP5+, but it worked well.

Using the Rodinal special you got, I'd say develop at 1+30 or 1+45 dilution, not 1+15 like it says on the bottle. 1+15 gives less sharpness and grain, I just didn't really like it, esp as medium format won't have very visible grain anyway. Adjust your dev time in proportion to the dilution ratio.

For the Yashica I like shooting wide open on bright days so I use 100 speed film. Ilford Delta 100 is nice (Gunn's never seem to have it tho), I've never shot the Kodak or Fuji alternatives.