Wednesday, November 15, 2006

have been printing more than shooting in the last days.

i thought, i'd show some of them, compared to the negscans.. always a pleasure to compare these.

i'll give marks for negatives and prints from 1 - 10 where 10 is the best.

i'll start with my favourite print:
one of my best prints at the moment. fiber. using agfa mulitcontrast glossy for all my fibers. neutol NE as developer.

i'd rate this 9,5 /10, since you could if you want dodge the driver of the taxi a littlebit.. but i don't really care about that but would understand if someone suggested it.

used grad 3.5 for this one.. not much else. no burn or dodge here.

the negative is much better than it seems on the scan. tmax doesn't look nice scanned. i'd rate it 10/10 actualy.. i don't think that you can make a perfect print without a perfect neg, so if i give a print 10 /10, the neg must be 10/10 too...

i've now printed this a several times. on different papers, sizes, enlargers.. etc and it won't get better. so i'd say it's just a matter of luck if i make better enlargements of this one. i'd rate it 9 /10 because i know there is some, even if little, space for improvement.

maybe the most tricky photo to enlarge so far beside the boy on the eiffeltower.

grad 5 on the whole. while exposing with the five, covering the edges after a while to keep the information in the shadows of the vignetting there. then grad 1 for skintones only. then grad 0/00 burn outside the train, focused on the area where sunlight entered.

the whole print takes more than a minute exposure time only even for a f4.0 on the enlarger.

well.. some of you want to see the negative now right ? here it is: link. now that's what i call low.

well i'm not proud of having such a shitty negative... haha.. but what can you do. it's of course my fault, since i was completely overexposing this one and also overdeveloped the roll... good combination i'd say.

i rate this neg 2,5 /10 while 1 means almost unable to enlarge properly.

one of my best prints imo at the moment. it's a fiber one. i'd rate it 9 /10, the only space for improvement is the highlight area that could get a bit more light with the grad 2 probably, but that's a matter of taste i think, since i like it this way.

printed it with 3 1/2 and burn around her and outside the train.

the negative is really nice. exposure is spot as developement. 10 /10.

a very quick print, but it was not very tricky to do because of a good negative. i'd rate it 8 /10. somehow it could have been better.. but i wouldn't say that there is much space for improvement. maybe i don't like it so much because it is RC and enlarged on the old enlarger, that doesn't produce as nice prints as the new one.. grad 3 no burn or dodge as far as i remember correctly.

the negative is nice for printing due to correct developement and exposure. i'd rate it 8 /10.

old image. finaly printed for the first time. a quick rc print. i'd say 7 /10. it looks really nice i think but has lost too much in the shadows and could need more in the highlights too. will take my time for this one for a fiber later.

printed this one with grad 4 and burned with 0 on the windows.

i remember shooting this one. i had agfa apx100 in it and was shooting with a slr. i didn't want to go beneath the 1/30th so i had to go with -1 step exposure.. see what that means on the negative.

so i'd rate this neg like a 4,5 / 10. printable but not a pleasure

quite hard to print. don't underexpose t-grain films ! ;) i can remember that this shot was almost a step underexposed. the trix wouldn't care about that but the tmax400 does/did.

used grad 4 here overall, then burn with the 2 around the man and burn with 1 on the man's coat.

so yeah, i'd rate this print 7 /10. it's not bad but could be better but i was too lazy for another try and it's just a RC one.

to the negative.. well i'd rate it 3,5 /10. i had worse than that.. but it's not a good one. i must add that tmax films strangely never look nice on a negscan.. but this neg is not really a pleasure to print

did this one for the one who took it. print is quite good 8/10
, there is not much space for improvement, since i have the contrast and enough or almost all information in the highlights, see negscan. printed this one with grad 5 and dodged the right part of my face while exposing with 00. burned a lot more with 00 outside the window.

i'd rate the negative 5 /10. it seems like correctly exposed but the lighning was just very strong from the back, which makes it quite taff to print.

printed on rc, grad 4 + 2 burn on right. quick print, would say 6 of 10. will reprint this later on fiber. needs more burn on the right on the white surface with grad 1 maybe , see compared to the negscan.

here the negativescan: negscan. would rate it 3 of 10, low contrast due to reflecting and a bit dirty window, harsh contrast outside the train. delta400+2 didn't work very well on this photo. i almost never shoot delta though, it was a present of chris, i was out of film. i'm just much better with kodak.




11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing your beautiful photos

Greetings from Singapore!

Adam said...

i think that the very first print its the best out of these, the second one is the one of you, etc. etc., but i do have a question, when you push a film a certain level, how did you learn this, ive self taught myself everything and i really dont understand how you push tri-x 400 +3, doesnt quite make sense to me, if you woouldnt mind explaining send me an email photographeradam at yahoo dot com

sev said...

adam it's easy to explain.

i push the trix+3 in xtol because i will have absolute fine grain. i'm saying that it's finer than a tmax3200 probably. i'll still test this in the next days, because i'm just curious.

i pay 3 - 4€ for a roll of trix and 7 - 8€ for a roll of tmax3200.

a neopan1600 for about 5€ is only good for 1600 but not a film i'd push, since you lose information.

i can handle the trix+3 well, because i shot it so often. the grain on +2 is almost as fine as shot normal and on +3 it's still finer than a hp5 normal.. it's just the finest grain i have seen so far on 3200 and still useable on that iso.

only the neopan beats it but that's a very different film. for my photos the trix+3 just works well.

if i want imense grain and contrast for a very strong film look, i'd shoot a hp5+3.

i have compared my results on grain..

when i shoot on 1600 the best choice for grain would be the neopan (that has a very individual look though that does not always fit) or the tmax400+2 that is very fine too but needs enough light and very accurate exposure, so if i'm inside a pub and i have to shoot 1/15th or 1/8th the tmax won't look nice at all probably and pushing it 3 steps is quite horror.

the trix+3 grainwise is compareable to the tmax+3 or a delta400+2/3 but you should not push t-grain films 3 steps.. 2 should be the max. they are not built for that.

the trix, even 3 steps pushed still doesn't need 100% accurate exposure.. so that it forgives a little difference, unlike t-grain films like tmax and delta or neopan1600.

i could shoot hp5 too and push it 3 steps but grain is much stronger and it loses much more information than the trix+3, at least in my experiences.


so, when shooting trix+3, i keep fine grain, save money and have a little area of forgivenes when it comes to exposure.

Anonymous said...

I like these little pieces of technical background information. Always curious how other people handle their shit.

Anonymous said...

this makes me wanna come by again... love the mercedes !

Anonymous said...

I'm learning more here that in my darkroom classes... :\

Just a question: size? This prints that you are showing us, what size they are, what size do you usually print?
Another one: what do you think of TMax dev in Trix?

Anonymous said...

Since you seem to have more experience than me I feel like asking some advice on TriX. I never had problems with it. Trix+3 in XTol is what I use most. My last development came out a bit purple. Does that have to do with the fix?

Anonymous said...

oh, and great work there. I admire it

Anonymous said...

I have one advice. you should have those tree shots of people sleeping in the train printed the same way (not exactly, but some way closer than they are printed the way you show them here, one is very contrasty, one has a lot more light... etc). a serie (or project) can be coherent for many reasons, and I believe that the way you print them is important, we have to feel that those photos are realy part of a serie... unless that's realy not what you are trying to show and that you don't take shots to make series?

Gonzale said...

you know, i noticed how at my school all my classmates consider me as an arrogant and knowitall.. if only you were in my class, they'd know what it really is :D

noice prints :o !

Anonymous said...

great great great. i am learning here...even though there is stil so much i have no clue about, but i am keen to know.

dont want to bother this conversation but can anyone suggest an accessible RF to begin with? I mean, I have some experience with film, developing and printing, but very little. still, it is my priority right now to invest in a camera and begin to shoot, experiment, explore... Is a second hand camera trustworthy? Id be glad if someone gave me some advice.