Saturday, December 09, 2006


We're doing a series of shots with each member of Red Venus Love Army in beret and some goggles we found on the ground. This is from one of the test rolls.  I think I used Arista 400, which if repackaged Fomapan. I usually push my 400 speed BW to 1600.

While we're on the subject, here are my impressions of some of the different BW films pushed 2 stops:
Ilford HP5: looks lovely, nice grain and contrast. I use HP5 for all my serious stuff.
Kodak TMY: looks crappy, pulpy-looking grain, contrast out of control- highlights blown massively, shadows blocked up. 
Fortepan: Not great- seemed to get a weird sooty look and the highlights tended to blow.
Fomapan: pretty good, maybe not as pretty as the HP5. I get this repackaged as Arista for practice/experimental stuff, because it's cheap. 
Neopan 400: I like it a lot- maybe more contrasty and grainy than the HP5, but not out of control. I would use a lot more of this, except I like the HP5 more, and I want to limit the number of films I use. 

Take all this with a grain of salt- in the darkroom I don't have the strictest tolerances in the world, so maybe the bad results are due to sloppiness.
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