Pushing film

I’ve recently experimented with pushing some film. It’s not a new idea but not something I’ve personally tried before.

For those that don’t know what pushed film is, I’ll explain it quite simply:
You underexpose the film and then push it back to what it should be in the developing.
For example, if you have a 400iso film and expose it as 800iso then you’re pushing it by one stop of exposure. This will allow you to shoot at a faster shutter speed but the film will be one stop underexposed. Therefore when it is developed, it needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Why do this?
Well, it can be handy in low light situations. If you only had a 400 film you could shoot it at 1600 in bad light.
Also, as an aesthetic decision: when you’re pushing film in this way then it increases grain and contast. So if that’s the look you want then it’s a good way of getting it in camera.

I had some rolls of my favourite films from the summer left in the fridge: Ilford Pan 400 and Kodak ProImage 100. Having shot quite a bit on these two films, I thought they’d be pretty good to experiment with.

Both of them I shot pushed by two stops. So, the Pan 400 I rated at 1600 and the ProImage 100 I rated at 400.

First issue I found which I didn’t expect at this time of year: really bright sunlight. Not just the occasional bright Autumnal morning. Nope - bright, contrasty light all day for a week or two. It was lovely for catching shadows… but I was rating my 400 film at 1600. Which meant I was pretty much stuck on an aperture of f16. Which isn’t the end of the world but I do prefer a bit of flexibility!

To be honest, I’m unsure if pushing the Pan 400 really added much. Apart from some grain. I think it’s fine to use for pushing and I’m happy with the results (and it ends up being cheaper to push this than buy some faster film!) but I don’t think it really added anything to the shots.

When pushing a colour film the saturation levels should also increase. The scans from the pushed ProImage had noticeably more punch to the colour. Not that the colours were washed out before. It’s just there was a noticeable difference after having been pushed. More contrasty colours; possibly good to play around with during the winter.

Overall, it’s been handy to try pushing a couple of films and I will probably try some more. However, the downside is that the whole film has to be push processed, so you are tied in to doing that for the whole film. Which - as I found with the 400 speed film - can limit you from time to time. However, I’m quite interested in trying it out for a gig I’ll be shooting next month.

All shot on my Olympus OM10. As far as I remember, these were shot on either the Zuiko f1.8 50mm or Panagor f2 35mm.

Scanning, holidays, and new films

For quite some time I've felt the need to have more control of what is going on with my film scans. I've used several labs over the years for processing and scanning, and whilst none of them have done a bad job, I've never been 100% sure if it could be better or not. It seems to be adding a variable into the process which I have no control over - is the exposure wrong because of me or is the scanner not set up properly? The same goes for the focus - is the lab's scanner out? Or am I just not getting things right when shooting?

So, I needed my own scanner. By doing it myself, I can not only be more sure of any variables, but I can also tweak each shot if I want. Because I know what I was shooting and what the scene looked like.

I'm a bit tight on space at home, which meant a flatbed scanner was out; which was a shame as a flatbed would do various formats. So I went for a Plustek Opticfilm 8100 35mm scanner.

I'd heard that there was quite a steep learning curve to the Silverfast software which comes with it. The first few scans I wasn't particularly pleased with at all - it was all looking a bit grungey. After looking at some tutorials, I then found what some of the tools were doing in the software and was on top of it pretty quickly.

It has multi exposure on it, which means I can do two scan passes. I'm scanning fairly flat without bumping up any contrast. So the resulting TIFF files are a bit washed out. However, when putting them through Lightroom then they really come to life. I've started saving presets for each one to speed up the post process.

The first scans I made where from a short break in Cornwall. I was trying out some Kodak ProImage 100, a film that is not readily available but is apparently being marketed more in Europe now. Which is a good thing, because I rather like it! It's very much like Kodak Portra - natural colours, nice saturation and renders skin tones nicely. It also has quite a bit of flexibility - I could push certain colours a bit if I wished. The film was apparently first released in 1997 and not been updated since; mixing that with my OM10 and old Zuiko glass gives it a feel of my youth in the 80s/90s.

The next film which I'd not used before was Fomapan 400. I'd used Foma 100 and 200 before (see earlier journal entries) and liked the results - particularly the 200. So I thought I'd give the 400 a shot. I'd read that it wasn't quite as good and I think I'd have to agree. Tonally I found it quite flat and stubbornly didn't want to be pushed anywhere. Too much exposure made it break up quickly, too much shadow just crushed the blacks. I like a bit of grain with my black and white film, but the grain I found a bit crude. Unlike Foma 200, I don't think it will be high on my shopping list in the future....

Next up was Ilford's Pan 400. And this was completely different - nice tight grain, a wide range of greys in the tone allowing me to play with it to my heart's content, and a gorgeous look which has an almost 1960s documentary look to it. I've got another roll in my camera at the moment and already excited to see how it turns out - really love this one!

One thing that I didn't expect from using my own scanner was seeing the difference straight away between different emulsions. I could see a massive difference between Foma 400 and Pan 400  just by seeing the initial scans before I even put them into Lightroom. Even the physicality of the film is different - the Foma more prone to being damaged than the Ilford.

I have to say, the Plustek scanner is great. I've got scans from it that are just as good as I've been getting from pro labs. And I'll be tweaking the settings more to see what else I can get out of it.

And Kodak ProImage and Ilford Pan 400: big thumbs up! Now, I wonder what Pan 100 is like...!?

All shot on my Olympus OM10.
Kodak ProImage 100 rated at 80asa.
Fomapan 400 rated at 200asa.
Ilford Pan 400 rated at 200asa.