Question on ISO compensation

[Xia_Ke]

I wanted to pick up some Kodak TMAX 3200 film. For metering purposes, how many stops should I compensate for as my settings only go to 1600 on the Nikkormat and 800 on the Canonet? Thanks in advance

[mn shutterbug]

With the Nikkormat, compensate 1 stop and the other camera, 2 stops. Every time the ISO doubles, it amounts to 1 stop, if I recall correctly.

[Xia_Ke]

That was quick... Thanks Mike

[Greg McCary]

I wanted to pick up some Kodak TMAX 3200 film. For metering purposes, how many stops should I compensate for as my settings only go to 1600 on the Nikkormat and 800 on the Canonet? Thanks in advance

You may have a hard time getting 3200 to work on the Canonet. 400 is almost to fast for mine. I stay at the fastest settings even on a cloudy day. But I think to answer your question 1 and 2. My Canonet is one stop off by the meter so I set it for 800 ISO when shooting 400. Shutter speed 1/250 at 800ISO would be !/125 at 400 and 1/60 at 200 ect.
Or that's always what I thought?

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks Greg I just thought it would be fun to mess around with some night time / low light shooting. I figured the 3200 in the Canonet could make for some night time fun.

[Greg McCary]

Sounds interesting.......

[Xia_Ke]

Interesting??? Is that good or bad?...LOL I dunno, I'm just about experimenting and trying new things right now. Night time shooting is fun but, just a pain having to haul a tripod at times. Would the 3200 allow me to get to handheld shutter speeds? I'm not talking pitch black shooting but, walking around town with normal streets lights, etc.

[Greg McCary]

Interesting??? Is that good or bad?...LOL I dunno, I'm just about experimenting and trying new things right now. Night time shooting is fun but, just a pain having to haul a tripod at times. Would the 3200 allow me to get to handheld shutter speeds? I'm not talking pitch black shooting but, walking around town with normal streets lights, etc.

Yes you could hand hold a lot of it. I never really ever shot anything over 800. The higher you go the more grain you get in your image. Film seems worse than digital to me. I think interesting in a fun way. I would like to see the results. I have often wanted to use my Canonet for nights shots. Exposure would be more guess work and practice than anything. I have seen some beautiful night pictures created with a Rangefinder. Check this site out. You will find some night stuff here I am sure. www.rangefinderforum.com. And while you are there check out Tuna's Gallery. It's well worth a look.
Greg

[another view]

ISO3200 should easily give you hand-holdable shutter speeds at night. For some reason I still remember Times Square in NYC being about 1/30 at f2.8 on ISO400. Of course that's an exceptionally bright place but add three stops (ISO400 to 3200) and you'd have 1/250 shutter speed! In most places I'd guess you'd be around 1/30 or 1/60 with 3200, and that rangefinder has an f1.7 lens which also will help keep the exposure options open.

And you don't have to shoot it at 3200 - you can shoot it at 1600 but develop it accordingly (remember the chart). This was what I usually did with this film because 3200 is very grainy. It's a great look, but 1600 should give you much less grain although a lot more than Tmax 400 for example. I don't remember developing 3200 myself because there was a great local pro lab which has since gone out of business. They were very consistent, and I liked the fact that I could have them develop it so I could get used to what the results should be at a particular ISO speed before I tried to screw it up myself. Never quite got there...

Getting back to your original question, one stop of ISO speed is the same as one stop of aperture or shutter speed. Compensating one stop either doubles or halves the amount of exposure. For example, ISO 3200, 1/60 at f5.6 is the same amount of exposure as ISO 1600, 1/30 at f5.6 or ISO 800, 1/15 at f5.6, etc.

[Xia_Ke]

Yes you could hand hold a lot of it. I never really ever shot anything over 800. The higher you go the more grain you get in your image. Film seems worse than digital to me. I think interesting in a fun way. I would like to see the results. I have often wanted to use my Canonet for nights shots. Exposure would be more guess work and practice than anything. I have seen some beautiful night pictures created with a Rangefinder. Check this site out. You will find some night stuff here I am sure. www.rangefinderforum.com. And while you are there check out Tuna's Gallery. It's well worth a look.
Greg

Thanks Greg. You're probably right about the exposure being guesswork at that point. The meter isn't exactly the clearest except in decent light. Thanks also for the link. I've lurked over there for a bit ever since someone posted a link to Tuna's work a while ago. He has some amazing work there.

ISO3200 should easily give you hand-holdable shutter speeds at night. For some reason I still remember Times Square in NYC being about 1/30 at f2.8 on ISO400. Of course that's an exceptionally bright place but add three stops (ISO400 to 3200) and you'd have 1/250 shutter speed! In most places I'd guess you'd be around 1/30 or 1/60 with 3200, and that rangefinder has an f1.7 lens which also will help keep the exposure options open.

And you don't have to shoot it at 3200 - you can shoot it at 1600 but develop it accordingly (remember the chart). This was what I usually did with this film because 3200 is very grainy. It's a great look, but 1600 should give you much less grain although a lot more than Tmax 400 for example. I don't remember developing 3200 myself because there was a great local pro lab which has since gone out of business. They were very consistent, and I liked the fact that I could have them develop it so I could get used to what the results should be at a particular ISO speed before I tried to screw it up myself. Never quite got there...

Getting back to your original question, one stop of ISO speed is the same as one stop of aperture or shutter speed. Compensating one stop either doubles or halves the amount of exposure. For example, ISO 3200, 1/60 at f5.6 is the same amount of exposure as ISO 1600, 1/30 at f5.6 or ISO 800, 1/15 at f5.6, etc.

Thanks av. Yeah, I don't think I'll have anywhere near the light levels of Times Square in small town Maine...LOL I'm not too worried about the grain right now. Like I said, this will just be for fun and to experiment a bit as film is going to be a whole new world to me. I think you had mentioned before about shooting that at 1600. Might have to try that out and see how well it works. Think it would shoot at 800? Since I mostly shoot during the day while hiking, most of my film right now is all 100 or 125 speed with the exception of some Tri-X which is 400. I'll give the Tri-X a go first to see how well that does in low light.


Thanks again guys

[another view]

Think it would shoot at 800? Since I mostly shoot during the day while hiking, most of my film right now is all 100 or 125 speed with the exception of some Tri-X which is 400. I'll give the Tri-X a go first to see how well that does in low light.

Tmax 3200 will shoot at 800 and you'll probably have even less grain than at 800 but I've never tried it. I usually shot Tri-X 400 at 250, developing at 400, so I'd probably start out by shooting Tri-X at 640 (think that's the number, 1/3 stop over 800) and develop it at 800. That or experiment with pushing Tmax 400 a stop. But Tmax 3200 at 800 might be worth a try.

Any film will shoot at any ISO, but whether or not it gives you the results you want are another question. It can take a lot of experimenting to figure out how to expose when shooting and then what to do in the darkroom. Fun stuff, actually, but it does take patience.

Also can apply to color film - for example, Fuji Provia 100F shot at ISO320 and developed with a two stop push (IOW developed at 400) gives pretty nice results. I picked that one up from someone (here, I think) when I was shooting a lot of that film. That 1/3 stop of overexposure helps when pushed but isn't necessary at the rated speed.

[Xia_Ke]

I think I might need to slow down a bit here...LOL Think I better first get a few rolls shot at and processed at rated speed before I go messing around I just got my changing bag in yesterday so time to start practicing with that. All I have left to get now are my chemicals and some storage bottles

[Greg McCary]

I think I might need to slow down a bit here...LOL Think I better first get a few rolls shot at and processed at rated speed before I go messing around I just got my changing bag in yesterday so time to start practicing with that. All I have left to get now are my chemicals and some storage bottles

Let me know how it goes Aaron. I am getting frustrated with the labs in my area. They can develope the film and there burner don't work or they have quit scanning to CD altogether or their developer is broken down. I am thinking if I want to shot B&W I may end up doing it all myself. I went to three different labs today before I got one that could get the job done. I need a film scanner.
Greg

[Xia_Ke]

Will do Greg May be a little bit before I can post some scans though as I don't have a scanner either. Might just have to cave and break out the plastic

[another view]

Quality at labs is one great reason to do it yourself - if you're not getting consistent results from them (Greg's stories would lead me to wonder about those labs) then how do you really know what's happening?

Good point about slowing down, actually. I really think that, as I said before, it's best to find one film and one developer and then work on your process and technique. From there, try one variable at a time. I think I only shot a couple rolls of Tmax 3200 at 3200 before I tried 1600, and that was where I got the results I was looking for. Grainy, but in a good way - where you're looking for that, anyway.

[Xia_Ke]

... I really think that, as I said before, it's best to find one film and one developer and then work on your process and technique...

That was my plan til I had fun on Ebay...LOL Right now I have a mixture of 13 rolls of Kodak Plus-X 125, 4 rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400, 20 rolls of Kodak TMax 100, and 10 rolls of Ilford Delta 100 in fridge. Gotta love them bulk lots

The plan, to start, will be using Kodak HC-110 developer on a single use basis, then when I get a little comfortable with it, using replenisher. Then, based on I think it was your recommendation, getting the Canon 8600f for scanning. Now, being that I have a tendency for stupid questions, how do I convert a b&w negative scan into a positive in Photoshop?

Thanks again av! Thanks to everyone else as well for helping me to get started

Aaron

[Greg McCary]

That was my plan til I had fun on Ebay...LOL Right now I have a mixture of 13 rolls of Kodak Plus-X 125, 4 rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400, 20 rolls of Kodak TMax 100, and 10 rolls of Ilford Delta 100 in fridge. Gotta love them bulk lots

The plan, to start, will be using Kodak HC-110 developer on a single use basis, then when I get a little comfortable with it, using replenisher. Then, based on I think it was your recommendation, getting the Canon 8600f for scanning. Now, being that I have a tendency for stupid questions, how do I convert a b&w negative scan into a positive in Photoshop?

Thanks again av! Thanks to everyone else as well for helping me to get started

Aaron

The scanner will convert the neg to a jpeg. I had a cheaper Epson that finally stopped working. You set it up for what you were scanning. Color, B&W or slide.

[Xia_Ke]

Oh, okay. Thanks Greg That was what I was hoping for but, wasn't sure.

[another view]

Wasn't me with the scanner recommendation - but thanks anyway...

The best results I had were from scanning b&w film as a color slide, then "invert" in Photoshop. From there, work your magic with levels, curves, etc. You'll also need to turn it into b&w because the scan will pick up the base color tint of the neg - you can either convert to greyscale or use the channel mixer method.

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks av

I went back and checked, credit goes to Orgnoi1 for the recommendation