newbie questions about personal ei without an enlarger and push/pulling

**dede95064** · 13-Aug-2008, 19:10

hello,

after searching this forum i remain confused...

sorry for the long post ahead...

how does one go about finding a personal exposure index without an enlarger?

i have some ilford fp4+ and i tried shooting the same scene by bracketing it in half stops (as that's how low my camera goes) and full stops and then scanned the results. at the recommended iso 125 and say 1/30th of a sec according to the meter, the pic looks ok. when scanned, it appears a tad dark but then i just fix the levels curve (with both triangle endpoints at the end of the graph/curve) button in the scanning software before finalizing the picture to scan it to make the image look better. now with the same shot at 1/20th of a second or 1/15th of a second, the shadows begin to show a slight increase in detail. the scanned result looks ever so slightly better but not a whole lot better, just slightly. if the highlights begin to blow, i tweak the settings in the software to reduce the blowout.
again, i fix the image with the levels button on the scanning software (the epson 4990 software). eventually, i can get the final images to look almost identical in photoshop if i continue to tweak with the levels and curve commands.
i don't have a darkroom and develop film in drums/tanks.

the second part to this is if i decide that the image looks best at iso 64 (or 1/15th of a second in this example), do i develop at the ilford recommended time of iso 125 or do i reduce the times to say ilford's recommended time of iso 64?
are the recommended times only for push/pulling and are not really for ei adjustments? how do these recommended times work for pushing/pulling? if i understand this correctly, if i shoot a scene at iso 200 with this film knowing that it will come out dark, i then 'push the film' with the recommended times to get a usable image? the extra development times increase the contrast to help compensate for the darkness of the image? and again, all this stuff has nothing to do with personal ei's right?

thanks for any insight!

i was also thinking about asking these two parts on apug but it seems like they don't like scanner/photoshop talk?

**Bruce Barlow** · 14-Aug-2008, 04:12

My film test kit requires neither densitometer nor enlarger for personal EI. It requires your eye.
Development time testing could be accomplished through proofs (that's what I do), so again, no enlarger - use a light bulb like Edward Weston. My great friend Ted Harris is no longer here for me to ask, but I seem to remember that scanning is much kinder to "inaccurate" development time than silver paper, so there might be even less of a problem with having no enlarger for that.

But if you're going to pop $12 for the Film Test Kit, I think you're better off to go $25 and get "Finely Focused," which has all the Film Test Kit stuff and much more. But I'm biased.

**Neal Wydra** · 14-Aug-2008, 05:14

Dear dede95064,

Look here: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Assessing-negatives

Another good idea is to purchase a Kodak Black & White Darkroom Dataguide. It has examples of how a negative is affected by variations in exposure and development.

Neal Wydra

**Alan Curtis** · 14-Aug-2008, 05:47

The most important first step in getting all the important information on the negative. This is controlled by exposure and development, too much or not enough of either will make the negative difficult to work with in any printing/scanning method.

Save yourself from "trial and terror" learning buy Bruce's "Finely Focused" CD it will be the best $25 you can spend. It will save you lots of film and chemicals. Everything you need tune your photography is right there.

**dede95064** · 14-Aug-2008, 07:25

thanks for the responses everybody! i will look into all of the above suggested references and will get the finely focused cd as well!

**Lenny Eiger** · 16-Aug-2008, 13:15

Originally Posted by dede95064

hello,

do i develop at the ilford recommended time of iso 125 or do i reduce the times to say ilford's recommended time of iso 64?
are the recommended times only for push/pulling and are not really for ei adjustments?

how do these recommended times work for pushing/pulling? if i understand this correctly, if i shoot a scene at iso 200 with this film knowing that it will come out dark, i then 'push the film' with the recommended times to get a usable image? the extra development times increase the contrast to help compensate for the darkness of the image? and again, all this stuff has nothing to do with personal ei's right?
thanks for any insight!

The best way to think of this is to imagine that exposure and development are not connected at all. Exposure controls how much detail you have in the shadows - just look in the clear parts of the neg. Development controls how dark the highlights will get.

There is no such thing as push or pull processing, development does not change the speed of the film. It's a hoax, as far as I am concerned.

Pushing just means to develop more - or increase contrast by developing the darker areas of the negative more. Pulling means you develop less - because the range you have in your shot is so large that if you developed it at "normal" the highlights would be too dark to print. Forget the terms, they really mean nothing, just develop more or less to control how dark the dark areas of the neg get.

It is true that very low light situations are also very low in contrast. One would develop more to accommodate. That's about it. Varying the speed of the film is a misnomer, first of all, you can't - it's dependent on the silver grains. Second, all it means is that you are going to let the detail in the shadows drop off.

Just use the zone system (read Minor White's easy to use version) and have some fun...

Lenny