35mm B&W - with the intentions of ending digital

BHuij

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Hey everyone!

I have kind of an odd question. First a little background:

A couple of years ago, I got really into shooting and developing B&W 35mm film as a hobby, when I found an old film loader of my dad's that still had a whole bunch of Ilford PanF+ in it. I use HC-110 to develop. I have a Nikon CoolScan 4000, and I use Vuescan on my Mac to scan my 35mm frames.

I never did get into analog printing so much. The main reason I shoot B&W film at all (at least 35mm) is because I think it's kind of fun, I enjoy the process of metering, shooting, and developing without instant feedback on how I did, and although I know my CoolScan isn't getting everything off of the film, there's still a sort of "look" to film that digital doesn't give me.

Recently I've been working to get a small photography business off the ground, just as some extra income on the side doing something I love. The grand majority of my shooting is digital, of course, especially where clients are concerned. But there are clients now and then who like the idea of being shot on film for various reasons.

I'm fairly happy with my shooting/developing/scanning/printing process where it's at, but the more I read, the more I think that improvement in my methodology is in order. I have always used the zone system to expose. Since I always intend to scan and print digitally, I have never needed to worry about altering development times to achieve different levels of contrast. I've always just shot to make sure I get everything in the frame that's vital exposed with enough detail to pull out and optimize in Lightroom later, before printing digitally. But recently, I was reading some Ken Rockwell on film, and after all his testing, he seems to be convinced that he can't get more than about 7 zones out of film. I have little intention of altering development times from what I read on the massive dev chart, and I've been pretty happy with my results.

In your experience, how many zones are you getting out of your B&W films without playing around with pushing and pulling? I shoot mostly Ilford FP4+, and Ilford Delta 100, for the record.

I guess the real question I'm asking is: What differences in metering and exposing should I be worried about shooting B&W film with the intention to develop normally, scan, and then print digitally, as compared to shooting with my 5D Mk II? Obviously I would like to minimize editing in Lightroom to the extent possible without necessitating push- or pull-processing.
 
You mention that you're happy with your results.. I think you're overthinking it.

Personally, I push my b&w films sometimes, but it's not for contrast reasons, it's for shooting in low-light and not having proper 800 or 1600 speed film.
 
Altering development times using the Zone system does not work for 35mm film as you have say 24 exposures on a roll of film and to develop they would all get the same development time. Altering development times for the zone system really only works when shooting large format film as you can control the development of each sheet of film.

You are using viewscan which is the best scanning software I have seen. that said it will still only give you good results if you use good scanning settings.
 
Retain shadow area with negative film. If you lose that, there is nothing on the film to recover.

Zone system can only be effectively used when exposing/developing individual frames (sheets).
 
I guess "zone system" isn't the most precise way to put it. I was mostly referring to push-processing in general. I would want to do it not because of film speed issues, but because my 35mm isn't giving me the contrast I want.
 
I guess "zone system" isn't the most precise way to put it. I was mostly referring to push-processing in general. I would want to do it not because of film speed issues, but because my 35mm isn't giving me the contrast I want.

Push processing is a tool used in the zone system, but there is MUCH mo to the zone system.
 
You can add contrast by using different developers, changing development times. Neither of which are considered pushing by Zone terms.
 
I have little intention of altering development times from what I read on the massive dev chart, and I've been pretty happy with my results.

The Massive Dev Chart isn't the Holy Grail or something ... it's just times submitted by regular people. I've submitted times there whenever I had results I liked that weren't listed. The times are just a starting point - you may find that you like a little more or less than what the person who submitted the data likes.



I agree with the others though - if you want more contrast, try a different film or a different developer.
 

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