Calgary Plus 15 Film Black and Whites

[mbrager]

Calgary has an extensive system of Plus 15 walkways on the second floor (about 15 feet above ground) that have an amazing array of reflective and window views. These spaces are largely deserted these days, but remain open for an interesting photo walk. These are shot on Ilford HP5+ film, taken with a Canon EF 35 mm f/2 lens.

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[Runmonty]

This is an interesting collection of photos Mike. I dont know if it was deliberate or if it just happened, but to me this seems like a study of shape and form with with a few receding lines thrown line. Number 3 with the contrast, reflections and tonal range is my favourite.

[mbrager]

Thanks RM. Yes, it was fairly deliberate, choosing the more interesting composition by form, lines and reflections. It helped that the sun was shining strongly, creating stronger shadows and reflections.

[Marko]

very deliberate comps - i dig them all!
4 is my winner but blacks look underexposed - we are losing all that juicy shadow detail - might be forum compression. - if not - check the neg for meat in the blacks and then dodge...JMO

Shot 3 - i would have hunted that guy till he came more into the frame. His reflection would have been more interesting than his hiddenness.
I also might crop equally the left side and bottom, just a bit...feels like too much of those (niggly small) areas are not contributing to the image.

My apologies if you already know stuff like this.....
Most of these images (processing-wise) feel flat. The best modern BW printing live or online should always show detail from pure black to white. These are good images comp wise, but to my eye processing-wise, the images do not sing. This is due imo to not enough tones being reproduced. Some shots are flat or underexposed - so they don't sing. Sometimes that evokes a mood when done deliberately...but overall people wanna see meat in the shadows and highlights.

On the bottom of every forum page is that tone 0-255 graph. with Ansel's zones Even with forum compression, my monitor shows differences in all of those tones - Of course, if this processing is intentional - you're golden! Cheers and hope that may help.

[mbrager]

Many thanks for the feedback. I totally agree with everything you mention. Obviously there are great differences between what I see on my monitor looking at the photo in Lightroom versus what appears on the forum. Still, your point about the shadows in #4 are well taken, so I went back and opened up the shadows on the photo in Lightroom (I usually convert the negatives after scanning in software called Color Perfect, which tends to maintain more tonality than converting in Photoshop (Control+I to invert). Quite often there are overexposed shadows which I can't recover, even in Camera Raw. As you can see in the attached copy, I could recover some, but there is a lot of noise in the shadow area on the right. I like the noise, (aka grain) but I still brought it down a little bit using the Details noise reduction. Maybe a little better. Certainly less underexposed.



In #3, I know exactly what you mean. But the guy appeared suddenly and I took the shot, considered another shot (it's film after all, and every shot is precious), and lost my nerve. Shooting strangers walking towards me freaks me out a bit. And they often give me a look when I do shoot them. Anyway, that was my favorite of the bunch because of the lines and reflections, and I did add a slight vignette to deemphasize the corners. Could recrop for sure.

[Marko]

My pleasure - I lived in the darkroom for years.

Quite often there are overexposed shadows which I can't recover, even in Camera Raw. As you can see in the attached copy, I could recover some, but there is a lot of noise in the shadow area on the right. I like the noise, (aka grain) but I still brought it down a little bit using the Details noise reduction. Maybe a little better. Certainly less underexposed.



You mean UNDEREXPOSED shadows, right?

Just in case you don't know this, film is the opposite of digital - when it comes to protecting the extreme tones.
In film...we protect the shadows from being 'clipped', because once they're gone ...gone forever. (In digital we protect highlights...because of clipping)
Because of this...when I shot film, if the film was rated for 400 - I'd set it to 200. MANY photographers still do this. In general, Meter for the shadow detail...expose for the highlights ...it's likely still the mantra.
When you do this, your tones will sing much more EASILY. Underexposure in film like digital, will also accentuate noise. Hope that may help.

[Lorey]

very nice set mbrager. #2 and #3 are more appealing to my eyes.

[mbrager]

Ah, yes, I meant underexposed. Marko, you're a natural teacher of photography and I really appreciate your teachings. I never had the experience of living in a darkroom until my adult life (past 3 or 4 years). We sent all our film out to labs. So I'm still learning. In fact, I do (or did) know the wisdom you shared about film being opposite of digital. But once I've loaded up a roll of film, it all seems to fly out the window in my excitement to shoot. In digital it's so easy to forget about exposure, while I'm clearly not paying enough attention to exposure while shooting film. Your tip about setting the ISO at 200 instead of 400 makes a lot of sense and I will give it a go my next roll. Thanks.