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Old 28th October 2017, 11:04 AM
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GoodOldNorm GoodOldNorm is offline
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Default film contrast

Just read in Bruce Barnbaums book The Art of Photography that he uses Ilford Panf+ as a high contrast film, HP5+ as a low contrast film and Ilford FP4+ as a medium contrast film. Do you choose which film you will use with regard to the subject brightness range of the scene you are going to photograph? What other films would you specify as low, medium and high contrast?
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Old 28th October 2017, 11:33 AM
alexmuir alexmuir is offline
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I think slow films, less than 100, generally tend to be higher in contrast, and fast films, 400 and above tend to be lower in contrast. I think that this is to do with the grain structure, and the way slow films are fine grained, whereas fast films are more grainy.
Perhaps someone can confirm in scientific terms!
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Old 28th October 2017, 12:09 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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I can't tell you why in scientific terms but yes, the slower the film the more contrast you get,I tend to use the faster films, mostly Fomapan 400,with some 200 and between the 200 and 400 there is a noticiable difference in the contrast,although personally I find HP5+ tends to be one of the lower contrast 400, certainly I find, over the years, that Tri x, TMax 400 and Fomapan 400 tend to have more contrast than HP5+, could be the developer I use (Rodinal) but I have always found that HP5 needed more development than most, at least 3 more minutes than the suggested time, were the Kodak films were fine with the suggested development, and Foma depends on the light, if it is a dull day it needs a couple of minutes more, on bright sunny days the suggested times are fine,
Richard

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Old 28th October 2017, 01:56 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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This is purely subjective and is based on only a few sets of negatives but the 400 film that stood out for me in terms of contrast was Fuji Neopan 400.

I still have some of a bulk roll left. I should load up a cassette and give it another go to see if my recollection of its contrast is correct or if simply the scenes and light conditions had anything to do with it. I think I was using my current developer by then which is Xtol and it may be that the times given for Xtol and Neopan 400 give it greater contrast. I have just checked the Xtol specs and all 400 films listed have times for the same Contrast Index so that demolishes my perception that Neopan 400 is the more contrasty film, doesn't it or is there some difference within the film compared to say HP5+ that means that Neopan has a higher contrast per se?

It may be that the Ilford development times for Ilford films in non Ilford developers give a different contrast index but I rule that out in my case as a reason on the basis that I use Xtol times as given by Kodak for both films at the same contrast index

So, am I simply suffering from an illusion and in fact to the same contrast index both Neopan 400 and HP5+ are equally contrasty?

Mike
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Old 28th October 2017, 02:02 PM
John King John King is offline
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I agree with Richard that it is the nature of the beast slow speed = hard contrast, medium speed.... etc........
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Old 28th October 2017, 05:01 PM
Lostlabours Lostlabours is online now
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It's due to the way emulsions are made, a slow emulsion is mainly smaller grains all the same speed, faster emulsions contain a greater range of grain sizes, whilst high speed films have more larger grains.

The finest grain films are micro-copy films and have inherently high contrast and are very slow.

As an emulsion is ripened the grain size increases along with sensitivity and speed and the contrast drops.

Ian
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Old 3rd November 2017, 12:45 PM
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I have just started using Tmax 400 and was surprised to find that the contrast was about the same as the Fompan 100 I use. I had to check the negatives to make sure it was Tmax. It was developed in RO9 the same as the Fomapan. The main difference with the T.max was how smooth the prints looked.
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