Well I got my first roll of B&W film back, 400 ASA Kodak Professional, which is a fine grain moderately fast film with high tolerance zone for both over and under exposure and processing.
Note that I had no light meter with me as the one I had bought on flee-bay had not yet arrived so I was shooting pretty much from memory of the days when I was shooting film back in the 70’s and 80’s. While I am generally pleased with the results, and the level of detail in the negatives just blows me away (having never shot in medium format before) I see I still have a lot to (re)learn about shooting film.
A bit about the processes I used...
The negatives were all scanned at 3200 dpi on the V700 flat bed and which can go up as high as 9600 dpi (actually it can go as high as 120,000, but I think that is done in software) but that makes for huge image file so I stuck with 3200 dpi for now, though I will probably try some selected detail higher res scans as well once I get the process down better. I also played around a bit with other options of the scanner (there are too many to try all of them as yet) but found some basic settings that I am happy with for the moment. When I get my 2 rolls of color back, no doubt there will a bunch more options I’ll have to try.
I also experimented with using ZightZones ZoneMapper tool, which allows you to all select areas of similar luminosity or tonal valve thru the use of a graduated slide bar and graphical preview window that highlights them for ease of selection and can also do a reversal mask leaving those areas alone while manipulating all other areas. It is a very handy tool and the one I use most often in that program.
In choosing to shoot B&W film my intent was to look at and try to capture textures and patterns, the play of light and shadow and with a view to be “interpretive” or more artistic in nature rather than trying to capture an exact representation of the scene. I choose camera settings and did the post processing and scanning of the negatives with this intent in mind. For me this is where B&W really shines, by removing the colors and reducing the scene to a mere 256 shades of gray from some 16 million possible colors what you are left with is the detail and patterns of light and dark, surface texture and form. As such, I did quite a bit of post processing, just as I would have/did back in the days of shooting film before digital came out. The combination of the two has certainly opened up the possibilities for B&W as being even more interpretive than before and gives me the ability to do much more than I could before with much better (and certainly much more immediate) feed back. Some purist might say that using digital at all is a cheat in shooting film, but for the method(s) chosen are all equally valid artistic choices, just as one could not say that an impressionistic painting was done using the wrong technique and really should have been done with some other style of painting.
So accepting the idea that these are all shoot with that intent in mind here they are…
First shots were processed in LightZone (ignore the white lines, those should not have been included, somehow I accidently saved the images with the grid on in a few shots, will have to correct tonight.)
I also note that these appear darker on my monitor at work than at home, one of the problems with web images along with the fact that I have to reduce image resolution for web display which really does not do justice to the sharpness of the negatives. These were all shot with the 180mm lens, so some close ups have pretty narrow depth of field, even given I was using the smallest aperture possible and all were taken with the camera on a very sturdy tripod.
Note too, that you will probably have to zoom out some to see the whole image on some of these (use the CTL key and mouse wheel, CTL and + or - symbols) Not sure why our forum software doesn't provide a slide bar when the image is wider than the screen size like on most other forums and Internet Exploder won't fit the images even when zooming out. (See why I hate Wnderz???)
and a detail of the same
the same scene processed with Photoshop
the same scene processed with LightZone
the next two are of the same scene using 2 different processing methods
the first is with Gimp and is intentionally brighter both as shot and as processed, the white areas are purposely blown out since the sky was a dull overcast gray and I wanted to bring out the detail in the shadows and blowing out the sky helped the framing using the overhanging tree that forms an arch over the whole
The second was shot with a smaller aperture to emphasize the contrast between the light and dark areas and details in surface of the water
the next is a close-up of an old log protruding from the water, scanned and processed to make to the shadows of the overhanging trees on the water indistinct while keeping the detail in the surface and shadow of the log. I used mammal depth of field to try to soften the water’s surface as much as possible
The next two are shots are attempts to capture the detail of the tree rings in the end of the cut log as well as some of the detail in the bark on the facing edge using LightZone for one image and Gimp for the other, note that the first again was shot with faster speed than the second
and the one using LightZone with less contrast and more detail or really comparing the two different details seems to come forth.
And finally a pano consisting of two images. These were both shot and processed to purposely blow out the overcast sky and place the emphasis on the patterns of the leaves the shadows in the lower part of the tree line and esp. the reflections on the water that seem almost to have been painted with a soft-broad brush
Enjoy
RM