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05/03/2003 02:17:33 AM · #1 |
I'm currently learning how to develop my own film but one concept still eludes me...
I know pushing film is sometimes done to get a higher rating and hence faster film speed, pulling is usually(?) done when someone accidentally has not set the ISO on the camera properly...
But is pulling film sometimes done on purpose, and why? My first assignment is to use TriX 400 film and underrate it by one stop, so that we overexpose our negatives and ensure we capture all the necessary information of our images, and so that we under-develop and not risk blowing out our highlights...
But if it makes a lot of sense to pull-process our film, why is this the first time I hear of such a thing? Is this a common practice?
Can anyone shed some light on this, if anyone here remembers those days where people used to shoot with film :) ?
Thanks,
Dave |
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05/03/2003 02:35:48 AM · #2 |
Pulling and pushing film is not common practice. Most cameras set the ISO automatically.
There are some situations where you might want to change the ISO manually. Remember that changing the ISO setting changes the film's (implied) sensitivity to light.
1. Multiple exposures - if you want to be creative and put alot of exposures together on one frame, one method to ensure that you don't overexpose the frame is to set the ISO to a high number. This doesn't require pushing or pulling the film at processing time
Here's a website to check out: //www.garryblack.com/
2. Let's say you have 100ISO film in your camera but you are photographing in very low light without a tripod and you don't have any faster film available. To gain a few stops so you can hand hold the camera you could change the ISO to say 800 or even 1600 depending on how many stops you need for the effect you want. You do this for the entire roll since when you process you do so for ISO that you set.
Hope this helps.
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05/03/2003 05:03:12 AM · #3 |
There are also some (few) photographers who will deliberately incorrectly rate a film nd push or pull process it.
I'll have to check my notes for which way round it is, but, for BW one way leads to higher contrast and the other to lower. For colour film it can bring out different qualities in the colours on the film to those intended.
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05/03/2003 07:08:27 AM · #4 |
| I never got that assignment in highschool or college. I guess its just a personal prefrence quite frankly I meter and get good results. Usually I'll meter for the sky the scene and the ground and try and find a happy medium. |
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05/03/2003 10:04:43 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by Kavey:
There are also some (few) photographers who will deliberately incorrectly rate a film nd push or pull process it.
I'll have to check my notes for which way round it is, but, for BW one way leads to higher contrast and the other to lower. For colour film it can bring out different qualities in the colours on the film to those intended. |
Yes, this might be it.,.. he was mentioning we're underdevelopping the film to "compress" the information on the film, which probably means lower contrast... too high a contrast and you risk losing detail I suppose... I guess the low contrast can be salvaged by using high contrast filters during printing...
I guess I was just wondering if it was common practice in B&W photography, but if you can rate the film normally and still get good results printing... I just never heard anyone mentioning that they always underrate their B&W film...
Thanks for the info guys!,
Dave |
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05/03/2003 11:51:37 AM · #6 |
| Pushing is very common in astrophotography, along with the extreme case of "hypered" film (this applies to chemically speeding up B+W film). I'd never thought much about "pulling, but I suppose if you're trying to compress (reduce contrast) this makes sense in that the display medium (print) usually has lower contrast anyway. |
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