this is so helpful for the common occurrence of when your 10-stop ND filter gets stuck on the screw thread of your lens and you have to go do a photography project at night
Pro-tip for doing exposure/development tests like this on 35mm film: you can shoot a few frames (I usually do six) then unmount the lens, open the shutter on bulb mode, and apply a little piece of scotch tape directly onto the film, making sure to burnish it so the edges are smooth. Then you can do another six shots at a different setting, put on more tape, and so on, until you finish the roll-then in the darkroom, you feel the tape with your fingers and cut the film directly through the tape. Very handy for all sorts of developing tests, you just have to make sure not to close the shutter on your fingers while you're applying the tape.
Also another way of doing it is opening up the camera in the dark room and cutting the film, then taking the part you cut in the tank. Of course, if your camera allows it.
Dude, this may be the biggest of big brain comments I've ever read. Simultaneously, I feel like the smallest of small brain people. Thank you so much for that tip. It's so obvious, but I would never have discovered it on my own!!
When you push it so far, you really want to take shots of people where they are still recognized as shapes but all the detail falls away. I once saw this gorgeous photograph of a nude in a book that was just grain on grain and it was like a sort of painting. All features just blended together into a mushy pile of human. It was great!
You keep calling these results bad or "failed" but i truly believe that your images came out amazing and well, artsy. Looks great and please keep pushing film to new heights its so cool to see!
3:12 I actually really like it. I bet you could make some really cool art by doing this to crank up the grain to the max, and then zooming in on different shapes and objects. Its like an impressionist painting with dots. I bet it could look cool with color grain too.
I agree with many of the other commentators in that I find these shots truly amazing. I love how the photos become more and more abstract as you pushed this film higher and higher. I never had the desire to shoot this film, but now I’ve just got to try pushing it 3 or more stops.
Thank you for your sacrifice and suffering so that others can learn. I think that as artists, there is something in all your results that may appeal to us for certain projects.
I did this with some concert photos in late 2019, and I developed mine in D76 for about half an hour. The photos will still come out cooked, but if you prevent reticulation, it prints SUPER well. I should scan them and send it your way.
When you say some of the frames were underexposed, you were accidentally under developing for the speed because of the developer exhaustion. I’m not sure what the working half life is for ddx, as I don’t use it, but it would be much better if you refreshed your chemistry after 15-20 minutes of development. Or even developed at 80f and changing chemistry every 10 minutes and develop for 20 minutes. This is super exciting to see people doing this! I hope try it again
Even with pushing development, there has to be something to develop. I think the thing here would be to find a scene where the "shadow" is in Zone 0 or 1 and the "highlight" is Zone 2 or 3 then you develop + 6 or +7 to get those highlights to become actual highlights. Considering that 3200 is already +2 development, shooting at 102,400 would keep the shadow at pure black (Zone 0) and then over-develop the highlights by 7 stops...so even if the "highlight" was Zone 1, that puts it up to Zone 8. So going to ISO 1,000,000 would be another ~2 1/3 stops and...well...you've run out of zones. I also agree with the below poster that you've probably developed the film to completion and there's nothing else to find. However, it might be worth the effort to stand develop a roll using the Rodinol 1:100 method at room temperature for an hour.
I'd be sad if that's as far as the emulsion would go, it's so close to one million. I haven't given up on this yet, stand dev is definitely on the list of things I need to try before I close the book on this.
@@atticdarkroom it’s not that “the film” won’t go that far. It’s that the actual light in the world doesn’t go that far. I believe. There are only 11 zones, if you believe Ansel Adams. Even at 100,000 you’re at +7 development. That means your Zone 1 shadows, which have virtually no detail, stay black, and Zone 2 will develop out to Zone 9, which also has basically no detail. At 200,000, you’re at +8, so Zone 2 will then blow out to pure white Zone 10. So you could shoot at 1,000,000…but you’re just going to develop pure black and anything resembling a highlight detail will develop to pure white. I think.
I messed up my last roll of b&w and it's awfully depressing to find out that you pushing to 200,000 got better results than me trying to do a two stop push on tmax 400.
That sucks man, it's absolutely disheartening to lose a roll. I know there not a lot of silver linings in a situation like this, but if you know what went wrong you can at least turn this into a teachable, albeit painful, moment. To quote Thomas Edison "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” And even though Edison was kind of a dick, these are some words I try to live by.
Not stupid at all. For once, it's nice to see someone trying this instead of people predicting what would happen "if". I love big and fat grain and I wondered how pushing to an extreme would look like. And your trials show that the more you push the more the grain looks like digital noise. And that's why I hate digital cameras since I like to shoot in the dark with no flash. Up to 6400, it seems fine here but above, it's just not worth it. First the contrasts are taking over and then the "noise" becomes an issue. The experiment was really worth it. Thanks.
Nice Vid. Thx for the work. You can use a daylight development box like Agfa Rondinax. Those boxes got the possibility to cut the film in between, the unexposed Fflm stays in the roll, so you can set it back into the camera. Maybe the small amount of developer those boxes will operate with does limiting the experiment.
I'm surprised you had anything left to pull out of the soup after an hour!! Holy crap man, you crazy!!!! It did bring a wry smile to my face though....... 3 thumbs up!!!
Heard that Xtol is good at pushing while maintaining shadow details with minimal grain on high-speed film. I guess it could give you more useful results from 25600 to 51200 ISO? It also has short development time compared to other developers (especially at 24 degree Celcius). It might save you from the agony of infinite inversion. Not sure if it would still apart at 102400 and 204800 ISO though.
Wow, seven stops above real speed. Even with a film that's designed to be pushed, that's a lot. I've personally pushed 1990s vintage Tri-X 320 (did this in 2005, BTW) five stops, initially because I loaded some sheets backward in film holders (hence exposing through the antihalation layer); later, I did the same with similar age Tri-X 400, with similar results. I used a special developer I literally threw together from HC-110, Dektol, and some added alkali, and developed with constant agitation for fifteen minutes (just the HC-110 at the dilution I used would have developed to box speed in around three minutes). Pretty sure there was nothing more to be had from that Tri-X at EI 5000-6400. I may have to get a few rolls of P3200 or Delta 3200 and see what I can get in that Super Soup. BTW, the Ilford product *is* available in 120...
I believe you basically developed the film to completion, like you do with darkroom paper. I don't think you can do more. Ilford's got its delta 3200 in 120, which should be basically the same thing as p3200. You could try that.
If that's the case I'd be really sad. I really wanted to hit ISO 1,000,000. There's still a few things I want to try before calling it quits, just in case, but I'm not holding out hope. And I've been meaning to try this with Delta 3200, but given how much time this project takes it's probably going to be a while before I get to it.
Hi, I've read somewhere that you can increase sensitivity by pre-expose your film with a uniform light source. I mean by that, the silver christals inside your film would be already transforming in silver (I mean a realy small amount), because it work as a trigger. I've try that on b&w photo paper used as film, work great but realy delicate ! Also, you should try to have the shorter exposition time as possible to have a bigger amount of photons at the same time able to triggering ( it need several photon at the exact same time to react) silver christal in silver. It's well know in astro photography, longer you shoot longer you would have to shoot. This is not a linear process, for example when you expose your photo paper at F8.00 during 1 min you would've to do it during 2'15" for F11.00 ( for big enlargement). Plz apologize my poor technical english 😅 Good luck 🤞🤞
You can also "reinforce chemicaly" your film but the process isusing mercury iodide , as you can guess it's a terrible poison 😅 There was also Kodak T 17 solution, it was using Uranium this time 🥳 There is also "physical reinforcement" using AgNo3. In my book it says that you should used à diluted solution of AgNO3 with a reductor (hydroquinone or pyrogallol or genol) with citric acid (for avoiding spontanaous precipitation into the liquid) 🤞🤞
3:15 Something is appealing to me about this image, maybe part of it is the grit suits a cityscape. I am curious if burning help the lower right corner. Can kind of start to understand. I pushed a roll of Ilford HP5 400 to 800 back in High School photography, came out a mess, nothing visible, which also bummed me as friends playing on stage. Makes me wonder why the teacher didn't know about 3200 film. Have my great aunt's Kodak 620 camera, now darn it, something else to put on my to do list. 😜
Thanks for this video! Very usefull (and nice ;-) ) I think you did everything in the best way, I don't know if is possibile to go so far Maybe I will do some test
I actually have another video idea for you. You should take one of those filmstocks famed for its dynamic range and try how far it can be overexposed while still looking alright. Something like HP5+ or maybe a consumer color negative like Fuji C200 would be interesting to see. I wonder how those would fare at ISO 25 lol.
I wouldn't be so hard on myself if I were you. The results you got at 204k kind of look like the expired roll of HP5 I shot at 800 and dev'd at 1600. Now I'm wondering what I did so wrong so as to resemble a film pushed 8 stops....
Normally I wouldn't care too much if something didn't work out, but early on I had it in my mind to reach ISO 1,000,000. I really wanted it, and I was so close just to fall short.
The images have a lot of potential, especially if you use the looks to transform it from photography as a medium to observe an objective reality into photography as a medium to observe the subjective reality. As in making it like an art composition, like a drawing, semi figurative works made with experimental means to transmit something else than what's objectively observable.
Very interesting video. Nice to see what happens the more you push the development. A few weeks ago I tried pushing film for the very first time. Tri-X at ISO 6400. Mostly underexposed. Did stand development Rodinal 1+80 for 150 minutes with a very light aggitation (swiveling) every thirty minutes. I should perhaps have used a less diluted developer, perhaps in combination with a little more aggitation. Well, who knows unless you try :-)
A jaka była temperatura wywolywacza? Jaki wywolywacz?.... Przy tym iso , trzeba zwiększyć do 28°C temperature i dodać bromek potasu by uzyskać czyste biele.... Robiłem tak jakies 17 lat temu...
Whoa, that absolutely blows away my best push process of Kentmere 400 to 12800. I still win longest dev time though, at 1 hour 22 minutes in Xtol 1+3, because I'm greedy. Have you tried push processing color btw? I've done Fuji C200 at 6400, using a dev time of 3 minutes 41 seconds at 120 degrees fahrenheit.
I hope you weren't inverting at each minute, because an hour and a half sounds awful. I've done a little push processing with color. I'm not a big fan because I find color processing tedious and boring. But I might have to get back into it, it's a whole other world I'm missing out on.
@@atticdarkroom Sure was. I didn't have a sous vide back then to do high temp stuff, so I suffered. With pushing color film, things get fucky, since adding dev time can cause excessive base fog, upping the temperature means REALLY upping the temperature (Again, 120 degrees fahrenheit), and new film scanner profiles need to be made for every stop of push development. I need to get back to developing color film soon, since it was some of the most fun I've had with film in general, next to BW reversal.
you'd better shoot this tests at home ) seriously. set your test scene and a tripod. then load your camera in the dark. just cut the exposed end of a film then pull some fresh one to cover the frame. after the shot you just go to your darkroom, cut exposed shot and advance to the next one. there will be like 20 test pieces from one 36exp roll.
I've been meaning to try different developers, and speed major definitely looks promising. But I'm so stuck in my ways it takes me a while to try something different.
If you wanted 12 images, could you not have opened the film, respooled it to 3 12 images cassettes and loaded in the dark? You would have gotten the feel of it with 12. I probably would have tried stand developing for a few hours to as an alternative cos why not. It still looks better at 204800 than my expired HP5 shot on a foggy day, that shit fell apart big time
how were you working out the developing times? or maybe since you said you would do something different if you tried now, how would you work it out now? i accidentally shot 2 rolls of hp5 at 12,800 thinking it was delta 3200 but i was thinking there'd be something on the massive dev chart for dd-x but i haven't had any luck!! i've tried a few different ways of trying to just guess what the exponential amount of time would be but depending on how i calculate it the dev time is anywhere between 40 and 60 minutes, do you have any tips for accidentally getting it right? because even a lot of the 102,400 pictures in the video are super usable
I shot these rolls years ago and if I remember correctly I calculated the time by taking the difference between each stop and extrapolating from there. So for a 5 stop push 40-60 minutes sound about right, remember at those development times you'll have a margin of error of several minutes, so if you developed it around 45-50 minutes you'll probably get something usable. And when I mentioned doing things differently, I was talking about adjusting times, temperatures, and dilutions. Which wouldn't help you out because it requires a baseline which is what you're trying to figure out. If you shot important stuff on those two rolls, I would shoot a third roll, cut it in half and do some test developments. With all that said remember that I'm just some dumb dumb on the internet so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.
Okay okay. I want to take a part in these stupid (really good!) ideas by asking, what if you stand develop these? For example with rodinal 1+100 or something. Just let it stand a day or so. 😏 Just be careful with the bromide drag effect. I challenge you to push it to 1 million.
