The high EI shootout is back for part two: the pushening.

Poorly executed references to the terrible sequel that was Highlander 2 aside, I’m hoping that you’ll find this extension of part one just as informative as the first and you never know, there may be another part covering EI51200 at some point in the future…maybe.

For those of you coming from part one, you might remember my little reference to making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Hopefully, the images below will provide better examples of what I was trying to get across.

As a quick aside, there was some great discussion following the release of part one…and some not so great. The not so great end of things booked down to, “What’s the point of this?”, “It’s not as if you’d actually shoot at these speeds in real life”, and “This all seems like a waste of perfectly good film”.

My rebuttal: stop being so literal about everything. This little experiment is all in the interest of the “what if” and not meant for everyone, every day. It may come as a surprise that there may be times when one may decide to shoot at these insane EIs for the sake of artistic intent, or pure madness. Please let it rest at that.

Onward!

 

 

Objective

Let’s see what happens when we shoot the best selling black and white ISO400 films today at EI 25600 (a six stop push). It’s as simple as that.

We all know that black and white film has bags of latitude. The oft cited Ansel Adams spoke about his eleven zones of exposure detail, a working knowledge of which, could be used to effectively capture scenes of varying contrast and lighting conditions. I’m a proponent of both his exposure and development system and will generally use N+/-2 for my day to day development in order to bring out detail, increase, or decrease contrast.

If we assume that we can use N+/- to perform expansion/contraction development (push/pull) up to five stops, as per part one, then why not see how much further we could go?

One final note before moving on. Negatives produced by the tests both here and in part one are incredibly thin. Whilst I’ve yet to move into the darkroom proper, I think I can safely say that there’s little chance of making decent prints from them in the traditional sense.

 

 

Test conditions

As with part one, the four films shot were Kodak’s Tri-X 400 and T-MAX 400; and Ilford’s HP5+ and Delta 400 Professional. All four films were fresh as a newborn lamb, cold stored when purchased and given several hours to thaw before use. They were all shot on the same camera, lens and film back combination; and metered with the same light meter (as per part one).

Each shot was taken at between f/8 and f/22 and as before, I tried as much as possible to normalise at around f/8 at 1/1000 sec.

With the exeption of the final rolls of Delta and T-MAX at EI25600, all of the films were shot under similar dull, boring, natural winter light. I used the same shoot/develop system as with the first test (shot within 60 minutes and developed within 24 hours).

The development scheme was also the same: HC-110 1+79 at 23c using a continuous first minute plus 5 seconds each minute thereafter agitation scheme.

I had already worked out calculations for 5-stop pushes for each of the films but the 6-stop push needed some extra work. For each 5-stop development time, I added approximately 19% more.

Here are the times I used for these 6-stop / N+6 pushes:

  • Kodak Tri-X 400: 23m 45s
  • Kodak T-MAX 400: 29m 15s
  • Ilford Delta 400 Professional: 47m 00s
  • Ilford HP5+: 25m 30s

 

 

The results: EI 25600

Kodak Tri-X 400 at EI 25600

Chronologically, this was the second roll to be shot. I’ll be honest, I was a little disappointed here. There was only one shot which came out as I expected it to (the first image below). Compared to HP5+, it’s a little flat but I think that this has much more to do with the light, than anything else.

If you look at the first shot in this set, it’s plain to see that in nice, open light, we still have a full range of tones and detail from the windows of the high rise in the background, the balcony guard rails and air conditioning units in the middle distance, and the wheels of the flatbed truck in the foreground.

I wasn’t expecting magic but overall, I’m happy with this one shot.

 Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600

 

 Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600

 

 Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600

 

 Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600

 

Ilford HP5+ at EI25600

HP5+ blew me away. Shooting this roll was a complete accident, as I thought I had loaded Tri-X 400 for an extension of the original Tri-X 800-12800 article. After developing the roll, scanning it and posting a few shots, it was feedback from this roll which started the ball rolling for the High EI Shootout as it is here now, so I guess I should thank my absent-mindedness.

What surprised me most was the shadow detail and clarity of the inside of the market stalls to the right of the second frame below. Absolutely not what I was expecting at all.

 Ilford HP5+ shot at EI25600 Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Ilford HP5+ shot at EI25600

 

 Ilford HP5+ shot at EI25600 Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Ilford HP5+ shot at EI25600

 

 Ilford HP5+ shot at EI25600 Tri-X 400 shot at EI25600
Ilford HP5+ shot at EI25600

 

Kodak T-MAX 400 at EI25600
I’m sorry, TMAX. Can we be friends again? I nearly very nearly didn’t shoot T-MAX 400 at EI 25600 purely because of its utterly terrible performance in part one. I now realise that it was the photographer and light, not the film.

Part of this roll and much of the Ilford Delta 400 Pro roll happened to be shot under some unexpectedly wonderful natural light.

The results both indoors and outside under bright sun very nice in their own way but stand orders of magnitude apart…just look at them!

Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600

 

Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600

 

Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600

 

Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600

 

Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600
Kodak T-MAX 400 shot at EI25600

 

 

Ilford Delta 400 Professional

Well…won’t you just look at this. Undoubtedly a huge difference compared to everything here today and part one (with the exception of the final T-MAX 400 at EI25600.

When I first saw the negatives, I was hopeful. When I finally got my scans, I was gobsmacked. Sure, the shots taken indoors are quite similar to those of the T-MAX 400 above but when taken outside, they’re slightly more contrasty and whilst not particularly fine grained (which was never going to be the case), the character of the film changes somewhat.

To my eye, we’ve gone from a rather clean and occasionally clinical film to one which looks more like pushed and over developed HP5+ or Tri-X 400.

I love it.

Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600
Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600

 

Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600
Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600

 

Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600
Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600

 

Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600
Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600

 

Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600
Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600

 

 

EI 25600 conclusions

Compare the final five shots with the rest in this post and the one which preceded it. I think my comment about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear is best demonstrated here.

I’m not going to summarise winners and losers here, as I don’t think it’s relevant. You can take away what you want from the images above, try it for yourself and make up your own mind. There’s certainly room for more testing here, whether it’s doing it all again but using Ilford LC-29 instead for a fair comparison, or even using DD-X as a better suited high-speed developer. I know that on a personal level I want to see how far I can go. Both 50K or 100K pushes are on my mind, although I won’t be using T-MAX 400 or Delta 400 Pro as the development times already border on the ridiculous.

These films – no matter your preference – are incredible. Sure, the results might be grainier than the norm and a little flat in places but considering that most of the frames shown here were shot under drab winter light, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Even shot under poor light, there’s still a lot to be said for the quality of the results as far as tonal range and shadow detail are concerned. Take a look again at the Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP5+ shots to confirm for yourself.

When I first pushed Tri-X 400 to EI12800, it was on a whim. I didn’t expect much and wasn’t overwhelmed by the results. They were adequate and interesting purely because of the push involved. After accidentally taking the roll of Ilford HP5+ (shown here) to EI25600, my interest was piqued once more. If I had just seen the images posted online by someone else, I would have been hard pressed to guess how the roll was shot, let alone that it was a six stop push.

The last two rolls above are where things got really interesting for me. The unexpected sun helped me reaffirm my faith in not only pushing film but also pushing to these kinds of extremes. Importantly, it reaffirmed my thinking that film should not only be pushed to attain smaller apertures and faster shutter speeds in poor light but also for the artistic effect – in bright sunlight. It’s something that I did quite a bit of in 2015 and seeing these results has made me want to do more, even when the idea seems ridiculous.

Anyone up for some summer HP5+ at EI3200, f/22 and 1/2000 sec?

Great. I’ll see you on the streets.

 

 

Bonus (shadow) self-portrait

I made a quip and it would be rude not to deliver.

Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600
Ilford Delta 400 Professional shot at EI25600

 

 

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45 responses to “Black and white film high EI shootout part 2: Kodak Tri-X 400, T-MAX 400 and ILFORD HP5 PLUS, Delta 400 at EI 25600”

  1. Richard Kowalski Avatar

    Really interesting. This is the second time I’ve read these two articles and my curiosity is piquied. I’m planning on shooting a roll of Tri-X at various EIs and stand develop it in some DIY Rofinal soon. You now have me thinking I need to shoot a roll of HP5+ at 56200 and one at 112400, just to see what I can get out of it. It has me thinking I need to try one of my cross processed Fujicolor 200 rolls at much higher EIs too…

  2. Richard Kowalski Avatar

    Really interesting. This is the second time I’ve read these two articles and my curiosity is piquied. I’m planning on shooting a roll of Tri-X at various EIs and stand develop it in some DIY Rofinal soon. You now have me thinking I need to shoot a roll of HP5+ at 56200 and one at 112400, just to see what I can get out of it. It has me thinking I need to try one of my cross processed Fujicolor 200 rolls at much higher EIs too…

  3. Absoluetly fantastic results. Thanks for the “push” to experiment more with my EI’s again. Especially now that I develop my own B&W 120 film.

  4. Absoluetly fantastic results. Thanks for the “push” to experiment more with my EI’s again. Especially now that I develop my own B&W 120 film.

  5. These are amazing! I look forward to trying this myself.

  6. These are amazing! I look forward to trying this myself.

  7. I have never been able to make my whites look as crisp (as it pertains to Tri-X) as they look in your examples. Do you have any tips for maximizing contrast in this stock? Thanks!

  8. I have never been able to make my whites look as crisp (as it pertains to Tri-X) as they look in your examples. Do you have any tips for maximizing contrast in this stock? Thanks!

    1. The more I see Ilford film, the more I love it. I pushed the Delta400 to 1600 with no problem (and fabulous non-grainy results), so I will try 3200 (with a 3.5 max aperture on the Rollei that extra stop can make all the difference inside). I must give Ilford Delta 3200 a go too. Just waiting for my just developed roll of HP5+ pushed to 1600 to dry but I’ve seen the results for that before, and they are excellent.

    2. Maybe self-developing should be my New Year’s Resolution. It’s got as good a chance as any other…

    3. I love Delta 3200 but prefer it at 1000ASA!

    4. Charles Mutter Re self-developing, it’s incredibly simple, the Massive Dev app is a doddle. If you need anything just let me know, but so far I have been very pleasantly surprised with the results vs commercial developers, and it works out about £1 a roll. I do find 120 a lot easier to load than 35mm, but all in all, I am very very pleased with the results.

    1. The more I see Ilford film, the more I love it. I pushed the Delta400 to 1600 with no problem (and fabulous non-grainy results), so I will try 3200 (with a 3.5 max aperture on the Rollei that extra stop can make all the difference inside). I must give Ilford Delta 3200 a go too. Just waiting for my just developed roll of HP5+ pushed to 1600 to dry but I’ve seen the results for that before, and they are excellent.

    2. Maybe self-developing should be my New Year’s Resolution. It’s got as good a chance as any other…

    3. I love Delta 3200 but prefer it at 1000ASA!

    4. Charles Mutter Re self-developing, it’s incredibly simple, the Massive Dev app is a doddle. If you need anything just let me know, but so far I have been very pleasantly surprised with the results vs commercial developers, and it works out about £1 a roll. I do find 120 a lot easier to load than 35mm, but all in all, I am very very pleased with the results.

  9. How do you calculate the extra development time? I want to push Pancro to 1600 in Xtol stock, but don’t really know where to start.

  10. How do you calculate the extra development time? I want to push Pancro to 1600 in Xtol stock, but don’t really know where to start.

  11. Impressive for sure, I kinda like the HP5 personally. Thinking I might have to try some pushing past 1600 myself.

  12. Impressive for sure, I kinda like the HP5 personally. Thinking I might have to try some pushing past 1600 myself.

  13. Any suggestions on just how much ‘Pusherman’ I can get on the black and white rolls from this batch? https://t.co/XVcArqSdLX

  14. Any suggestions on just how much ‘Pusherman’ I can get on the black and white rolls from this batch? https://t.co/XVcArqSdLX

  15. the Delta 400 is especially nice -who would have guessed that would have worked out?! Love the shot if the cables and shadows.

  16. the Delta 400 is especially nice -who would have guessed that would have worked out?! Love the shot if the cables and shadows.

  17. Thanks for both articles, I think this is great stuff. I sometimes go to concerts where they allow cameras with small (<90mm) lens, so might try this with a few of my films. I am impressed with the TMax as I don't normally try to push that at all (Tri-X I push all the time). Might be interesting to see how Microphen would do with pushing these film stocks. I often use Rodinal 1+100 and do a semi-stand processing when I want to play with EIs in a single roll. Might try that with these kinds of pushes too.

  18. Thanks for both articles, I think this is great stuff. I sometimes go to concerts where they allow cameras with small (<90mm) lens, so might try this with a few of my films. I am impressed with the TMax as I don't normally try to push that at all (Tri-X I push all the time). Might be interesting to see how Microphen would do with pushing these film stocks. I often use Rodinal 1+100 and do a semi-stand processing when I want to play with EIs in a single roll. Might try that with these kinds of pushes too.

  19. Great article, isn’t Delta 400 amazing?

    Have you ever tried stand developing btw? I use a kind of semi stand in 1:150 adonol, and with it I find I can use Delta 400 and push/pull it a lot even within the same roll, and get very good development, if a little grainy.

    1. I normally stand develop in Rodinal but I’ve never tried Adonol before. Got any examples you you can share?

  20. Great article, isn’t Delta 400 amazing?

    Have you ever tried stand developing btw? I use a kind of semi stand in 1:150 adonol, and with it I find I can use Delta 400 and push/pull it a lot even within the same roll, and get very good development, if a little grainy.

    1. I normally stand develop in Rodinal but I’ve never tried Adonol before. Got any examples you you can share?

  21. A selfie… shadowlfie. Interesting experiments. Someone has got to do it 🙂

  22. A selfie… shadowlfie. Interesting experiments. Someone has got to do it 🙂

  23. nice work on this! also, a hint of the man of mystery behind this? dun dun dunnn~ the evil mastermins SEEMS to be human after all ;D

    1. Appearances can be deceptive, Jonas 😉

  24. nice work on this! also, a hint of the man of mystery behind this? dun dun dunnn~ the evil mastermins SEEMS to be human after all ;D

    1. Appearances can be deceptive, Jonas 😉

 

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