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Best portrait film/dev combo

Mats_A

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Finland
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The answer to this is surely buried somewhere deep inside the APUG-archive but I want to give you a chance to show of your superior knowledge.

So here we go: You see sometimes portraits or nudes with absolutely stunning skin-colors (caucasian). With flawless graduation and tone. I understand that the photographer is 90% of the picture but even so there must be some combinations of film/developers that are better than others for achieving this.

What are your valued recommendations?

r

Mats
 
Actually I'd say about 99% photographer.

As to colors, is this in the right forum?
 
Mats,

Are you asking about black & white film or color? And, which format: 35mm, medium, large?
 
6x7 cm neg plus any suitable combination of film & dev, e.g.
Tri-X & Xtol
Tmax & Xtol
 
I like slow emulsion and either D-76 or Pyrocat-HD. Mostly its about lighting. You can use any film and developer combo your little heart desires, but you must light your subject properly. Dramatic lighting or soft mood, or standard Rembrandt (what the commercial grind studios use). You must decide how you want to reveal the subject and light accordingly.
 
Like Rick, usually a slow film like Delta 100, sometimes Delta 400, and Pyrocat HD, but also TMY & Xtol or Pyrocat in the past, and FP4 and D76 way back. All great combinations.

Ian
 
All great suggestions. I myself, use 35mm Tri-X/Xtol combination, for almost all applications.
 
FP4+ and HP5+ in Perceptol are also highly recommended!
 
Sigh, my favorite was TXP 320 in Xtol 1:1. Sadly TXP has been discontinued so I'm trying out other films.

 
As I suspected, there is no silver bullet. I will try out various combination and watch and learn.

vdonovan: What an amazing portrait! 10 points. I am filled with envy.

r

Mats
 
Wow. Great work! Good luck in finding a substitute.

Best,
Don
 
The best portraiture films have an 'all toe' HD curve: upswept, contrast increasing with highlight/density, no shoulder. The old standard was Plus-X sheet film, a different emulsion from Plus-X roll/135. Naturally, Plus-X sheet film has been discontinued for some years. TMX in D-76 has a no-shoulder curve and is possibly as close as you can come.
 
I like all films for portraiture. It depends on what you want. Don't listen an ANYONE ELSE'S idea of what makes a good portrait. It's your picture, so you decide. Portraits, and any type of photographs, come in UNLIMITED flavors.

99.9% of that of which you speak is lighting. Light is [99.9% of] everything in photography. Quit looking for a magic bullet film/developer combo, focus on learning light, and you will be 99.9% there, for any "made" photograph.
 
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Believe me when I tell you, it's about the lighting and not so much about the film and developer. Do you have your developing and printing chops up? Get that down, then start reading about lighting and putting it into practice. Remember? The etymology of photography comes from the Greek meaning "to draw with light."
 
ANY film and developer combination used properly in order to make the picture you want to make.

It is never the WHAT. It is always the HOW.

Some combinations may be easier, but THAT depends completely on your vision, and how you want to work.

(and there are usually many ways to use contemporary materials to emulate combinations no longer available.
But that's another topic).

.
 
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The main thing is THE LIGHT as already stated and the next small part is film an soup in XTOL!
XTOL gives you about 3% of the magic bullet 1% comes from the film and 96% from lighting and posing and good ideas!

Cheers Armin
 
I would say tri-x in xtol, but also if you are doing black use filters, they help quite a bit more in some situations than film/dev combination
 
Brandon D. said:
Personal trial-and-error until you get the results you like.
Click to expand...
I vote the similar Trial and error to gain knowledge that you need to move in the right direction, once headed the right way you should get there really fast, until then you are going to have some bad times. This is the "fun" part of film, ok, maybe not this part, but when you get the result you want that will make the suffering appear to have been fun, and it will have been worth it.
 
shimoda said:
As I suspected, there is no silver bullet. I will try out various combination and watch and learn.

vdonovan: What an amazing portrait! 10 points. I am filled with envy.

r

Mats
Click to expand...
Keep notes and do comparisons. You are already proficient with composition , now time to learn how to use light and bend it to your desires. (Grasshopper)
 
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