Contrasty film

[Thomas Bertilsson]

You say that as if grain is a bad thing...

I decided once to embrace grain. I don't ever fight it, sometimes I accentuate it. Fog - print through it.

It is indeed - trial and error, but also trial and success!

- Thomas

Yes, but it will produce also more fog and more grain.
But as said, it's trial and error.

 

[keithwms]

What kind of contrast do you mean? Edge contrast (which has to do with the perception of sharpness or what I would call "bite")... or overall separation of shadow blacks and highlight whites?

For the latter, you can control it very well just by multigrade printing and split grade and so forth. As long as you don't blow your exposure then you have, in principle, many contrast possibilities in the print phase.

Now, if it is edge contrast that you desire, that is a different issue that has more to do with the particular film choice- traditional or t-/delta-grained and so forth. To me, fp4+ and hp5+ have a characteristic edge bite that I like for most subjects. There's no pushing etc. to get that look, that kind of edge contrast is an inherent part of the film's personality.

I really don't subscribe to the philosophy of pushing a film to boost contrast. I know firsthand that it technically can work in some cases, but... pushing leads you into coupled variables e.g. contrast and grain and response to subject brightness range. I personally don't like coupled variables. What if I want smooth grain but also a contrasty tone scale? What about a grainy image but low contrast? Pushing isn't the way to do either of those. I'll take my variables decoupled, thank you very much.

Look, you can take a totally smooth and well exposed acros or tmax neg and print it on multigrade papers such that you'll have high contrast and smooth grain. Or you can lith print that acros neg, I did that recently and posted it. The contrast in the print looks absolutely nothing like what you'd expect from acros or a t- or delta-grained film. The unexpected is possible: you can have grainy shadows and delicate smooth highlights. Whatever.

The bottom line is that a properly exposed neg on just about any b&w print film gives you lots of print possibilities.

P.S. an example of a 'smooth' film that has a particular contrast look that I like very much: agfa scala. That is a very smooth slide film, there's no hint of grain at typical enlargements, and yet the contrast is quite a recognizable feature. Because it's a slide film, though, so do you usually wind up making an internegative on paper of film.